ᴡʀᴀᴘᴘᴇᴅ // unpacked 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒
11. Save Room For Us
Tinashe
Tinashe trades the bad girl pretense of “Needs” and “Nasty” for pure emotional vulnerability on this single from her 2019 opus Songs 4 U. The track opens with Tinashe singing, “Heart goes numb,” in an airy, angelic voice over sweeping synths and a distorted spoken monologue. From the jump — drama! Tinashe goes on to reflect on a past relationship that haunts her, despite time and distance — her ex has moved on, but she’s still hung up. Then, the synths drop out and Tinashe’s voice cuts through with a final plea — “Just save room for us” — before a hard groove hits and Tinashe continues her desperate appeal — “I trust you’ll come back for us someday … You know it’s not the end / We’ll fall in love again.” It’s, simply put, a cuck anthem. Whomst amongst us can’t relate to simping for someone in such a way?
Even though the lyrics drop the baddie schtick, true to form, she makes even cringey emotions sound cool, thanks in part to slick production by MAKJ. The music video ups the emotion and cool factor. The main scenes feature Tinashe and a group of male dancers, dressed in coordinating suits, performing a sharp dance routine in a gritty urban warehouse. There are cuts to Tinashe singing directly to the camera and multiple shots feature her belting the song’s most emotional lyrics as tears stream down her face. It’s melodramatic to the max, but Tinashe’s talent and sincerity make it resonate.
12. Makeup
Slayyyter, Lolo Zouaï
Make-up sex can be hot — that’s not news. But can make-up sex be so good, you’d intentionally provoke your partner just to get some? Slayyyter confesses to doing just that in the opening line of this duet with Lolo Zouaï — “I start fights ‘cuz I wanna’ make up … Apologize with the way that I fuck.” It’s an intriguing concept that works well alongside the track’s dark, synthy beat. As the first track of the deluxe edition of Starfucker, the song sets the stage for the themes of deceit and debauchery that Slayyyter explores on the rest of the album, and further fleshes out the femme fatale character we met on tracks like “Miss Belladonna”. As the final single of the Starfucker era, “Makeup” — along with the two other deluxe edition tracks, “James Dean” and the title track — ties up the LP’s narrative twofold. As Slayyyter closes the book on the album’s narrative, she turns a new page in her career. With Starfucker, Slayyyter beat the sophomore slump, proving that — while her Starfucker alter ego may be a climber — she is a bonafide star in her own right.
13. greedy
Tate McRae
This track was a game-changer for Tate McRae. “Greedy” — released as the lead single of Tate’s second studio album Think Later on September 15, 2023 — was her most danceable, pop-forward solo track to date. Though she dipped her toes into EDM on Tiësto’s “10:35”, “greedy” finds Tate diving into the danceable R&B beats of the mid-2000s. The song’s massive success pushed Tate further into the direction of Y2K-era sounds, but this song remains a standout. There’s so much to love about “greedy” — interesting production, sassy lyrics worthy of an Instagram caption (hello — “I would want myself”) and of course the spectacular live performances.
14. B2b
Charli xcx
Another clever club banger from Charli’s landmark 2024 album Brat, “B2b” uses the language of the music scene to explore her emotional experience. For DJs, b2b or “back to back” means playing a set alongside another DJ. On Charli’s track, the phrase comes from the stuttered repetition of the opening line — “Back to, back to, back to, back to you / I don’t wanna’ fall right back to us / Maybe you should run right back to her / I don’t wanna’ go back, back to…” — which carries on throughout the song. The majority of the song is made up of these four lines echoed several times over a grinding electronic beat that gets more layered and urgent as the song progresses. At the breakdown, Charli’s heavily processed vocalization of a single word is copied and pasted ad nauseam over a chaotic crescendo of clashing electronic sounds, sirens and heavy breaths — “back-back-back-back-back-back..”
It feels tedious, to be sure — but it’s intentional. The tortured repetition reflects the emotional state of the narrator, who is caught in a cycle of heartbreak from constantly returning to someone who isn’t serious about her. True to Brat’s meta manner, the track calls out its own tropes while simultaneously expanding the song’s narrative — “Took a long time / Breaking muscle down / Building muscle up / Repeating it.” It seems the cycle has given Charli the strength to break it — but she stops short of tying things up in a bow. Instead, the track ends with a version of the breakdown (“back-back-back-back-back…”), only this time the beat fades out and as Charli exhales sharply three times. These could be breaths of passion from the middle of the cycle or a sigh of relief at its resolution. The ambiguity makes the song work both as a kiss-off anthem and a sort of heartbreak ballad, which — fittingly — gives the song plenty of replay value.
15. Almost Love
Sabrina Carpenter
Sabrina Carpenter proved she was destined for stardom beyond her Disney Channel origins with this 2018 single from her third studio album Singular: Act I. The lyrics find her eagerly anticipating a hook up and begging her love interest to break the ice — “Baby, what’s the hold up? … Speed this up ‘cause I’m excited ... no more taking it slow.” But as much as she insists she wants to “push all the limits,” this song ultimately serves as a tribute to the excitement that exists on the edge of the action.