GL.24.06: Caseysimone Ballestas
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No one in the entire history of the internet has ever correctly attributed a quotation. There’s a line that you’ll see from time to time, credited to either Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald, that goes something to the effect of “you go bankrupt slowly at first, then all at once.” Neither of them ever said it, though it does at least sound like something they would say, which is more than you can say for a lot of fake quotes. The closest source material seems to be a passage from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises:
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
It’s a frequently used quote because it’s a frequently observed phenomenon. It seems to be the way of the world, and its relevance extends far beyond matters of financial peril.
How did you get famous, Chappell Roan?
Gradually and then suddenly.
After all, long-time Burn Your Hits readers will remember our Guest List Week 2020 leaderboard:
2024, though, was something else entirely.
SONG OF THE YEAR
The rules are the same as last year: We judge Song of the Year based solely on the number of lists on which a song appears. Since not everyone ranks their lists, and others rank only a part of their list, it would skew the importance of ranked lists if we tried to account for where on specific lists these songs appeared. So, one point per list. (Honorable Mentions count.) Also, we’re grouping all versions of a song together: this includes remixes, edits, alternate versions, and live versions.
Your Song of the Year, in a runaway, is “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan, which appeared on 11 lists, a new Burn Your Hits record (the previous record was eight).
This selection puts us in a highly exclusive group that includes, well, basically every other publication in existence:
I don’t have much to add here except to say … did you guys know Business Insider ranks songs?
The folks at AOTY put together their own aggregated Song of the Year poll, looking at several dozen critics’ lists and taking rankings into account. Their top two looks like this:
So we’re in good company with our Chappell love. Kendrick Lamar, though, is a different story. Of the 20 Burn Your Hits lists, “Not Like Us” appeared on exactly … zero. It’s Drake’s fault, really.
51 songs appeared on more than one list. Here’s our Top 20:
So, where does one great song place Chappell on our Artist of the Year leaderboard?
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ARTIST OF THE YEAR
We’re simplifying the rules just a little bit this year, and I’ll explain why later. We’re ranking artists based on Total List Mentions as lead artist. If you had three songs by a particular artist on your list, they get three points for that.
Your Artist of the Year is Waxahatchee, by a single vote over Charli xcx.
Truly an all-time great “inside you there are two wolves” situation.
(Or, dare to dream, a “let’s work it out on the remix” situation.)
Rule Change: In the past, I’ve included features in Total List Mentions, but this year I’m going with lead artist only. This doesn’t affect the top two, but including features would bump MJ Lenderman from seventh to third on the strength of Waxahatchee's “Right Back To It.” It was never entirely clear to me why he only got a feature credit for that song when he was all over the Tigers Blood album, and has at least as big of a role in the title track, which could have given him three more points and the top spot. Doesn’t seem right. So Tigers Blood belongs to Katie alone, and I’m sure Lenderman is getting by just fine on our love for all things Manning Fireworks.
A few other interesting notes:
Bad Moves cracks the leaderboard with five different songs scoring one point each. Vampire Weekend does them one better with six different songs tallying a single vote.
Despite “Not Like Us” getting shut out, Kendrick Lamar did just fine, with four tracks from GNX represented.
Waxahatchee had seven different songs selected, which is more than half of her album. Charli xcx had eight.
And I have absolutely no opinion one way or the other about the fact that Taylor and Beyoncé’s combined score would barely have cracked the top five. None of my business.
40 artists received three or more votes. Here’s our Top 20:
And that’s it for 2024. So far in 2025 I’ve mainly been listening to the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack, which totally holds up. See you back here in December, where I’m confident we’ll have at least 100 great new songs to talk about.
(If not, I will still have thoughts on the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack.)
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