r/popheads • u/raicicle • Feb 05 '22
[REVEAL] The Top 100* Tracks of 2021, according to r/popheads
We are finally here: welcome to the reveal of the Top 100* tracks (there are actually 101, due to a tie in votes!) of 2021, as voted by you, the sub!
The reveal starts in just under 1 hour, at 2PM PST/5PM EST/10PM GMT! It will be happening over at Beatsense in our rates room. If you're used to plug.dj, this isn't too dissimilar. You don't even have to make an account to follow along, although definitely do and chat along! Avoid downvoting if you can since it skips songs. It's gonna be a long night (about six hours or so), so pop in and out at any time you want, but make sure you're here for the big reveal of the Top 10.
After every 25 songs get played on the plug, I'll be posting the writeups for that quarter of the list (and lots of amazing people have helped with the writing, so please give them a read). You can read the list from the top here. It will be continually updating, and I will post links to each individual segment too.
Intro & Honorable Mentions | 101-76 | 75-51 | 50-26 | 25-1 | Full List
Thanks for coming, everyone!
Apple Music Playlist of Top 100
Spotify Playlist of Songs #102 to #151
Thanks to everyone for sending their votes in, offering to write and coming along to the reveal and generally helping out! I hope you've enjoyed yet another year of our list extravaganza. Please, please take the time to read the writeups that people have done, they're all great! For those still doing writeups, I'll carry on updating the list with them whenever they come in, so don't worry! Once again, thanks all!
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u/Dancing_Clean Feb 06 '22
No Jazmine Sullivan đ
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u/iAmNotKateBush Feb 06 '22
lmao thats just embarassing
it doesnt help that lost one & PUYF dropped before the deadline
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u/eatingvmint Feb 06 '22
if anyone does a playlist for apple music pls share it here đđđđđ
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Feb 06 '22
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u/Livingon2continents Feb 06 '22
Itâs the top tracks of
#2021
What the hell does recency bias have to do with it? Itâs literally for last yearâŠ.
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Feb 06 '22
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u/ktril89 Feb 07 '22
I didnât realize that Drivers License came out last year so I didnât vote for it đ
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
Thanks everyone for coming along, even if Reddit screwed up a bit. As always, thanks also to all the writers and I hope everyone had a really good time following! Playlists will be up very soon on Spotify, please give the writeups a read on Medium too! Thanks again!!
