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
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
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
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
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
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)
The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! This is a weekly post where I cover three main sections of the charts: the Billboard Hot 100 top 10, the songs rising on the Hot 100, and the new arrivals. As pertaining to the rising songs, in order to be included, a song has to rise at least two spots between Nos. 11 and 20, five spots spots between Nos. 21 and 50, or 10 spots between Nos. 51 and 100. As pertaining to new arrivals, I used to dedicate myself to covering every single song that debuted, but that started to burn me out, especially with the high number of album bombs, so I've been a lot more selective recently and so far I've received no complaints. However, if I skip a song that you want to hear my thoughts on, feel free to let me know. I'll occasionally mix things up depending on the week, like throwing in a notable re-entry into the rising songs section, but generally this is what I go with. Most of the data I give you comes from Billboard.com, usually Gary Trust's weekly article. If I pull from elsewhere, I'll generally let you know. With all of that out of the way, let's dive in and see what this week has to offer!
Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "The Box" - Roddy Ricch (=) -- I'm going to be honest, I almost didn't do this post this week. The charts have been so frustrating and toxic that this has almost become a chore rather than something I enjoy doing. And I also feel that the way that track music these days is broken with how many songs just get stuck at the top and don't budge. And I think a big part of the problem is streaming wherein I'm convinced streaming platforms involuntarily shove a whole bunch of crap onto people's playlists and suggestions. Why else would a song as forgettable and boring as "The Box" be on the top for so long. Despite me being upset at the state of music and not seeing a fix or end in site to the mania, I did my due diligence and got this post out. But if you ever see this segment just disappear, you'll know that the charts broke me and I decided to do better things with my life. And if you actually care about reading this post, then speak up. This gets views, but I never get any commentary, so does anyone really care? I'm not going to ask this in my intro on Facebook or Twitter. Just right here for those who actually click the link and read through. If you want this to continue, let me know. 2- "Life is Good" - Future featuring Drake (=) -- See prior comment. Why in the living frack is Future still No. 2? It makes absolutely no sense and actually really angers me. 3- "Circles" - Post Malone (=) -- And I don't mind Post Malone being No. 3 because this song isn't bad, but he's been entrenched here at No. 3 for no real reason other than the radio has nothing better to play, apparently. 4- "Dance Monkey" - Tones and I (+1) -- Here's the first positive this week. "Dance Monkey" climbs up a notch. If this can someone climb ahead of the other three, maybe my faith in the charts might be restored by a slight degree. 5- "Don't Start Now" - Dua Lipa (+1) -- I'd also be down for Dua Lipa doing well. It's exciting that she's in the top five. Is this her highest ever peak on the charts? And does she have good enough numbers to continue to go higher? I hope so. But I actually don't know. We'll see, I guess. 6- "Roxanne" - Arizona Zervas (+1) -- And back to the negatives. Certainly people don't like this song enough to continually stream it every week, do they? That's why the majority of the Hot 100 feels extremely artificial. 7- "Memories" - Maroon 5 (-3) -- And for our first surprise of the week, Maroon 5 takes a tumble. And that's perfectly OK with me. I'm fine with the song, but we should be getting a faster rotation of songs at the top, not this boring molasses where things only change at a snail's pace. 8- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (=) -- Case in point with things never changing. I like this song. More than many people, apparently. But we're running into March and this is still stuck at the top. 9- "Intentions" - Justin Bieber featuring Quavo (+2) -- Thankfully this is only here because of Bieber's album bomb week. Another reason why the charts are broken. Every time someone big releases a new album, the chart explodes with their whole album on the Hot 100. We have two of them this week. There really needs to be a limit to the number of songs that a single artist can debut in a single week. 10- "Blinding Lights" - The Weeknd (+2) -- And we end our top 10 this week on a positive. I'm fine with this song being big, so let's make it happen. Although I'm annoyed that it replaced Billie Eilish. Let's get one of these other songs out of there instead and bring Billie back so we can have both Billie AND The Weeknd.
