These 2024 songs tell the story of Nashville’s pop culture dominance

Marcus Dowling Nashville Tennessean USA TODAY NETWORK – TENN.

The year 2024, like 2023, was one where content creation and streaming’s deluge of thousands of new songs directly impacted Nashville’s stranglehold on America’s pop cultural evolution.

More pop icons than ever recorded and sampled Music City’s culture and history, with mixed results. Noteworthy songs this year include massive, provocative hits, critically acclaimed B-sides and cuts that deserve a second and third spin.

In alphabetical order, here are 20 of the best from that crowded field of Nashville-based and inspired creators.

Beyoncé — ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’

Grammy winner Beyoncé’s banjoladen mainstream country stomper eventually topped the genre’s sales charts. While its award-winning status is yet to be decided, it unprecedentedly advanced conversations about Black artists in country’s storied legacy.

Kaitlin Butts — ‘You Ain’t Gotta Die To Be Dead to Me’

The Oklahoma-born emerging country star’s album “Roadrunner” made her a barnstorming favorite throughout 2024. Alongside recasting Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes as country bops, this song deftly reframes generational trauma with a tip of the hat to Loretta Lynn and Minnie Pearl.

The Castellows — ‘Hurricane’

The Georgia-born sisters Ellie, Lily and Powell Balkcom’s streaming-born adoration of the catalog of Band member and Americana solo favorite Levon Helm spurred this cover of his four-decade-old countrified and swampy story song. It showcases their harmonies and rapidly growing skills as acoustic multiinstrumentalists, too.

Dasha — ‘Austin’

Dasha’s bluegrass-underpinned honky- tonk boot-scooter has achieved staying power as an amphitheater and festival anthem. She’s also a Belmont Universityschooled songsmith, so how adeptly it wraps tales of heartbreak in earwarming hooks is also profound. Listen to it stripped down at the Grand Ole Opry and her potential as a writer of tear-jerking crossover power ballads also becomes apparent.

Jackson Dean — ‘Heavens to Betsy’

Country rocker Jackson Dean lived 2024 in a “vortex of gnarly intensity” as he toured the world with artists like Lainey Wilson. However, he’s still able to perform a stunning, ruggedly tender ode to what he closed his eyes one night and

imagined was a deceased alcoholic father with a CB radio in his hand looking down at his daughter from heaven.

Eminem feat. Jelly Roll — ‘Somebody Save Me’

Five years later, Nashville rapper turned bluesy country vocalist Jelly Roll was correct to gamble on how appealing his falsetto tenor could be. In 2024, one of his idols, rap legend Eminem, sampled the chorus of his chart-topping song for the most anticipated single on what is rumored to be his final album. It’s the most artistically impressive evolution of Jelly Roll’s expectation-redefining year.

ERNEST and Lainey Wilson — ‘I Would If I Could’

A pair of chart-topping rising superstar singer-songwriters discovered a 30year-old co-write between Skip Ewing and Country Music Hall of Famer Dean Dillon. Eventually, they both cut it as a track. When the duo paired on the song, it evolved into a stellar cut, highlighting the creative influence of the genre’s ‘90sera boom over the current generation of country’s top-tier artists.

Sierra Ferrell — ‘Dollar Bill Bar’

Americana’s reigning Artist of the Year released “Trail of Flowers,” her best overall album to date, in 2024. Among its tracks is the heartbroken honky-tonk anthem “Dollar Bill Bar.” The street busker- turned-critically acclaimed musician’s evolution from a carefree-seeming artist taking poetic license with love and heartbreak is complete. Now, she’s a creative superstar, owning every lane where she stands.

Vlad Holiday feat. Kacey Musgraves — ‘I Don’t Wanna Party Anymore’

As much as she’s a Grammy-winning modern country, disco and rock favorite, Kacey Musgraves, as an indie pop devotee, perhaps best represents her creative core. Romanian-born Nashville transplant Vlad Holiday’s lo-fi vibes pair with Musgraves’ sensual croon for a “dramatic and dark” genre-bender worth multiple spins.

