Top 10 Favorite HIT Songs of 2021

Welcome to your annual trip to my Music Blog, a place that some of you may not know existed until just now. Browse all the old relics while you're here. Enjoy your stay. I used to do a lot with this blog and it was a lot of fun, but now I come here annually to post some end-of-year list stuff. I started off with a few things on my Facebook. My most listened to songs. The most popular songs. My least favorite hit songs. All from this past year, that of 2021. So check those out, if you're curious. 

I will finish off with two lists that I'll be posting here. The two funnest lists to create, my favorite hit songs and my favorite overall songs. This here is my list of top 10 favorite hit songs of 2021. Parameters are that they had to debut on Billboard's official year-end list of top 100 songs of 2021, that meaning they not only had to make that list, but this had to be their first year on the list. So no repeats from last year, like "Mood" or "Blinding Lights" that ended up on both the 2020 and the 2021 lists.

That's it. Pretty simple. I'll post the second favorites list at some point in January, although that will take a bit more time to create, so have patience. And below this main list, there are 10 honorable mentions, so check those out. You may be surprised at what makes the cut on those! 

10- "Happier Than Ever" - Billie Eilish

9- "Bad Habits" - Ed Sheeran

8- "good 4 u" - Olivia Rodrigo

7- "Starting Over" - Chris Stapleton

6- "Chasing After You" - Ryan Hurd & Maren Morris

5- "Anyone" - Justin Bieber

4- "Better Together" - Luke Combs

3- "Rockin' Around the Chrismtas Tree" - Brenda Lee

2- "Therefore I Am" - Billie Eilish

1- "Kings & Queens" - Ava Max

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

11- "We're Good" - Dua Lipa

12- "drivers license" - Olivia Rodrigo 

13- "Save Your Tears" - The Weeknd & Ariana Grande 

14- "Things a Man Outta Know" - Lainey Wilson

15- "Leave Before You Love Me" - Marsmello & The Jonas Brothers

16- "Heat Waves" - Glass Animals

17- "Fancy Like" - Walker Hayes 

18- "Bang!" - AJR 

19- "Astronaut in the Ocean" - Masked Wolf 

20- "Take My Breath" - The Weeknd 

Top 10 FAVORITE Songs of 2020

I haven't made use of this blog in a while. Not since May when I posted my end of decade music lists. I abandoned my weekly posts about the Billboard charts. If some people miss that, I apologize. It just came to a point where I wasn't enjoying it. But I've still followed the charts. I've just kept my thoughts to my personal social media pages when I had thoughts to give. And in weeks where there weren't any good songs or I didn't feel like giving thoughts, it was nice to simply do other things. But when it came to this particular year-end list of favorite songs, I had to bring back this blog and post it here because this is my favorite list to put together every year. Whereas I also posted my list of most popular song of 2020 and my list of favorite hit songs on my social media, I felt this list deserved better. The parameters here are that it had to debut on the Hot 100 in 2020. And it had to be a new song. So no "Blinding Lights." And no Christmas classics. Now given that I haven't expressed my thoughts as much this year, my choices for this list should come at more of a surprise, which makes this exciting. I'm giving my top 10, then I'll have honorable mentions below. 

10- "No Time to Die" - Billie Eilish

9- "seven" - Taylor Swift

8- "Sofia" - Clairo

7- "Sour Candy" - Lady Gaga & BLACKPINK

6- "champagne problems" - Taylor Swift

5- "Fallin' (Adrenaline)" - Why Don't We

4- "Anyone" - Demi Lovato

3- "exile" - Taylor Swift featuring Bon Iver

2- "Kings & Queens" - Ava Max

1- "Be Kind" - Marshmello & Halsey 

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

11- "Underdog" - Alicia Keys
12- "coney island" - Taylor Swift featuring The National
13- "Alice" - Lady Gaga
14- "betty" - Taylor Swift
15- "epiphany" - Taylor Swift
16- "Midnight Sky" - Miley Cyrus 
17- "no body, no crime" - Taylor Swift featuring HAIM
18- "mirrorball" - Taylor Swift
19- "Darkness" - Eminem
20- "Daisies" - Katy Perry 

Top 100 MOST POPULAR Songs of the 2010s: 20 - 1

Here we are! The top 20 most popular songs of the 2010s. We spent four days swimming through the memories of the songs that weren't quite big enough, but we've finally arrived to the list of heavy hitters. The songs that made the biggest impact on this past decade, at least in terms of chart performance. Given that there might be a number of people who check out this portion of the list instead of the other four sections, I'll spend a bit more detail explaining what this is for any newcomers. I've been referring to this project this week as the capstone to my Billboard Project that I've spent much of the past decade on. I started back in 1958 and went through each year and decade, creating lists of the most popular songs. Before I even started doing that, I was tracking this past decade we just finished, so revealing this list feels like a decades-long project that I've been super excited to share. And now I get to!

