Top Ten Songs of the Summer
#6 – Beyoncé – ‘Crazy in Love’ (2003)
This is one of only three songs on my list from the current millennium — two from the 00s and one from the 20s.
The 2010s didn’t manage to land one song on the list, a dubious distinction that decade shares with the 90s. Technically, the 50s are unrepresented as well, but with only two qualifying songs that’s not much of a surprise.
The Ladies of 2024
#1 – Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
I don’t think there was any suspense over which album would end up in the top spot. Beyoncé’s latest opus has left all competition in the dust on its way to what — God willing — should be her first ever Album of the Year Grammy.
The icon has now delivered four straight albums of emotionally resonant, genre-bending work, starting with her 2013 self-titled album, then 2016’s Lemonade, 2022’s Renaissance, and now Cowboy Carter, part two of a planned trilogy. For my money, this is the best of them.
Continuing my countdown of the songs on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter…
#1a. ‘Bodyguard’
This is the song I find myself returning to most on an album chock full of bangers. ‘Bodyguard’ has a very different sound than I’ve ever heard from Beyoncé — imagine if a song on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours contained the phrase “I’m ’bout to lose it, turn around and John Wayne that ass.” It fits her like a glove.
On an album filled with a lot of allusions to moments in her personal life, this track seems refreshingly separate from all that. It feels like a love song about two laid-back road trippers, an anthem for the free of heart.
Continuing my countdown of the songs on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter…
#1b. ‘Daughter’
If the ‘Jolene’ rewrite felt a little too cute, a little too removed from the messiness and trauma of a relationship shattered by infidelity, Beyoncé makes up for that in ‘Daughter.’
This song is as emotionally raw as it is musically beautiful, a confession of anger, jealousy, and regret set against a delicate backdrop of Spanish guitar and swelling strings.
Continuing my countdown of the songs on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter…
#1c. ‘Ya Ya’
More than a country album, Cowboy Carter is an album about genre — the many ways musical genres can be twisted, combined, and misunderstood. And no song on the album better captures that concept than ‘Ya Ya.’
This foot-stomping epic takes a tour through the history of American music, dabbling in dance, folk rock, surf rock and doo-wop, all with a raucous delivery reminiscent of peak Tina Turner.
Meet Me In Montauk 