Miranda Lambert feat. Parker McCollum — ‘Santa Fe’

In the same year that Texan George Strait’s “Cowboys and Dreamers” album rekindled thoughts of the King of Country Music’s 1982 hit “Marina Del Rey,” two other Texans — modern icon Lambert and chart-topping award-winner McCollum — paired with the fatherdaughter combo of Dean and Jessie Jo Dillion, songwriters on Strait and Lambert’s 2024 releases, to encapsulate a lovelorn memory perfectly.

Ella Langley and Riley Green — ‘You Look Like You Love Me’

Imagine that Linda Ronstadt and Burt Reynolds made an outlaw country song. This social media and streaming-led hit works because it revels in the timeless romanticism of dusty, smoky bars and beer-soaked come-ons. Both Green and Langley are veteran enough in their knowledge of song styling to help it all resonate profoundly.

Post Malone — ‘Guy for That’ (feat. Luke Combs)

A night after performing at a sold-out Marathon Music Works concert hyping his “F-1 Trillion” album, Malone boarded a flatbed truck on Nashville’s Lower Broadway to shoot a music video for his Luke Combs collaboration. Like the rest of the platinum-seller’s country debut album, it blends radio-ready sensibility with an honest appreciation for the warmth of his welcome into the genre.

Scotty McCreery – ‘Cab in a Solo’

One steel guitar intro later and everything a country classicist loves about artists from Ronnie Milsap to Josh Turner fills the baritone that feels like it’s pouring out of North Carolinian McCreery’s heart. This year saw him evolve from “American Idol” winner to Grand Ole Opry member. The song represents one of the year’s better-written and performed total packages.

Megan Moroney — ‘No Caller ID’

Your favorite emo cowgirl’s evolution from sorority heartbreak victim to a citydweller looking for love is complete. Moroney’s lovelorn vocals breathe smoky disaffection into Jessi Alexander, Jessie Jo Dillon and Connie Harrington’s songwriting collaboration with the country chart-topper. Like much of Moroney’s catalog, it represents the genre’s most bittersweet sing-along anthems.

Orville Peck and Willie Nelson — ‘Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other’

Four decades later, queer country icon Peck’s pairing with Country Music and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Nelson on Ned Sublette’s underground-beloved Texas waltz was a standout of Peck’s 2024 album “Stampede.” Alongside 2024 work from Fancy Hagood, Jett Holden, Julie Williams and more, it highlighted the sweepingly inclusive future of country’s potential singer-songwriter stars.

Shaboozey — ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’

Virginia-born veteran artist Shaboozey emerged as a country superstar whose hit single topped Billboard’s allgenre Hot 100 charts for four consecutive months. Oh my, good lawd. Interpolating J-Kwon’s 2004 rap hit “Tipsy” proved beneficial alongside Shaboozey’s honest embrace of country’s cultural and musical traditions to sustain his success.

Swamp Dogg and Jenny Lewis — ‘Count the Days’

Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams’ 81-year journey to bluegrass and country relevancy found him pairing with Nashville indie and Americana favorite Jenny Lewis for his “Blackgrass” album track “Count the Days.” The moments when the song’s soulful funk feels like the blend of country, bluegrass and blues that should’ve emerged alongside Nashville outlaw stylings as ’70s favorites are sublime.

Randy Travis and James Dupre — ‘Where That Came From’

Opinions about the place that artificial intelligence deserves to have in music’s future are many and varied. However, when the controversial technology shockingly yields stroke-survivor and Country Music Hall of Famer Randy Travis’ first new music in over a decade, it changes the tenor of the conversation.

Morgan Wallen – ‘Lies, Lies, Lies’

As much as he can be defined by any number of infamous or chart-topping declarations, Morgan Wallen’s career as a sensitive, power ballad-loving rocker was worth considering in 2024. “Lies, Lies, Lies” peels back his whiskeysoaked bravado to stare into his broken heart. It represents a moment of creative evolution that afforded him a concert tour of emotive performances worldwide throughout the year.

The War and Treaty — ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ (Live at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)

Michael and Tanya Trotter stopping a live crowd on a dime is among the great, modern-era Nashville joys. While celebrating the re-release of the Black country compendium “From Where I Stand” at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater, the duo interjected their ascendant superstardom with Ray Charles’ classic. It’s an ovationworthy moment.