As far as methodology goes, this is me tracking just the top 10. And it's using my own tracking system where I give the No. 1 song 10 points, with a one-point sliding scale for the rest of the top 10. Is it the most efficient system? Perhaps not. In fact, I've recently created a new tracking system that I think gives more accurate results. But since I've used the same exact system on every other yearly list that I've posted on this blog, it only felt right to finish it off here. Regardless of what system I use, the top song will probably still be the same. In fact, looking at Billboard's "official" end-of-decade list for the 2010s, our No. 1 songs match. And most of the top 20 are also the same, including four of the top five, just in a slightly different order. So I don't think things would look too terribly different, so I feel comfortable with this. Personally I also weighted 2013-2019 differently since that's when Billboard implemented YouTube into their formula. That made songs last longer in the top 10. And songs that spanned two decades were included in the decade where they had the most points. But that doesn't apply to any of these 20 songs, just a few that showed up in previous sections. Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed this journey. If any questions arise about anything, feel free to let me know!

20- "One More Night" - Maroon 5


19- "All About That Bass" - Meghan Trainor


18- "Call Me Maybe" - Carly Rae Jepsen


17- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish


16- "Perfect" - Ed Sheeran


15- "We Are Young" - fun. featuring Jannelle Monae


14- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee


13- "We Found Love" - Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris


12- "Party Rock Anthem" - LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock


11- "rockstar" - Post Malone featuring 21 Savage


10- "Without Me" - Halsey 


9- "God's Plan" - Drake


8- "Somebody That I Used to Know" - Gotye featuring Kimbra


7- "That's What I Like" - Bruno Mars


6- "Despacito" - Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber


5- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B


4- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus


3- "Shape of You" - Ed Sheeran


2- "Closer" - The Chainsmokers featuring Halsey


1- "Uptown Funk" - Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars

Top 100 MOST POPULAR Songs of the 2010s: 40 - 21

We're almost there! Either you're dying of anticipation to see what the final results are or you are cheering in celebration that I'm finally almost finished posting these. Hopefully it's more of the former, but who knows. If you're randomly jumping in right now and you've never come across any of my music posts before, a more detailed explanation is in the first part of this. But yeah, over the course of the past decade I went through all of the Billboard charts, creating lists for each year and each decade. This here feels like the capstone to all of that. Then I'll decided later what to do with this upcoming decade. For now this is looking at just the top 10. Since I don't have access to Billboard's official chart points, I created my own tracking system. Songs that crossed two decades are put into the decade where they had the most post, which comes into play again in this section. And songs from 2013-2019 are weighted more heavily since the implementation of YouTube into Billboard's formula in 2013 caused songs to stay around for longer. With that out of the way, let's dive into part four of this list!

40- "See You Again" - Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth


39- "Havana" - Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug


38- "Thrift Shop" - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz


37- "Payphone" - Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa


36- "Rolling in the Deep" - Adele


35- "Blurred Lines" - Robin Thicke featuring T.I. & Pharrell


34- "E.T." - Katy Perry featuring Kanye West


33- "One Dance" - Drake featuring WizKid & Kyla


32- "Love Yourself" - Justin Bieber


31- "All of Me" - John Legend


30- "Sorry" - Justin Bieber


29- "Psycho" - Post Malone featuring Ty Dolla $ign


28- "Moves Like Jagger" - Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera 


27- "Tik Tok" - Kesha


26- "Happy" - Pharrell Williams


25- "Sexy and I Know It" - LMFAO


24- "Dark Horse" - Katy Perry featuring Juicy J


23- "Royals" - Lorde


22- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott

21- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello

Top 100 MOST POPULAR Songs of the 2010s: 60 - 41

This week we're going through the most popular songs of the 2010s. Today's post sees us crossing the halfway point and begin the sprint towards the finish line. If you're jumping in halfway through, this is essentially the capstone to my major Billboard Project that I spent a good majority of last decade on. I have charts and lists for every year and decade in the archives of this blog for you to check out if you haven't already. In regards to methodology, today I will emphasize the fact that for songs caught between decades, I included the full run in the decade where they got the most post. That applies to the very first entry in this section. Yes, "Bad Romance" was released in 2009. But it got more points in 2010, which is it's here. Check out the first part for details on the other points. Yes, this only tracking the top 10. No, I don't have access to official chart points from Billboard, so I invented my own tracking system. And yes, 2013-2019 is weighted more harshly because Billboard decided in February 2013 to include YouTube views into their formula. That made a significant difference. With all of that out of the way, let's jump right into part three of five of this decades list.

