It’s been a year of unfortunate near misses for pop music in 2024 (Picture: Getty/AP)
This year has been a stellar one for pop music – but looking at 2024’s number one singles on the UK chart will tell you less than half the story.
As we told you on Saturday, the British pop charts have been broken for almost a decade now and are in dire need of urgent reform.
In recent years, only in 2016 have more songs been denied a deserved spot at number one because the same hits stayed on top for weeks on end.
This year saw the return of one of the biggest stars of the new millennium, the biggest rap beef of the 21st century, and a hit collab between two huge stars of the early 2010s.
But, if you were a future music historian, you’d have next to no idea – the full story of 2024 only begins to be told once you start to look down the charts.
So, here are some songs that deserved pop’s biggest honour this year, but were cruelly denied their chance to become part of British music history.
Murder On the Dancefloor – Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s megahit Murder On the Dancefloor might be the ultimate number two single of all time, having reached that peak on both of its runs in the chart.
It was originally kept off the top spot by Daniel Bedingfield’s debut hit Gotta Get Thru This on two occasions at the end of 2001 and beginning of 2002.
When it took off again in 2024 after its use in Emeral Fennell’s film Saltburn, the nu-disco smash hit looked set to finally sail to the top of the charts, even if it was 22 years late.
But Noah Kahan had something to say about that. His breakout song Stick Season held Sophie off the top for five weeks as he spent a total of seven atop the charts in January and February.
Noah Kahan has worked hard to reach the top (Picture: Jeff Hahne/Getty Images)
Now, full credit to Noah – he’s plugged away and worked hard to get to where he is, going from playing small venues to playing massive arenas in the space of six years.
But surely four weeks, or even five weeks, would have been more than enough time at the top, especially if it meant Murder On the Dancefloor got its due at at last.
We Can’t Be Friends – Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande returned to the pop charts after four years away in 2024, with the much-anticipated release of her seventh studio album Eternal Sunshine.
After its lead single Yes, And? was held off the top – again by Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, in his third week at number one – fans hoped We Can’t Be Friends would go one better.
But it was also denied even a single week at number one, first by Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em’s fourth week at the summit and then by Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things.
Why don’t we live in a world where, at the very least, Beyoncé could have had three weeks and Benson could have still had two weeks, just with one week for Ariana in the middle? Never mind.
Perhaps a Christmas UK box office number one will suffice… (Picture: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures via AP)
Then again, Ariana is unfortunately no stranger to having great pop hits stall at number two while another hit just… sits there, occupying space at the top.
Don’t Call Me Angel was held off the top by Ed Sheeran’s Take Me Back to London, which had already been number one for three prior weeks.
The spellbinding No Tears Left to Cry – her first hit after the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 – didn’t even manage a week at number one while Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa sat there for eight consecutive weeks.
No disrespect to One Kiss, which is a fine hit – but you can’t help feeling that, in were it 15 years ago, both songs could have shared the top spot for a few weeks each.
Not Like Us – Kendrick Lamar
When future pop historians look back at the American charts of 2024, they will immediately see that two of rap’s biggest names went to war.
Actually, scratch that – ‘war’ implies that the feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake was a fair fight. Frankly, it was anything but. The definitive and decisive victory scored by Kendrick will surely change one of pop’s dominant genres for an entire generation.
By the time of Not Like Us – Kendrick’s fourth shot at the Hotline Bling hitmaker in the space of seven days – the contest was well and truly over. If anything, Kendrick only released the song to simply confirm his victory.
It flew to the top of the charts in America, was played at clubs all over America and Europe, and became one of the most streamed rap songs in history. The scorched earth approach worked.
Kendrick Lamar landed a decisive victory in rap but stalled in the UK charts (Picture: Getty)
However, if those very same pop historians were to look at the UK number ones for 2024, the whole incident would completely pass them by.
When Not Like Us entered the UK top 10, it did so during a week when Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso was in its third of seven weeks at number one. That song went on to spend three whole months in the top two alone.
