The closing tracks on the best albums of 2024

Songs of A Lost World... and the rest.

A Grok produced a mash-up of Brat, and some other album covers from 2024.

Two years ago, we examined a selection of closing tracks from significant albums from 2022, and a year ago, we did the same for 2023.

We’ve covered a few 2024 albums in the past year. As per the precedent for 2023, I will count down some of Acclaimed Music’s top 10 albums of the year and the final tracks on each. I want to look at two more in separate posts quite soon.

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Gloria’ closes his sixth studio album GNX with haunting introspection. The 12th and final track features SZA for the second time on the record, marking their sixth collaboration since 2014’s ‘Babylon’. Blending stark piano, swelling strings, and SZA’s soulful harmonies, the track explores redemption and Kendrick’s relationship with his craft. Using Gloria—Spanish for “glory”—as an extended metaphor for his pen, Kendrick reflects on his intimate yet conflicted bond with his art, likening it to a romantic relationship. This conceit parallels hip-hop classics like Common’s ‘I Used to Love H.E.R.’ and Nas’s ‘I Gave You Power’.

Deyra Barrera’s mariachi vocals on the intro add depth, connecting Kendrick’s LA roots to broader influences. The lyrics overflow with writing-related double entendres, emphasising dualities: creation and destruction, love and pain. By weaving in echoes of earlier motifs, ‘Gloria’ provides a cohesive and poignant conclusion to GNX, encapsulating Kendrick’s journey and bursting with emotional resonance.

‘Blue’ closes Billie Eilish’s third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, a stripped-back piano ballad that intricately ties together themes and motifs from the rest of the album. The lyrics weave in direct references to earlier tracks, with lines like “Birds of a feather” (‘Birds of a Feather’), “Open up the door” (‘Chihiro’), and “L’amour de ma vie” (‘L’Amour de Ma Vie’), creating a cohesive narrative arc. Each call-back feels intentional, reminding listeners of what went before.

Sleep deprivation, a recurring theme in Eilish’s work, resurfaces here with “It takes forever to fall asleep,” a line that echoes the restless introspection found in earlier tracks like ‘Halley’s Comet’ and ‘Skinny.’ This thread amplifies the song’s vulnerability while anchoring it in familiar emotional terrain.

Ending with “But when can I hear the next one?” the track playfully teases fans, fuelling theories of a companion album revolving around the colour red. With ‘Blue,’ Hit Me Hard and Soft delivers an ending that hits both hard and softly.

On her latest solo album, The Collective, we find Kim Gordon blending experimental textures across a number of genres with incisive commentary on consumerism and culture.