Full Rankings
1. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
2. Olivia Rodrigo - Good 4 u
3. Charli XCX - Good Ones
4. Japanese Breakfast - Be Sweet
5. Olivia Rodrigo - deja vu
6. SZA - Good Days
7. Doja Cat - Kiss Me More (feat. SZA)
8. Lil Nas X - INDUSTRY BABY (feat. Jack Harlow)
9. MUNA - Silk Chiffon (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
10. Lil Nas X - MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)
11. Silk Sonic - Leave the Door Open
12. Taylor Swift - All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) (From the Vault)
13. Olivia Rodrigo - brutal
14. Caroline Polachek - Bunny is a Rider
15. Lorde - Mood Ring
16. Tinashe - Bouncin
17. Magdalena Bay - Secrets (Your Fire)
18. Magdalena Bay - You Lose!
19. WILLOW - t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l (feat. Travis Barker)
20. Doja Cat - Need to Know
21. CHVRCHES - How Not To Drown (feat. Robert Smith)
22. Japanese Breakfast - Paprika
23. Kero Kero Bonito - The Princess and the Clock
24. Mitski - The Only Heartbreaker
25. Billie Eilish - Oxytocin
26. Halsey - I Am Not a Woman, I'm a God
27. Little Simz - Introvert
28. Magdalena Bay - Chaeri
29. MARINA - Venus Fly Trap
30. Charli XCX - New Shapes (feat. Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek)
31. Lana Del Rey - White Dress
32. Megan Thee Stallion - Thot Shit
33. pinkpantheress - just for me
34. Slayyyter - Over This!
35. Lana Del Rey - Dealer
36. Lil Nas X - THATS WHAT I WANT
37. Porter Robinson - Look at the Sky
38. Aly & AJ - Pretty Places
39. Kero Kero Bonito - Well Rested
40. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club
41. Taylor Swift - Champagne Problems
42. The Weeknd - Take My Breath
43. Chlöe - Have Mercy
44. Jessie Ware - Please
45. Marina - Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land
46. Silk Sonic - Smokin Out the Window
47. Taylor Swift - Ivy
48. Aly & AJ - Symptom of Your Touch
49. Halsey - Easier than Lying
50. Porter Robinson - Musician
51. Adele - To Be Loved
52. Big Red Machine - Renegade (feat. Taylor Swift)
53. Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen - Like I Used To
54. Troye Sivan - Easy (with Kacey Musgraves and Mark Ronson)
55. Billie Eilish - NDA
56. Clairo - Amoeba
57. Lady Gaga - Free Woman (Rina Sawayama & Clarence Clarity Remix)
58. Lorde - Solar Power
59. Lucy Dacus - Hot & Heavy
60. St. Vincent - Down
61. The Weeknd - Save your Tears (Remix) (feat. Ariana Grande)
62. TWICE - The Feels
63. Little Simz - Woman
64. MĂ„neskin - ZITTI E BUONI
65. Mitski - Working for the Knife
66. Slayyyter - Troubled Paradise
67. Snail Mail - Valentine
68. The Kid Laroi - STAY (feat. Justin Bieber)
69. Wolf Alice - How Can I Make It OK?
70. Adele - Easy On Me
71. Japanese Breakfast - Posing in Bondage
72. Tinashe - Undo (Back to My Heart)
73. Jessie Ware - Hot N Heavy
74. BTS - Butter
75. Griff - Black Hole
76. Spellling - Boys at School
77. St. Vincent - The Melting Of The Sun
78. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo de Augustine - Back to Oz
79. Halsey - Honey
80. Lorde - Stoned at the Nail Salon
81. Wolf Alice - The Last Man on Earth
82. Yves Tumor - Jackie
83. Aly & AJ - Slow Dancing
84. Bleachers - Stop Making This Hurt
85. Elton John & Dua Lipa - Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)
86. Regard, Troye Sivan, Tate McRae - You
87. Aespa - Savage
88. Cardi B - Up
89. Cassandra Jenkins - Hard Drive
90. Conan Gray - Overdrive
91. Hikaru Utada - One Last Kiss
92. Lady Gaga - Replay (Dorian Electra Remix)
93. Normani - Wild Side (feat. Cardi B)
94. Poppy - Flux
95. STAYC - ASAP
96. Yola - Stand For Myself
97. aespa - Next Level
98. Doja Cat - Get Into It (Yuh)
99. Nick Jonas - This Is Heaven
100. Troye Sivan - Angel Baby
101. Tyler, The Creator - WUSYANAME (feat. YoungBoy Never Broke Again & Ty Dolla $ign)
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u/chihuahuazero Feb 06 '22
Thank you for hosting! It's always fun to see which songs popheads liked the most.
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
1. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
Thereâs a particularly fun conversation between Billie Eilish and Stormzy for i-D from last year where Billie explains the title of her sophomore album. âHappier Than Ever just felt like such a perfect encapsulation of the last few years of my life. It has so many meanings, itâs a bit sarcastic but itâs also the truth, and it doesnât mean happier than youâre ever going to be, or happier than anyone else, it just means happier than before. It means doing better. And I think thatâs my life the last few years. Iâm growing up, changing, getting better as a person, getting better mentally and creatively. It seemed perfect.â
Itâs interesting to listen to the title track with this in mind. Sheâs said that the song was essentially one of the oldest songs on the record, its original title changed to âHappier Than Everâ then realising that the title was enough to build the concept of an album around. You certainly notice the fact that âHappier Than Everâ the song isnât really about everything she talked about on a higher level in that conversation with Stormzyâitâs a breakup song at the heart of it. Her relationship with an ex is certainly not the only defining feature of the past few years of her life (especially not for someone like Billie whose every detail of her day-to-day and career has been analysed) and yet this song, that shares its name with this album, is a breakup song from a young woman with straight forwardly confessional lyrics and nothing even resembling a treatise on everything that has happened in the past few years of Billieâs life. This is however just an overly traditional take on what a title track is for an albumâhere, Billie is simply offering an Exhibit A example for the concept of the album, before allowing the other tracks to offer variations on the theme and deal with the complexities that it presents, both lyrically and musically.