And so began a period of dominance from Ms. Carpenter that stretched for months and months and continued to keep major, year-defining hits from having a big moment in the sun.
Birds of a Feather – Billie Eilish
Now, Billie Eilish did land a number one on the UK charts in the summer of 2024 thanks to the super-fast and super-raunchy Guess, alongside Charli XCX.
It was a good job that something from 2024’s Brat summer reached the top of the charts, otherwise we would have been dealing with another glaring pop omission on the British charts.
But Billie’s big solo return was halted by – you guessed it – Sabrina Carpenter, whose hit Please Please Please returned to number one for a second time just as Birds of a Feather looked to get there.
If you want to, why don’t you have a guess at what had already knocked Please Please Please off number one before it jumped back up?
Sabrina Carpenter has dominated the UK charts in 2024 (Picture: Christopher Polk/Rolling Stone/Getty)
You guessed it: Sabrina herself, with Espresso! Apparently five weeks at number one wasn’t enough – and it went on to spend another month in the top two after that.
It’s not the first time the British public has done this to to Billie either. Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved was in week six of seven at number one in 2019 when it kept Billie’s Bad Guy at number two.
Not to worry, though. Billie’s huge hit single Lunch would surely give Hit Me Hard and Soft the number one single it deserved? Nope. Espresso was in the way – again – for two more weeks.
Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan
Perhaps the biggest victim of Sabrina Carpenter’s reign at the top of the UK charts this year has been singer-songwriter Chappell Roan.
Chappell, 26, whose real name is Kayleigh Amstutz, landed a UK number one album with her debut, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
And it all seemed set for her to notch a singles chart topper when her heartbreaking anthem Good Luck, Babe! slowly crept from number 64 all the way into the top 10 over the course of three months.
The song, which reflects with regret over a secret same-sex relationship that ended on a sad note, then jumped up further to number two – and it looked like one of the songs of the year would finally be recognised with British pop’s highest honour.
But, instead, there was Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please, standing in the way, just as it was for Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather.
Chappell Roan had a great 2024 – but she could have had a spectacular one (Picture: Will Heath/NBC/Getty)
Good Luck, Babe! then floated around the top three for 11 consecutive weeks, only to find herself behind Sabrina Carpenter (and, for one week, Chase & Status and Stormzy) not once, but twice.
Just as Espresso and Please Please Please began to fade, fans were hoping Chappell would finally be crowned… only for Sabrina’s hit song Taste to be released and nick top spot instead.
By that point it was too late. Good Luck, Babe! was well past the 10-week mark (which is the point when the streams-sales ration is halved from 150:1 to 300:1). Good Luck, Babe! dropped to number 15 and that was that.
Die with a Smile – Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars
Sabrina Carpenter’s record-breaking run atop the UK charts in 2024 was finally ended in November by Gigi Perez, but not before denying us another grand number one single.
It feels strange to describe Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars as legacy artists now, and to discuss their heydays in the past tense, but that’s where we millennials are at now.
But the pair collaborated for Die With a Smile and burst back into the UK top 10, entering at number seven and climbing steadily to number two.
Sabrina Carpenter’s was in her eighth week at number one with Taste when she denied Stefani Germanotta and Peter Hernandez their seventh and sixth number ones respectively.
It should be stressed that Sabrina Carpenter going to number one with three of 2024’s biggest and best pop hits isn’t a problem – she’s a solid popstar in her own right.
Sabrina isn’t the problem – she’s just an ominous sign of a bigger issue (Picture: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for AEG)
And songs being undeserved number ones is hardly a problem unique to the streaming era: Joe Dolce over Ultravox in 1981 still stings, Rod Stewart over the Sex Pistols in 1977 was still an outrageous, cowardly fix.
But the true story of pop music in 2024 has not been properly told, and the songs in this list deserve justice. Hopefully 2025 will go some way towards making things right.
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