The Official biggest songs of 2024

Noah Kahan’s Stick Season is officially the UK’s biggest song of 2024, Official Charts can confirm. 

The first Number 1 of 2024, the Vermont singer’s breakthrough hit Stick Season has proven to be a firm favourite in the UK where it spent a seven-week residency at the top of the Official Singles Chart at the beginning of the year. Stick Season has notched up a total of 1.99m chart units this year, including over 35,000 sales and 233 million streams, to claim the end-of-year singles crown.

Coming in second, with 1.79m chart units is Benson Boone’s emotive rock ballad Beautiful Things. Released in January and streamed 219 million times since, Beautiful Things ascended the chart for nine weeks before reaching Number 1 in March. Boone also sees follow-up single Slow It Down in the year-end chart at Number 31.

Close behind at Number 3 is Sabrina Carpenter’s stand-out song of the Summer, Espresso (1.75m) - the first of three tracks by the singer to reach the Top 40, followed by Please Please Please (10) and Taste (21); the hat-trick of songs that made up Sabrina’s record-breaking 21 weeks at Number 1 this year. In fact Taste was the longest-running UK Number 1 single of 2024 with 9 weeks at the top of the Official Singles Chart.

The best-selling and most-downloaded single of 2024, with 67,000 downloads this year, is Teddy Swims’ soulful Number 2-peaking Lose Control which lands at Number 4 on Official Charts’ end-of-year rundown.

Rounding out the Top 5 is Irish singer-songwriter Hozier with his long-awaited first Number 1 single Too Sweet.

As the UK pulled on our cowboy boots in the first half of the year, it’s perhaps no surprise that several Country-inspired tracks earn a well-deserved place in the Top 20. 

Top of the pile as the UK’s biggest Country single of 2024 is Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) (6). The song, which interpolates J-Kwon’s 2004 hit Tipsy, was released in April via US independent record label Empire and smashes the record for the longest-running Number 1 on the Official Independent Chart this century after spending over 6 months at the summit (27 weeks). It also reached Number 3 on the Official Singles Chart.

Austin by Dasha also makes the Top 10 (9), followed by Top 20 placings for Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em (14), and I Had Some Help by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen (15).

Following a big year, Billie Eilish’s breezy Birds of a Feather lands at Number 7, closely followed by Chappell Roan’s theatrical breakthrough single Good Luck, Babe! at Number 8.

While 2024 has been a remarkable year on The Official Chart for international breakthroughs, the biggest British single of the year comes courtesy of BRITs Rising Star 2025 award winner, Myles Smith. His breakout single Stargazing (12) reached the Official Chart Top 5 in July and has since gone on to become one of the biggest hits of 2024, paving the way for an undoubtedly big year ahead for the Luton singer-songwriter.

TV shows delivered some huge chart impacts earlier this year; Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On The Dancefloor well and truly killed it on the Official Chart in 2024, becoming the biggest song of the year by a British female artist thanks to its placement in Amazon Prime blockbuster Saltburn. The scene that got everyone talking in January sent the 2001 hit soaring all the way back into the chart to Number 2, it finishes in the Top 20 of 2024 at Number 16.

Similarly, Natasha Bedingfield’s pop anthem, Unwritten, was breathed new life this year thanks to its use in rom-com Anyone But You starring Sydney Sweeney. Unwritten also makes the end of year chart at Number 25.

Thanks to its release on CD single, the best-selling physical single of 2024 was Taylor Swift and Post Malone’s collaboration Fortnight (19).

Alibi (35) by Ella Henderson ft. Rudimental is the biggest new Dance release of 2024. Alibi gave Ella her tenth Top 10 hit back in March, ten years on from her chart-topping debut Ghost, and she became one of the first recipients of Official Charts’ new Top 10 Award.

Ella Henderson pictured with her Top 10 Award from Official Charts for Alibi.

Lots of breakthrough tracks have made it on to 2024's biggest songs list, too; I Like The Way You Kiss Me by ARTEMAS (17), Michael Marcagi's Scared To Start (20), Djo - aka Stranger Things actor Joe Keery - with End of Beginning (23), Mark Ambor's Belong Together (27), Tommy Richman's Million Dollar Baby (29), Kisses by BL3SS, Camrinwatsin & Bbyclose (34) and Zach Bryan's first Top 40, I Remember Everything ft. Kacey Musgraves (39).

The Official Top 40 biggest songs of 2024

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