the top ten best hit songs of 2011 (VIDEO)

And here we are - great list to put together, really happy y'all seemed to enjoy watching it, and it's the last of the retro lists finished for the 2010s!

Next up, I've got an episode of Resonators coming so stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2011

You know, I've said a number of times that my favourite lists to make are the top ten hits of any respective year, mostly because I have peculiar taste when it comes to my favourites and any chance to compliment songs people have actually heard... well, it's a nice boost. And once this is done - and with the exception of 2019 - I will have created these top tens for every year in the 2010s, and given that seemingly everyone is doing a retrospective, it does feel nice to place everything back in context.

But really, if you're examining 2011 in any way, shape, or form, it's a year that defies easy contextualization. Generally a really good year - although I still give a slight edge to the best of 2012 and 2015 - but not one that seemed to fit with any specific trends or sounds. If anything, it felt more like a year dominated by personalities, from the dueling pop divas to the rise of Adele's thunderous 21, an album that seemingly defied all expectations with its success. Yeah, rock was kind of non-existent on the Hot 100 - and you could argue hip-hop was kind of a mixed bag sliding through transition from the club boom - but between pop, soul, R&B, and a surprisingly bright year for country, there was a lot to like about 2011. More importantly, it was a year where the great songs were consistently great, where I didn't even have much difficulty filling out a solid - albeit surprising - list of Honourable Mentions. As always, the songs had to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end list in 2011 to qualify, so let's get things started with...

the top ten best hit songs of 2017 (VIDEO)

Always the one that's the most entertaining to put together, a real treat here. Enjoy!

the top ten best hit songs of 2017

So as I said in my last list, I haven't considered 2017 nearly as bad of a year as some critics have, especially when it comes to the hits. Yeah, there was a lot of stupid, misinformed, or just outright offensive garbage that clogged up the charts, and I can see if you weren't willing to dig beyond the top ten you might dispirited in the dreary trap slog, but the truth is that the songs that did break away from that sound or mold - or hell, even a few of the tracks within it - were true gems across multiple genres. Yeah, country struggled in the mainstream this year, but there was real greatness in pop, hip-hop, EDM, R&B, and even some rock-leaning tunes. I wouldn't quite say the overall quality or sheer number of hits is comparable to 2015 or 2012, but it is up there. 

And what surprised me in a great way was the truly amazing hits of this year were strong enough to maybe even reach my year-end list of my favourite songs of 2017, not just the hits! And you know, for as many obscure or weird albums as I cover and then love, this is still a great feeling, that sometimes quality does win out and rise to mainstream prominence for everyone to share, and that's good for culture everywhere! Yeah, I know some of these picks might be controversial - especially in my Honourable Mentions - but as always they debuted on the year-end Hot 100 for 2017, and I did manage to find some quality here. So let's start with the Honourable Mentions, particularly one that if you saw my worst hits last year might shock you a bit...

the top ten best hit songs of 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this was certainly fun to make - genuinely curious if it ends up blowing up as much as it did last year, given how wonky this year was, so we'll see!

Next up, working on that big top 50 list, so stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2016

So for those of you who saw my last list, you might have caught my general assertion that 2016 was not good for the Hot 100. And here's the deeper truth: the bad songs, while there were more of them, they weren't the sort of atrocious that keeps you up at night, at least not as a whole. Despite how angry I got, I can think back to a few other years that had far more contemptible songs that would inspire a lot more rage - I think society as a whole has pretty much forgotten that in 2013 Rick Ross teamed up with Rocko and Future to release a song with a verse endorsing date rape - yeah, that was a thing.

No, the bigger problem with the year-end Hot 100 in 2016 is that there was a lot less good songs - we always get a lot of mediocrity but this was a year where the pickings were very slim. On the one hand, it makes this list pretty easy - very little to cut - but at the same time in stronger years, like 2012 or even 2015, I'm not sure how much of this list would have measured up. Many people made that same observation back in 2014 - I didn't, mostly because I genuinely found a lot to like about my list that year - but I'm not denying it for 2016, especially because the majority of songs that will make this list were originally released in 2015 and only became hits this year. If that's not the most glaring indictment on pop in 2016, I don't know what is, and what gets all the more infuriating is that the mediocrity clogging the arteries of this year kept otherwise great songs from catching on, especially in country music which despite big improvements even on the Hot 100 practically disappeared for the year end. 

But again, it had to land on that list, and it's a thin list indeed... but still, it wouldn't have made this list if I couldn't defend it being here, so let's start with our Honourable Mentions!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 5, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, that was okay. Little late to blast this episode, but here it is.

And speaking of late... well, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 5, 2016

I was expecting this week to be busier than it is. I mean sure, it wasn't exactly a quiet week - new number one, a bunch of new arrivals and some considerable jumps around the chart - but I was oddly expecting more. Turns out one of the biggest factors that I was expecting - Kanye's big release - actually made no impact, because he kept it TIDAL exclusive, which Billboard doesn't count. And as for the Grammys... well, maybe it's just me, but with a few exceptions, it actually seemed more reasonable.

the top ten best hit songs of 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, this was fun to put together. Yeah, a few minor glitches, but it did come together in a hurry more than I'd otherwise like (mostly because I'm travelling atm and have limited Internet/computer time). Interesting to see all the controversy about my #1 pick, but you always get that sort of thing.