60- "Bad Romance" - Lady Gaga

59- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille

58- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD

57- "Trap Queen" - Fetty Wap

56- "Grenade" - Bruno Mars

55- "Firework" - Katy Perry

54- "Can't Feel My Face" - The Weeknd

53- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin

52- "Fancy" - Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX

51- "Thinking Out Loud" - Ed Sheeran

50- "Starboy" - The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk

49- "Hello" - Adele

48- "California Gurls" - Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg

47- "Love the Way You Lie" - Eminem featuring Rihanna

46- "Just the Way You Are" - Bruno Mars

45- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi

44- "Someone Like You" - Adele

43- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo

42- "Locked Out of Heaven" - Bruno Mars

41- "Shake it Off" - Taylor Swift

Top 100 MOST POPULAR Songs of the 2010s: 80 - 61

This week we are diving back through the 2010s decade in music, revisiting the most popular songs that either enriched our souls or were the bane of our existence. If you read through the intro in part one of this post, you know the drill. If you're randomly joining the party here in the middle, let me quickly recap. This list is the capstone of my ongoing Billboard Project that I've spent the majority of this decade on. I started with 1958 and now here we are reviewing the 2010s. As far as methodology goes, this is only a tracking of the top 10. Since I don't have access to official chart points, I created my own one-point sliding scale where the top song gets 10 points. Songs that crossed two decades are included in the decade wherein they got the post points. And 2013-2019 is weighted differently than 2010-2012 since February 2013 is when YouTube views became part of Billboard's formula. If you want to a read a slightly more detailed version of that, go read my intro in the first post. But all those technicalities aren't the fun part. Re-experiencing all these songs are! So let's dive into part two of this list!

80- "Diamonds" - Rihanna



79- "Sugar" - Maroon 5



78- "Heathens" - twenty one pilots



77- "Work" - Rihanna featuring Drake



76- "Blank Space" - Taylor Swift



75- "Counting Stars" - OneRepublic



74- "Roar" - Katy Perry 



73- "Airplanes" - B.o.B featuring Haley Williams



72- "Set Fire to the Rain" - Adele



71- "Take Me to Church" - Hozier



70- "Some Nights" - fun. 



69- "7 rings" - Ariana Grande



68- "OMG" - Usher featuring will.i.am



67- "Give Me Everything" - Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer



66- "Hotline Bling" - Drake



65- "Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)" - Cardi B



64- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande



63- "What Do You Mean?" - Justin Bieber



62- "The Hills" - The Weeknd



61- "Nice for What" - Drake

Top 100 MOST POPULAR Songs of the 2010s: 100 - 81

As we move forward into this new decade, there's a lot of uncertainty in regards to what I want to do with this music blog. That said, I didn't want to pass on the opportunity of posting my list of the top 100 most popular songs of the 2010s. This is a capstone, if you will, to what I've spent a good portion of the past decade doing. I started back at the beginning of the Hot 100 in 1958 and went through each year, giving points based on performance in the top 10. Then I posted the results on this blog for each year and each decade, which was followed by me revealing the ultimate goal of posting the most popular songs of all-time, based on my personal tracking. If you're new, you can dig through the archives on the right and find all of that. However, this all felt incomplete without the 2010s being finished. I had to wait a few months for a few songs to finish their runs in the top 10, but now I'm able to final post the results. This gives us all a chance to reflect on all that the world of music brought us this past decade.

A few quick notes in regards to my methodology. Yes, this is a tracking of just the top 10. I recently came up with an expanded tracking system that I think is ultimately more accurate, but I will use that moving forward through this new decade and have not retroactively applied that to previous years as of yet. No, I don't have access to official chart points that Billboard uses, so I created my own simple system where the No. 1 song gets 10 points, with a one-point sliding scale for the rest of the top 10. In regards to songs whose runs were split between two decades, I've included their entire run into the decade where they got the most points. So you'll see some songs from 2009 in this list because they had more points in 2010. There's also a few songs released in 2019, like "Circles" by Post Malone, that aren't here because they got more points in 2020. I waited a few months to post this to specifically determine those cases. Finally, I decided to weight this decade differently. In 2013, Billboard implement YouTube into their streaming tracking. That made a significant difference in the staying power of songs on the charts, so 2010-2012 are weighted slightly different than 2013-2019 in this post. With all of that out of the way, I have this split into five sections. Here's part one!

100- "The Monster" - Eminem featuring Rihanna

99- "Need You Now" - Lady Antebellum

98- "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" - Kelly Clarkson

97- "Watch Me" - Silento 

96- "Black Beatles" - Rae Sremmurd featuring Gucci Mane

95- "I'm the One" - DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper & Lil Wayne

94- "Wow." - Post Malone

93- "Rude" - MAGIC!

92- "Wrecking Ball" - Miley Cyrus 

91- "Don't Let Me Down" - The Chainsmokers featuring Daya

90- "Problem" - Ariana Grande featuring Iggy Azalea

89- "Cheap Thrills" - Sia featuring Sean Paul

88- "Bad and Boujee" - Migos featuring Lil Uzi Vert

87- "Panda" - Desiigner

86- "Break Your Heart" - Taio Cruz featuring Ludacris

85- "Cheerleader" - OMI

84- "In My Feelings" - Drake

83- "Talk Dirty" - Jason Derulo featuring 2 Chainz

82- "Can't Hold Us" - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (feat Ray Dalton)

81- "Dynamite" - Taio Cruz