This Week: Pop Stardom and the S.O.T.S. Finals

The 2024 Song of the Summer bracket wraps up now with the Pop Division and Final Four Face-off! In case you haven’t tuned in to the earlier rounds, we’ve already crowned three division winners—

→ “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar (2nd Seed, Hip-Hop/R&B Division)

→ “Compress / Repress” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (7th Seed, Electronic/Dance Division)

→ “Docket” by Blondshell and Bully (8th Seed, Rock Division)

And one last refresher on how it all works: We are crowning winners in four genre divisions—Rock, Electronic, Hip-Hop, and Pop—before deciding on the one true Song of the Summer for 2024! We scoured the playlists and listened to scores of tracks before narrowing it down to our top 32 songs. We placed a limit on one song per artist (per division) and determined seed placement by the total number of Spotify streams as of the day of writing this newsletter.

Now without further ado, let’s choose our champion for the 2024 Song of the Summer: Pop Division! 💕

POP DIVISION: ROUND ONE

(1) Espresso vs. (8) Cinderella

With over a billion streams on Spotify, it should be no surprise that Sabrina Carpenter’s undeniably pervasive “Espresso” snagged the number one seed in our Pop Division. Now, we may not be the biggest fans of the track or of Carpenter’s catalogue in general, but between this song and “Please Please Please” (remember, we only included one song per artist, per genre division), we are happy that Sabrina is having her moment in 2024.

Her challenger, Remi Wolf, is certainly a more alternative type of pop star. With “Cinderella”, Wolf gives us a funky anthem about changing vibes like the colors on a mood ring. The song is dripping with sunshine and swagger, not to mention the ultra-catchy refrain, “Me and my boys in the hotel lobby.” We know the Carpenter stans are going to shank us for this, but “Cinderella” is the song that’s more likely to be on rotation in our house.

WINNER: (8) Cinderella by Remi Wolf

(2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER vs. (7) How Sweet

We could have entered a number of brilliant songs from Billie Eilish’s latest record in this #2 spot—like ”LUNCH” or “CHIHIRO”, or maybe even “THE GREATEST”—but who can deny the sonic mastery of “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”? We mean it when we say this song features our absolute favorite vocal performance from Billie, as well as some of the best production we’ve ever seen from Finneas. It’s an instantly memorable, heartachingly sincere love song that finds Billie belting morbid phrases, like “I’ll love you ‘til the day that I die / ‘Til the light leaves my eyes.” It’s just awesomely powerful stuff.

“How Sweet” is one of the latest singles from up-and-coming K-Pop group, NewJeans, and it sounds as sugary as the title suggests. NewJeans impressed us last year with a handful of fast-paced, catchy tracks like “Super Shy” and the eponymous “NewJeans”, so we’re glad to see them continuing their upward trajectory in 2024. All that being said, we think Billie takes this match-up quite easily.

WINNER: (2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER by Billie Eilish

(3) Good Luck, Babe! vs. (6) BODYGUARD

Again, we limited ourselves to one song per artist (per division), so of all the great Chappell Roan songs we’ve been bobbing our heads to this summer, we decided to go with her most recent single, “Good Luck, Babe!” It’s a fist-pumping pop anthem, it’s steeped in synth, it’s about compulsory heterosexuality—who doesn’t want that in a Song of the Summer contender?

Beyoncé enters the Pop division as the 6th seed with the subtle, sexy and effortlessly cool, “BODYGUARD”. Despite its more stripped down sound—it’s mostly just an acoustic guitar, rollicking drum beat, and Bey’s layered harmonies—it’s easily one of the standout non-singles from the recent Cowboy Carter album. But despite loving this song, “Good Luck, Babe!” has the better case for Song of the Summer. So with that, Chappell is moving on!

WINNER: (3) Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan

(4) the boy is mine vs. (5) Illusion

2024 has been pretty good to Ariana Grande so far—she has been on the press circuit as one of the stars of the upcoming Wicked movie and her latest album, eternal sunshine, has produced a number of good (and successful) songs, including our pick for this bracket. Now some other pop girlies might have gone with a bigger hit like “we can’t be friends (wait for you love)” or “yes and?”, but “the boy is mine” is the sassy bop that has been giving us eternal sunshine this summer.

Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism probably didn’t shake up the airwaves as much as she (or we) were hoping, but it did produce a number of excellent singles like “Houdini”, “Training Season”, and our personal pick for the Song of the Summer breacket, “Illusion”. The song and its accompanying music video both scream summer, and it has quickly emerged as one of our most listened to songs since it dropped in April. This is one of the tougher match-ups to decide, if only because both of these songs are so solid. But we have to be true to the summer vibes and give it to the globetrotting vacation queen herself, Dua Lipa!

WINNER: (5) Illusion by Dua Lipa

POP DIVISION: SEMI-FINALS

(8) Cinderella vs. (2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Remi Wolf is a serious underdog in this match-up against Billie Eilish, and while we have love for both of these ladies, we have to give it up to Billie for the massive effort that is “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see these two collaborate on a song at some point though?

WINNER: (2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER by Billie Eilish

(3) Good Luck, Babe! vs. (5) Illusion

First Remi vs. Billie, and now Chappell vs. Dua?! This bracket is getting too hard! Liking these songs about evenly, we have to reward the artist who has become more synonymous for the year in pop, but especially the summer in pop—Chappell Roan.

WINNER: (3) Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan

POP DIVISION: FINAL

(2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER vs. (3) Good Luck, Babe!

Is this the hardest Division Final we’ve had? I mean, how do you expect us to choose between Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan? You could easily make the case for either of these songs to be the pop song of the summer, but ultimately we gotta give it to the one that we think could be the best pop song of the year when all is said and done.

The winner of the Pop Division and the last finalist for the overall 2024 Songs of the Summer competition is…

The 2nd seed— “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” by Billie Eilish! 🏅

Right now— you can listen to all of the Pop Division contenders, including the winner, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”, in the linked Spotify playlist below!

Keep scrolling— to see “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” battle against the other three division finalists to see who will become the official Song of the Summer for 2024!

FINAL FOUR FACE-OFF: POP VS. ROCK

(2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER vs. (8) Docket

It’s Pop vs. Rock in our first showdown between the Division winners! IF you think about it, Billie would probably sound awesome on a track with Blondshell and Bully (perhaps some sort of supergroup? BBB?). Sadly for us, they haven’t yet and we must choose between them. Whichever way it goes we are losing one of the absolute best songs of the year in this match-up!

Ultimately we feel that pop artists like Billie have dominated the cultural zeitgeist this summer, so “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” will be facing off against the winner of our next match-up in the final round.

WINNER: (2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER by Billie Eilish

FINAL FOUR FACE-OFF: HIP-HOP VS. ELECTRONIC

(2) Not Like Us vs. (7) Compress / Repress

We could not have guessed that this is where things would lead for the Hip-Hop/R&B and Electronic/Dance division winners—Kendrick Lamar’s ubiquitous diss track takes on Reznor and Ross’s end credits banger from the movie Challengers. But it’s the 2024 Song of the Summer bracket, not Best Original Song at the Oscars, so we’re confident that Kendrick is going to move on to the finals here. Perhaps we’ll see “Compress / Repress” pop back up at The Bestie Awards in March…

WINNER: (2) Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar

FINAL ROUND: THE 2024 SONG OF THE SUMMER

(2) BIRDS OF A FEATHER vs. (2) Not Like Us

And it all comes down to this!! The dominating Pop Division champion, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”, vs. “Not Like Us”, the Kendrick Lamar diss track that keeps on giving. It’s not an easy choice by any means, but we have come to a decision.

The winner of the 2024 Songs of the Summer competition is…

The 2nd seed from Pop Division— “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” by Billie Eilish! 🏅

Need more to stream? We made a Summer 2024 playlist featuring all of the tracks featured in our bracket, plus many more that we have been jamming to all summer long!

🚨 BONUS LIST ALERT 🚨

…and that’s all folks!