10. Rockabye – Clean Bandit featuring Sean Paul & Anne-Marie (#9 for 1 week, March)
Americans still have a small problem getting on board with international hits. While we were going through a two year stretch of highly popular Caribbean-influenced hits (see Cheap Thrills and One Dance from last year as well as 9, 3 and 1 below), this particular version which went to #1 everywhere could barely crack the top ten here and did so about four months late. Rockabye adds a little bit of a synthy twist to the generic dance hall track. Plus, there’s a strange sort of All That She Wants vibe going on here (speaking of international #1 hits that didn’t make it in the States) with this being a song about actual babies and not the usual Sweet Child O’ Mine use of children as metaphor. But for EDM, there is a lot to like here with a couple of memorable riffs and some nice vocal acrobatics.
9. Havana – Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug (#2 for 5 Weeks, November)
More Caribbean music. Havana probably has the nicest and cleanest melody of any song from the year. The declining scales of this song are instantly recognizable (contrast: some people I know still think they are hearing Cheap Thrills whenever Shape of You comes on). Cabello is also an able vocalist and her sensibility fits the song perfectly, though coming up as she did in the reality TV biz, she can be a little too focused on the appearance of authenticity more than the core authenticity itself. Plus, the song is a little dry for a song that should be dripping with humidity. This may have also been a summer song that was mistimed in the marketplace. Of course, summer wouldn’t have likely been a good fit this year, but maybe in ’18.
8. There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back – Shawn Mendes (#6 for 1 Week, August)
If Ed Sheeran is trying to score a hit in every genre (Castle on the Hill is U2-inspired rock, Perfect is his 80s duet, A Team was an indie guy rock single, Sing was a club banger, etc.) Then Shawn Mendes is trying to perfect the art of being what Ed Sheeran would be if he stuck to his own genre. In this case, a white rocker-y dude recording an upbeat AC/A40 type song. This, of course, is a genre that often gets overlooked these days. Mendes delivers a very nice, very straightforward track about getting started at a time when everyone else seems more interested in mopey introspection. This is harder to do and the youth of 2017 need a song like this as between the Caribbean influences and icy R&B, there’s not a lot of homegrown sunshine.
7. XO TOUR Llif3 – Lil Uzi Vert (#7 for 1 Week, June)
The second top ten ever to start with the letter X, this track is about as much of icy cold R&B as I can take. Partly this is because it is a direct contrast with 4 below. But Uzi sounds like he is entirely alone in a sonic world of his own design. The contast refrain “Push me to the edge / All my friends are dead” could be the rallying cry of a generation that has grown up without jobs, without real intimacy, without developing real relationships. It took me forever to even guess what the title meant, but here’s my theory (which may well be wrong because I haven’t Googled): the title here is a text message replete with strange caps and misspellings where Uzi is discussing his feelings about Tour Life (the X and O are the hug and kiss). How alienating and how deeply sad. But the reason this was popular and resonates is that this is common and I’ll pick this thread up again in 4 below.
6. That’s What I Like – Bruno Mars (#1 for 1 Week, May)
Another great Bruno Mars throwback track. This one is harder to pin down to any specific era or set of musicians. I guess we’re just gonna have to keep ranking and enjoying Bruno’s tunes. (With this listing Bruno Mars joins Rihanna, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry and Maroon 5 with three top ten appearances on my year-end list since 2006. Only Taylor Swift (5) and Lady Gaga (6) have more. And that doesn’t include Uptown Funk!)
5. Believer – Imagine Dragons (#4 for 2 weeks, August)
You can always count on Imagine Dragons to do something interesting even if it is not necessarily novel. This song is the closest they’ve come to replicating the success and formula of their massive hit Radioactive, but where that trades in nihilism, this one trades in hope and is better for it. But it is just as anthemic and just as angry at a corrupt system, which is a defining feature of pop with messages here in 2010s. Furthermore, many of lyrics pick-ups here rival the syncopated beats of some lower constellation rappers – which means more words and more fun memorizing. (Contrast: Gucci Gang where the words Gucci Gang comprise half the song.)
4. 1-800-273-8255 – Logic featuring Alessia Cara & Khalid (#8 for 4 weeks, September)
If XO TOUR Llif3 is a call for help, this phone number is there to answer it. Cara and Khalid were two of the biggest top 40 stars this year and Logic picked them both to back-up him up on this almost orchestral moody dark R&B pop track. This one is about the real struggle with depression and how your brain becomes your own worst enemy. But even through this long dark night of the soul, Logic points to an oasis of hope. The song’s title is the phone number for the national suicide prevention service. I know so many people who have taken their lives so young by failing to understand the difference between the world outside their brains and the world inside. I feel quite moved as this song enter the fourth minute and begins to fall apart – a true artistic statement that suffers only from choice of medium. But if it gets the message out there, #4 is the reight spot for it.
3. Shape of You – Ed Sheeran (#1 for 12 weeks, January)
It is the following January. This song is still in the top 25. Popularity isn’t the only thing, but it is an important piece. As mentioned earlier, this is Sheeran’s Caribbean dance hall song. And while you may bemoan his focus on a girl’s shape… he is not proscriptive. Any shape is good enough as long as it inspires, er, lust in the viewee. Now you can dismiss this as body image focused, and you are more than welcome to, but a lot of early love (infatuation) is determined by just such stupid forms of attraction and pretending it doesn’t is counterproductive. This song is definitively about the time in a relationship before you really know any better.
2. Feel It Still – Portugal. The Man (#4 for 2 Weeks, November)
Powerful and driving, Fell It Still shows what happens when you give the whole bag of tricks to someone who is truly willing to experiment. The falsetto and retro instrumentation (coupled with the lyrics which are also backwards looking) add up to dance song that pretty much cannot be beat. There is something even a little James Bond-y about the orchestration, and the Please Mr. Postman sample, well, its always hard ot argue with Holland-Dozier-Holland track even if it just has one Holland. Look just go listen to it and tear up the floor.
1. Despacito – Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber (#1 for 16 Weeks, May)
Lyrically, this song of seduction and female infatuation probably has everything over Shape of You’s blunt and not particularly awesome lyric set. But, as someone who doesn’t speak or comprehend Spanish, all I can do is wonder. But the beat is amazing… in a year when the president has chosen to go after Spanish speakers as foreigners (and refuses to help Puerto Rico), a Spanish-speaking track tops our charts for the longest run ever (tying a Carey-Boyz 90s track). Even if you cannot sing along, Despacito united dance floors, car radios, Beliebers, and commentariat for amazing summer. #1 may not quite be good enough for it.
Runners-up: Body Like a Back Road – Sam Hunt, Fake Love - Drake, HUMBLE. – Kendrick Lamar, Scars to Your Beautiful – Alessia Cara
One more thing: Dead last on my list this year was Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Do. (Even behind Drake’s Portland and Yo Gotti’s Rake It Up). Why? Absolving yourself of personal responsibility and being petulant about being revealed as a liar and a carefully composed fraud is not the kind of thing I like listening to. It felt like a White House pressing briefing set to I’m Too Sexy. Probably the worst #1 hit since Harlem Shake. (Sorry, Sams, I know you’ll pick something else as worst #1 and I’m fine with that, but I had to say got burned too badly by this one.)
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