âHappier than Everâ is about as bombastic as you can get for an Exhibit A (albeit one sneakily tucked in as the albumâs penultimate track) and its popularity reflects that. For the few people who try to predict the positions of songs on this list year on year, I feel like this may be one that people might not have realised would end up at #1 (myself included) even though itâs ended up beating out the second place spot by almost an extra 50% of votes. Part of the bombast is something it shares with the second place spot (Olivia Rodrigoâs âgood 4 uâ) which is rampant guitar revivalism. The song does unassumingly start with some strummed ukulele, a sort of throwback to the sounds of âbellyacheâ with new soul sonic references that are sprinkled vicariously across her sophomore, but itâs fairly obvious that the song has become such a runaway winner for its fire-and-brimstone climax that is a total departure from anything Billie has done before or indeed on the rest of the album. The sound is one thing, joining the likes of Phoebe Bridgersâ âI Know The Endâ for apocalyptic centrepieces that push their live instrumentation premises to their very limits, but Billieâs voice itselfâsomething that never strays too far from its usual default of liquid and ASMR-likeâtransforms into something raw and freshly forged, screams and all. Itâs a new Billie from here on out. âRai
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Feb 06 '22 edited Jan 18 '26
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
2. Olivia Rodrigo - good 4 u
How do you follow up the follow-up to the biggest song of the year? Well, first of all, with âgood 4 uâ and secondly with an entire album the week afterwards. Itâs difficult to really talk about Olivia Rodrigo in any normal capacity anymore just because of how her much her meteoric rise already has been talked and talked about. But as we have all probably realised by now, what âgood 4 uâ gave us was a sense of something beyond just one-off singles and the promise of something cohesive from Olivia Rodrigoâs idea of pop stardom. âThe driverâs license girlâ is probably a reputation any other one-off musician could have had for an entire career. I think she was primed to get hate from the entire premiseâDisney girl with viral success goes into guitar music. The death of rock? Greatly exaggerated. For all the cynicism, the amazing thing is that Rodrigo has really owned it incredibly well, and the likes of NPR concerts from inside a DMV or performances inside Asian grocery stores feel genuine and intimate counter to the narrative that no girl in pop could really escape the narrative of vehicle to pop hits. âgood 4 uâ is every bit a spotless paean to 00s pop-punk as the inspirations that you hear in it (it wears its Paramore influences on its sleeve, but additional optimistic reassessment of 00s Paramore was always a good thing), but strip it down (like in her NPR Tiny Desk) and you hear the impeccable singer-songwriter sensibilities she already has at this point in her career that really bridge the small gap between Paramore and Taylor Swift and manage to match both of them pretty successfully. âRai
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
3. Charli XCX - Good Ones
How do you follow albums like Charli and how iâm feeling now that have helped redefine an entire new sound of pop? You donât. That has essentially Charliâs mission statement in the wake of those projects, now working on her final album with Atlantic Records and essentially reducing the number of fucks she gives from 1 to 0. The campaign for âGood Onesâ was interesting, with levels of irony that folded in on themselves (a newfound dedication to the TikTok machine, tweeting out ârip hyperpop?â straight out). It does, however, work and the discussions around how much of this is fulfilling contractual obligations with her label and how much of it really is just Charli having some fun with straight forward pop songs feels like a moot thing to talk about at all when the results sound this good. Itâs no-frills, but Charli has done no-frills well time and time again from â1999â most recently to really her entire early career (the trajectory from âBoom Clapâ to âGood Onesâ seems a lot more believable if you pretend everything in between didnât happen). It also somewhat sounds like Eurythmicsâ âSweet Dreams (Are Made of This)â updated for a club and/or TikTok challenge, but I see that as a plus more than anything. Who needs frills when you have hooks, choreography and a 2 minute track run time? It feels wrong to even talk about this song more than this, pop really is that simple sometimes and Charli knows it. âRai
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
4. Japanese Breakfast - Be Sweet
It has begun to feel like a rite of passage that genre or indie artists have their turn at writing a capital-P Pop song, see Mitskiâs âNobodyâ and Sufjan Stevensâ âVideo Gameâ (optional: 80s and/or disco references, mandatory: the grumbling of indie purists from the distance). This turn of populism is often the way that several of these artists (see Kacey Musgravesâ pop fandom after âHigh Horseâ) break into the mainstream, so itâs tempting to also say that itâs simply inferior to their past work or has nothing to offer. The counterpoint is that, actually, there is no better showcase of talent than an indie artist saying âI can make a great pop song tooâ. After all, too many indie communities act like the presence of a singable mass-appealing chorus or even the hint of something being viable as TikTok audio means being a sell-out rather than the ability to translate virtuosity and musical complexity into something universal as in the lineage of masterminds like ABBA and Max Martin.