Anyway, now to focus on the Top 50 Songs of 2015, so stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2015

Of all of the lists that I put together throughout the last weeks of the year, this is probably my favourite, because it's where I feel the most populist. It's the acknowledgement at listing the absolute worst hits that there is good stuff that deserves attention too, and that the mainstream public actually agreed. And 2015 really was a good year. Yeah, hip-hop and country in the mainstream struggled, but there were a lot of great pop songs pulling on rock, synthpop, funk, and even R&B. And while I wouldn't say this year's hits are quite as strong as a year like 2012 or 2011, it handily beats the last two years I've been putting together this list not just in number of great songs, but their quality. And again, the songs had to land on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 - the deep-cuts and stuff outside the mainstream, that's coming next - but this was the good stuff that got popular.

So let's start with our Honourable Mentions, shall we?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 12, 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, that took longer than I wanted it to... eh, I'm still getting used to the new format (that's why I made that stupid Cole Swindell mistake... gah, two weeks in a row, get your game together, dude).

Next up, need to tackle some old business before dealing with Coldplay, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 12, 2015

It's the calm after the storm, the time of year where everything seems to fall back into place after frantic reshuffling to make it appear that the onslaught never really happened and all is right with the world.

Why, yes, I'm talking about Adele taking back chunks of the chart from Justin Bieber, why do you ask? Okay, snark aside, while everyone predicted there'd be chunks of Adele's new album breaking onto the Hot 100, it's not as pervasive as you'd expect, and along with plenty of returning entries and chart shuffling, it's more indicative that Bieber and to a lesser extent One Direction didn't have the same staying power.

video review: '25' by adele

Well, it's good, but I see this review being controversial still. Gah, whatever.

Next up... oh god, Billboard BREAKDOWN and all of the Justin Bieber... hold on, folks, this is going to be a rough start to a new year...

album review: '25' by adele

The year was 2011. The club boom was nearing overexposure in the mainstream, and flashy electro-pop artists were ruling the airwaves. Country was awash in lightweight southern pandering that would degenerate into bro-country, the Young Money crew were ruling mainstream hip-hop, and the indie rock scene was on the precipice of exploding. It was a year in flux, with nobody quite certain what would come next...

In other words, the timing was damn near perfect. People had known about Adele before - a soul singer beloved by the Grammys, known for a remarkably poised if a little tepid debut album that had given us 'Chasing Pavements' - but in 2011 she blew the pop paradigm apart. And while some would inevitably accuse her of middle-brow pandering and that her music was ultimately not as experimental or ground-breaking as many made it out to be - which in retrospect is kind of true - it's also hard to deny that 21 resonated on a deeper level with an enormous audience. And it wasn't just listeners - who made the record the best selling album of the year two years running, bringing impossible profits to Adele's indie label XL - or the Grammy wins and critical acclaim - the success of 21 marked a major shift in pop music. The club boom collapsed, old-school R&B and neo-soul surged back into the mainstream, and pop stars tried to work heavy percussion and reverb to follow the sound even if they couldn't match the emotion.

And here's what I find perplexing: as much as I can see why Adele's 21 resonated with audiences - it's accessible, different without being too weird, powerfully emotive yet with enough class and restraint to get uncomfortable - the album as a whole is a harrowing listen. It's dark and heavy, furiously bitter and heartbroken, and the more you dive into Adele's subject matter the more the complicated swirl of loneliness, rage, regret, and grief becomes hard to bear. And yet even with that it's one of those albums that might work better in pieces than as a whole - there are some wild tonal shifts, a few deep cuts can't quite match the power of the singles, and there are instrumental choices that don't quite fit with the overall atmosphere. In other words, a damn good album, maybe even a great one, but I'm not sure I'd say that it would make one of my year-end lists.

And now four years later, Adele is finally back with 25 - and while I was definitely excited, I had some reservations here. For one, I saw the list of producers: Greg Kurstin, Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth made sense, they've been working with this brand of reverb-touched pop music for years now, and I could maybe even understand Danger Mouse and The Smeezingtons, given Adele's influences, but Max Martin and Shellback? They only show up on one song, but it was enough to suggest that Adele might be going in a very different direction... and in a sense that's probably the right choice than trying to directly imitate what she did on 21. But the larger point is that Adele is returning to a pop world that she helped shift, and while opening tracks like 'Hello' had a ton of promise, it's hard to follow-up a record that shattered the paradigm like 21 did. There was a lot riding on 25 - did Adele pull it off?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 14, 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, this was late, but eh, it happens.

Okay, we've got a lot coming, let's see if I can handle some old business quickly. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 14, 2015

Well, I'd like to say that I called it... but let me be honest here: I didn't call all of it. And really, if you had seen any of the sales data or streams or just simply checked YouTube, you could have predicted this. What caught me a bit off guard wasn't just that we got our new #1, but that we got a new #2 right behind it, a one-two punch we haven't seen this year!