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Yummy" - Justin Bieber (+8) -- Only rising because of Bieber's album bomb. 14- "Heartless" - The Weeknd (+3) -- "Blinding Lights" hits the top 10, but "Heartless" is stubbornly not going away. And honestly... I kinda want it to. "Blinding Lights" is fantastic. This song is trash. 20- "Adore You" - Harry Styles (+2) -- I'm surprised that this song is managing to stick around. It's not really rising at a very quick pace, but it's also remaining fairly stable. And I think that's a good thing. Harry Styles is struggling to maintain consistency with the general public, yet he's one of the artists that deserves it. 65- "I Hope You're Happy Now" - Carly Pearce & Lee Brice (+12) -- And we jump right from No. 20 to No. 65 in this section. And you'll see why in our new arrivals section. Lots of unnecessary junk showed up. Thankfully most of it isn't going to stick around, meaning this section is going to be big next week... if I decide to do this post. But hey, I'm happy for Carly Pearce being a country girl that is gaining a bit of traction. Although maybe it's more because of Lee Brice being along for the ride. 71- "Chasin' You" - Morgan Wallen (+10) -- Another country song managed to do well in the midst of all the album bomb junk this week. And I'm not so happy about this one. 84- "WHATS POPPIN" - Jack Harlow (+12) -- Why is this gaining steam? Make it stop.
New Arrivals:
16- "No Time to Die" - Billie Eilish -- I'm skipping most of the new arrivals this week. I don't even think an explanation is needed. But I'm definitely going to cover our new Bond song from the upcoming film that looks fun and exciting. I will admit that Billie Eilish doing Bond is a unique choice in terms of the context of the film. Bond is usually upbeat and exciting and it's good to have a Bond song kick the movie off with the right amount of energy, like Adele's "Skyfall." Yet Billie's style is more mellow, emo and dramatic. So I don't know how this will fit with the movie, but at this point I'm not too worried about that. I'm more curious than anything. But the song on its own is a solid song. As a slower ballad with Billie earnestly pleading that there's no time to do, this works rather well. Whether or not this fits in with Bond, this fits in with Billie's discography and I would love to see this do well over the course of the next month or so as we all prepare for a new Bond film. Also, the last two Bond songs both won best original song at the Oscars because the old geezers in the Academy don't know any better than just to always give the latest Bond song the win in that category. So that means a year after Billie swept the Grammys, she has a real chance of getting an Oscar. That's pretty awesome. I'm glad that we've made this girl a superstar. She deserves it. 23- "Numbers" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie featuring Roddy Ricch, Gunna & London On Da Track-- Nope. 24- "Forever" - Justin Bieber -- Nope. 46- "To Die For" - Sam Smith -- Speaking of Bond, Sam Smith's new song is NOT that, but it's funny that he also releases a song with a theme about dying. "No Time to Die" and "To Die For" brilliantly juxtapose each other, at least in terms of the title. And the last Bond song was Sam Smith, so there's that. But anyways, I've always been a sucker for Sam Smith's voice. He always puts a lot of depth and emotion into his delivery, even in cases like this where the lyrics he's singing aren't the most original things ever. But hey, the radio often takes to Sam Smith. If they want to pick up this one and play it ad nauseam, I might be fine with that. 48- "g n f (Give No F--) - Migos, Young Thug & Travis Scott -- Nope. 49 -"Dior" - Pop Smoke -- Had no idea who or what this was, so I checked it out. Don't worry, you don't need to know. It's just another thing that doesn't deserve to exist. 58 - "Me and My Guitar" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie -- Nope. 60- "Go Stupid" - Polo G featuring NLE Choppa & Stunna 4 Vegas -- Nope. 66- "Might Not Give Up" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie featuring Young Thug -- Nope. 73- "Thug Love" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie -- Nope. 77- "After Hours" - The Weeknd -- I'm not a fan of "Heartless," but I love "Blinding Lights." So what's going to happen here? Well, first off it's a six minute song, so there's that. The Weeknd definitely takes his time with this one and I'm not so sure that was the best decision ever. My mind started to wander as I was trying to pay attention to what he was singing. His vocals are also mostly in his upper register, which is one part impressive and soothing, yet another part unintelligible because it's not that easy to understand what he's saying. So yeah, this is a slightly mixed bag here, but I'm going to lean positive because I think The Weeknd is going for a more relaxing, smooth vibe and this can definitely be a pleasant song to listen to when you throw it in the background and listen to it while you do other things. Nowhere close to "Blinding Lights," though. 79- "Ignorantes" - Bad Bunny & Sech -- Nope. 80- "Stain" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie featuring DaBaby -- Nope. 86- "Com Around Me" - Justin Bieber -- Nope. 95- "Cinderella Story" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie -- Nope. 98- "Habitual" - Justin Bieber -- Nope. 100- "All Around Me" - Justin Bieber -- Nope.