If we go back to Mitski, someone who has continually been grouped with Michelle Zauner as a contemporary, âNobodyâ was as much a deconstruction of a pop song as a pop song itselfâfor its incredibly catchy chorus, the song structure zigged and zagged in unpredictable ways that made it so distinctly Mitski. âBe Sweetâ therefore couldnât really be any more different, the divergent nature of the two artists becoming increasingly more obvious from their gauzy indie roots as their vision (and budget) increases. The song plays its 80s references straight and has a level of pop appeal primed for buzzing live energy that many pop musicians would die to have once in a career. The lens of indie artists doing a pop song does often give a certain something that pop musicians would do good to learn from: mixing that keeps a band feel to the benefit of the songâs brilliant elastic bassline, the fun in experimenting with its call-and-response second verse, Zaunerâs accomplished but raw vocals which make the âBe sweet to me, baby/I wanna believe in youâ refrain so fizzy and emotionally believable (and probably one of the most fun singalongs of the year, see further down the list to MUNA and Phoebe Bridgersâ âSilk Chiffonâ for another in the same vein). Look to Japanese Breakfastâs Jimmy Fallon performance of âBe Sweetâ, with the frothy fun of neon sets and alien bartenders, and you can definitely see Zauner as something beyond just band frontwoman or popstar, but someone with the appeal of both and her music existing in a space greater too. âRai
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
5. Olivia Rodrigo - deja vu
How do you follow up the biggest song of the year? Well, with a song just as big (almost). The pretty impressive Billboard #3 peak of âdeja vuâ was Olivia Rodrigoâs victory lap around the viral circuit of early 2021 (to be followed by further laps). Itâs impressive how fruitful the creative collaboration between Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro ended up being throughout 2021, a producer whose work with the likes of Caroline Polachek and Conan Gray has subtly pushed on the limits of mainstream pop, or at least theoretically if either Caroline or Conan managed to break through into the mainstream at all. Of course, the theoretical is now very much realised now, and maybe itâs too subtle in âdeja vuâ. But as Olivia has attested, when the song launches into its chorus with wailing distorted noise, it doesnât really seem like that attractive a moment in any standard pop song at all, let alone one from someone who was supported to be a one-hit wonder with a serviceable Lorde impression as her detractors might say. Itâs something straight out of the Radiohead playbook, even if that is a reference that feels useless in the context of a Olivia Rodrigo songâif only because it does Rodrigo no favours to her own merits.
