The extended play occupies a strange middle ground in the music world. An EP can feel like a glorified single with an A-side and some tacked-on bonus tracks, but they sometimes play as surprisingly substantial mini-albums. Some EPs are leftovers from the artist’s last full-length, while others feel like a tantalizing taste of a new sound.
SPIN’s favorite EPs of 2024 include new artists on the verge, one-off collaborations between singers and producers, and some of the year’s biggest pop hits.
25. Katseye – SIS (Soft Is Strong)
The K-pop label HYBE Corporation set out to form a “global girl group” with Katseye, drafting six members from America, South Korea, the Philippines, and Switzerland in an audition process detailed in the Netflix docuseries Pop Star Academy: Katseye. The group’s debut EP features songs written by established hitmakers like Ryan Tedder and Justin Tranter, and their pop radio breakthrough “Touch,” produced by Cashmere Cat, recalls the liquid drum and bass sound that caught on in the U.K. in the early 2000s.
24. Eric Benét – Duets
Some of the most enduring tracks in R&B troubadour Eric Benét’s career have been collaborations with singers like Faith Evans and Tamia, so it was a smart idea to dedicate his latest project to duets. The slow jam “Something We Can Make Love To” with Tamar Braxton is an R&B radio hit, but Benét has the best chemistry with Chanté Moore on the funky, sassy “So Distracted.”
23. Bon Iver – Sable
Five years after Bon Iver’s last full-length, Justin Vernon finally returned in October with Sable, an EP that recalls the hushed and intimate sound of his revered 2007 debut For Emma, Forever Ago. Some of the songs on Sable had been in the works for a long time, and “Things Behind Things Behind Things” was debuted back in April 2020 as part of a virtual rally for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.
22. Gloss Up – Not Ya Girl: Act 1
GloRilla brought a whole crew of Memphis girls, known as Glitter Gang, into the music industry with her when she became a star. Gloss Up has been consistently one of the most promising of GloRilla’s friends, and the seven songs on Not Ya Girl: Act 1 display her versatility. “Baddest” is a minimalist banger with plenty of boasts and punchlines, while she gets introspective on “Can I Vent” and unfurls a violent narrative on “Crazy Dream.”
21. Conner Smith – The Storyteller
Conner Smith grew up in Nashville and started working with some of the Music City’s top songwriters as a teenager before signing to Big Machine’s Valory imprint. In 2024 alone, Smith released his debut album and two EPs. “Faith From a Farmer” is the most complete story song on The Storyteller, a day in the life of a farmer praying for rain.
20. Drake – 100 Gigs
In August, while Drake was licking his wounds from his beef with Kendrick Lamar, he released an unorthodox data dump through an Instagram page: a 100 gigabyte download of unused album artwork, behind-the-scenes video from tours and studio sessions, and a handful of unreleased songs. A few weeks later, the songs from the file bundle were released to streaming service as an EP. Given the way the third verse of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” picked apart Drake’s transactional relationship with the Atlanta hip-hop scene, it’s curious that he decided to release songs featuring 21 Savage, Young Thug, and Latto at that moment. “Housekeeping Knows” with Latto is the highlight of the EP, though, and would’ve been a worthy single to follow up to “Rich Baby Daddy.”
19. Olivia O’Brien – Everywhere I Go, There I Am
California singer-songwriter Olivia O’Brien is best known for singing the hook on Gnash’s multiplatinum 2016 single “I Hate U, I Love U,” but she’s quietly built up a solid catalog with one solo album and several EPs and mixtapes. Everywhere I Go, There I Am features four of the kind of sad, pretty acoustic tracks that O’Brien excels at, but the standout is the surging new wave track that opens the EP, “Memory Lane.”
18. Myles Smith – A Minute…
Myles Smith, who grew up in a Jamaican family in Luton, England, became one of 2024’s breakout stars when his folk pop smash “Stargazing” took over TikTok and eventually pop and alternative radio. The best song on Smith’s second EP is a slow and lovely duet with another sensitive British singer-songwriter, James Bay, on “Waste,” but Smith has plenty more charming uptempo songs like “Wait For You” and “3am” that will probably keep him on the radio well into 2025.
17. The Gaslight Anthem – History Books – Short Stories
The Gaslight Anthem’s best non-album track, the restrained and beautiful “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts,” was first released on the Señor and the Queen EP in 2008. This year, a possibly even better new recording of the song appeared on a new companion EP for the New Jersey punk band’s 2023 reunion album History Books. Short Stories also includes a striking interpretation of Billie Eilish’s 2017 debut single “Ocean Eyes.”
16. Nourished by Time – Catching Chickens
Marcus Brown recorded one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2023, Nourished by Time’s Erotic Probiotic 2, in his parents’ basement in Baltimore. This year, Brown signed to XL Recordings, but his first release with the backing of the influential British label is still proudly lo-fi bedroom pop with vivid, elliptical lyrics.
15. Garbage – Lie To Me
Record Store Day often brings a number of notable EPs, and for this year’s RSD, Garbage released Lie To Me, a collection that draws from the sessions for the band’s 2005 album Bleed Like Me. That album’s single “Bad Boyfriend” is given a new remix, and two previously unreleased outtakes are revealed, including “Better Not Lie To Me,” co-written by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong. The EP is rounded out with a cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren,” patterned after This Mortal Coil’s 1984 arrangement of the song that Garbage recorded for a TV series that ultimately didn’t use their cover.
14. Meek Mill – Heathenism
Meek Mill is one of the few mainstream rap stars who’s released almost as many EPs as mixtapes, including 2016’s 4/4 and 2018’s Legends of the Summer. The Philadelphia rapper hasn’t released a full-length solo album since 2021, but he dropped two EPs in 2024 alone. February’s Heathenism features some of Meek’s best recent music, including the brooding “Times Like This” and perhaps his best Future collaboration to date, “Giving Chanel.”
13. Crack the Sky – The Baker Files
The West Virginia progressive rock band Crack the Sky’s self-titled 1975 debut is one of the great cult classics of its era. This year, the band unearthed five solo demos that frontman John Palumbo recorded in 1976, and fleshed them out into full band tracks that take you right back to the band’s peak period.
12. Phonte – Pacific Time 2
Phonte Coleman, the prodigiously talented North Carolina rapper and singer of the groups Little Brother and the Foreign Exchange, released four soulful solo tracks to tide fans over on 2019’s Pacific Time EP. This year, Phonte returned with a sequel, an enjoyable new pack of R&B jams like “5:55am” and “Run For Your Life.”
11. They Hate Change – Wish You Were Here…
The Tampa duo They Hate Change makes dizzyingly dense and eclectic hip-hop that they describe as “gold coast soul post-punk crunk music” on “Stunt (When I See U)” from their latest EP. The 4-minute skit that opens Wish You Were Here… is interminably long and difficult to listen to, but the four songs that follow represent an exhilarating step forward from the group’s acclaimed 2022 album Finally, New.
10. Flying Lotus – Spirit Box
Flying Lotus has been working more in the film and television world lately, scoring and writing, as well as directing a feature film, Ash, due out in 2025. Perhaps that’s why one of the leading lights of the L.A. beat scene hasn’t released a full-length album in five years. He did, however, release five excellent new songs on Spirit Box, including the jazzy midtempo Dawn Richard collaboration “Let Me Cook.”
9. Alemeda – FK IT
Rahema Shifa Alemeda, who was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Arizona, first collaborated with TDE rapper Ab-Soul in 2022. In September, the powerhouse label announced that they’d signed Alemeda on the same day it released her debut EP. If SZA’s music straddles R&B and alternative rock, her new labelmate Alemeda plants her feet firmly in the pop/rock world, with angsty and funny guitar-driven songs like “I Hate Your Face” and “Gonna Bleach My Eyebrows.”
8. Ella Mai – 3
British R&B star Ella Mai calls 3 “one of my favorite numbers,” and she and NBA star Jayson Tatum got matching 3 tattoos after the birth of their first child in 2024. On November 3, Mai celebrated her 30th birthday by releasing a three song EP called, you guessed it, 3. All the tracks were produced by her frequent collaborator DJ Mustard, including “One of These,” which samples CeeLo Green’s 2004 hit “I’ll Be Around.”
7. Rip Van Winkle – The Grand Rapids
Like many of Robert Pollard’s best records, the debut from the Guided By Voices frontman’s latest side project Rip Van Winkle was cranked out in one inspired day in an Ohio basement. A weird and woolly collaboration with members of Joseph Airport, the 18-minute EP features prickly post-punk guitars alongside more unexpected instrumentation like euphonium and glockenspiel. The dozen or so albums Guided By Voices has cranked out in the last five years have started to blur together, but The Grand Rapids EP stands out as a late career highlight.
6. Aminé – .mp3s
Portland, Oregon, rapper Aminé is best known for his only Hot 100 hit, 2016’s “Caroline,” but he’s a versatile talent, and every project he’s released over the last decade has shown his growth as a songwriter. Across the four songs on .mp3s, Aminé effortlessly switches flows over a woozy Cardo Got Wings production on “Wingz,” trades rhymes with Smino on “Passenger Princess,” and even flirts with synth pop on the melodic “s2wik.”
5. Wilco – Hot Sun Cool Shroud
In June, Wilco held its 8th Solid Sound Festival in Massachusetts, playing multiple sets and curating a bill of some of their favorite acts. The same day the festival kicked off, the veteran Chicago band released Hot Sun Cool Shroud, a cohesive and satisfying collection of six outtakes from the sessions for the band’s 2023 album Cousin.
4. Maeta – Endless Night
Canadian producer Kaytranada is the strongest link between contemporary dance music and R&B, and this year his productions for Victoria Monet and Mariah the Scientist got R&B radio spins while his album Timeless featured collaborations with Tinashe and SiR. Kaytranada’s best R&B work of 2024, however, was the moody and entrancing Endless Night, featuring seven songs he produced for Roc Nation’s ascendant quiet storm singer Maeta.
3. Hozier – Unheard
In 2023, Hozier released Unreal Unearth, an ambitious song cycle inspired by Dante’s Inferno. The following March, he released four songs that didn’t fit into the album’s concept, including the suave and catchy “Too Sweet,” which quickly caught on and became the Irish singer-songwriter’s first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The Unheard EP also included “Wildflower and Barley” featuring Canadian folk singer Allison Russell, which became a nightly highlight of Hozier’s spring tour with Russell.
2. Amber Mark – Loosies
Hip-hop fans often refer to the loose standalone singles released between albums as as “loosies.” So R&B singer Amber Mark’s recent Loosies EP is something of a paradox, because now that these seven tracks have been collected in one place, they’re not really loosies anymore. Still the self-produced “Won’t Cry” and “Sink In” are an exciting glimpse at what Mark can do on her own.
1. SG Lewis & Tove Lo – Heat
Swedish pop star Tove Lo and English dance producer SG Lewis first collaborated on two of the best tracks on her 2022 album Dirt Femme. On the Heat EP, they toy with breakbeat house on the title track and squelchy synth pop on “Busy Girl.” Tove Lo has always excelled at moody alt-pop, but these four songs make a convincing argument that she’d be a great dance music diva as well.