Thereâs something slightly humorous in its references to Glee and listening to Billy Joel, mostly in that it does make sense entirely coming from an 18-year-old. For all the trendiness and indie cred that Olivia has managed to win over in critical circles, there is a naĂŻve Gen Z glean to lyrics like these that gives her the primary appeal to her age group and is a reminder that this is just the beginning of her career. Thereâs a lot to look forward to in the future, thatâs clear enough. âRai
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
6. SZA - Good Days
Despite SZAâs modest presence this year (although, yes, sheâs still managed to be inescapable), itâs telling that her solo December 2020 release in âGood Daysâ has managed to keep peopleâs attention even after a full year of stacked music releases. The song which was first teased at the end of the music video for last yearâs âHit Differentâ quickly overshadowed that songâs fanfareâand itâs not hard to see why. Itâs not an obvious single pick compared to the Neptunes-assisted contemporary R&B sheen of âHit Differentâ, but âGood Daysâ and its echoes of Ctrlâs dreamiest cuts like âBroken Clocksâ and âThe Weekendâ solidified it as a bonafide classic in her discography.
It is in many ways the exemplary SZA song, whose brand of R&B has always stood out when it leans on atmospherics and translucency. Shimmering guitars doing their best impression of wind chimes, with stadium-sized record and echo, gives us one of the most hypnotic instrumentals of the year, but vitally itâs the space provided between the pulses of the songâs minimal beat that allows SZA and her distinctive stream-of-consciousness melodies a chance to flow without interruption. There are echoes of Frank Oceanâs Blonde here for sure (who SZA apparently asked to feature on a remix of this trackâitâs still not too late to manifest this for 2022), but certainly parts of this track almost resemble spoken word set to music, or psychedelia, or folk, rather than the R&B of her contemporaries and the song as a whole makes a compelling case for why, despite how often she really has been imitated by other artists, no-one really has beat SZA at what SZA does. The lyrics themselves? A rumination on a breakup, but peppered with a wistful optimism that makes it feel ever so slightly more mature than some of her more acerbic moments on Ctrlânow on the other side of the therapistâs office, in a sense. Some of the yearâs biggest musical moments have dealt in the extremes of love (with musical dramatics to match, from ten minute versions to pop punk revivals), so there is a lot to be said for SZAâs inward looking contemplations (and slightly wonderful Sufjan-esque biblical references) and the mantra of its chorus, âStill wanna try, still believe in good days alwaysâ. By the time Jacob Collierâs acapella touches come around in the outro to wind down, you might catch yourself and realise just how transcendent four and a half minutes can sound even without the theatrics. âRai
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u/raicicle Feb 06 '22
7. Doja Cat - Kiss Me More (feat. SZA)
In a decade perhaps defined so far by our increasingly shorter attention spans, Doja Cat has done a pretty good job of staying relevant. It seems almost unreasonable the number of times she has gone viral, or a song of hers has become a TikTok trend. âSay Soâ obviously comes to mind as the breakout song of Dojaâs career and perhaps one of the most successful songs propelled by TikTok to date, its sunny funk stylings destined for H&M speaker systems across the globe from the moment it hit (but really elevated beyond just that by the fact that Dojaâs charisma remains uncontainable in whatever musical setting you hit her with).
It feels almost like a cop-out that âKiss Me Moreâ is essentially the exact same thing, but again. And yet, it works the second time round just as well as the first if not better. The production is more intimate and laid-back than its predecessor, the new guitar riffs the most refined weâve heard the soft disco formula played so far.The melodies are played with restraint, Dojaâs raps are decidedly not (catch the deliriously fun adlib Doja does during âI feel like fucking somethingâ), and SZAâs guest appearance is perfect as the two have great energy together (the same energy Doja also channelled with Saweetie on âBest Friendâ this year too). The song is another little moment in general for SZA too, who has increasingly made her way onto a variety of features, and its perhaps for the best that this is now her most notable pop feature and not âWhat Lovers Doâ. The nods to Olivia Newton-Johnâs âPhysicalâ work well too, giving the song extra ways to lodge itself into your brain permanently without being too obvious about it (after all, the song never actually approaches 80s synth pop territory). I would have said that itâs a shame this song really never had a TikTok moment like âSay Soâ did out of the other comparisons with that song, but even then, I just remembered the existence of âKiss Me Moreââs entertainingly unhinged limp wrist trend that was going around. âRai
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u/timmotree Feb 07 '22
Okay but Tinashe at #16 đ