The Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 2016 REDUX

 

The Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 2016 REDUX

Yup. it’s here. I’m not gonna get into why I’m redoing some of my old lists because I already went off about that in my worst list redux, so this intro will be a bit more focused on the trends in 2016 and my personal experiences with the music that year.

I still stand by my point that 2016 is overhated for pop music. Sure, hip hop didn’t have a great year, but if you knew where to look, you could find stuff to like! And I honestly think pop had a very strong year, even if some of it hasn’t aged particularly well. And then country, despite having a really strong year for quality, was basically absent from the year-end list. But let’s get to the big elephant in the room as to why I like this year so much: 2016 was also the year I started following American Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest, the first music chart I ever followed. 2016 was very defining for my music taste and growth as a listener (perhaps not as much as 2017 was but still), so the best songs this year gave me a nice little dose of nostalgia, which is always nice. There are many songs here I have a lot of nostalgia for, including some songs that I ended up having to cut from this list, even with my expanded honorable mentions list! I could literally make a top 25 of this list and still have a full 10-song honorable mentions list!! If you read through my original 2016 best list, I do encourage you to still read through this one because while for the most part there aren’t that many shakeups, there’s still some changes I think that are worth noting.

Enough rambling, now on with the list! As the criteria for selecting songs for this list, as detailed in my worst list redux, the songs had to debut on the year-end list for 2016, but if a 2015 repeat finished higher on this year-end than in 2015, it’s also eligible. But (now this additional rule will probably confuse you but try to understand me here) if the repeat finished in the top 20, it can be eligible whether or not it’s higher here than in 2015, BUT, if the top 20 is lower, the repeat had to have hit a higher peak OR matched its peak in the previous year this year. Hopefully that makes sense, and let’s kick this off by taking a look at  how my original 2016 best list from 2021 looked like?

MS:H

One Direction - Perfect

Travis Scott - Antidote

Thomas Rhett - Die A Happy Man

Justin Bieber - Love Yourself

Zara Larsson & MNEK - Never Forget You

The Weeknd - In The Night

Ariana Grande - Into You

10. Adele - When We Were Young

9. Fifth Harmony f/Ty Dolla $ign - Work From Home

8. Selena Gomez - Hands To Myself

7. Hailee Steinfeld & Grey f/Zedd - Starving

6. Justin Timberlake - CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!

5. Justin Bieber - Sorry

4. Charlie Puth - One Call Away

3. Twenty One Pilots - Heathens

2. Twenty One Pilots - Ride

1. Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out

Yeah...there are some big changes I can already see just looking at this list haha. But let’s see which takes hold up and which dont now, why don’t we? And what better place to start than with our honorable mentions?

HM #1: Thomas Rhett - Die A Happy Man (YE: #64, PEAK: #21)

Yeah, if “Peter Pan” by Kelsea Ballerini was a hit in 2016 like it should’ve been, it would very likely fill this slot instead, but I’ve always really liked “Die A Happy Man”, for as much as it is a pale ripoff of “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran. But I still like this more than “Thinking Out Loud” honestly, and I think I’d attribute that to two aspects: the country production adds a bit more color to the instrumentation and Thomas Rhett’s delivery being really sincere to match it (not that Sheeran wasn’t sincere in “Thinking Out Loud” but here Rhett’s sincerity shines through more in my opinion). Yes, it’s generic boyfriend country, but for what this is, I do think this actually works really well.

HM #2: Beyonce - Sorry (YE: #71, PEAK: #7)

You have no clue just how badly I wanted to put this song on this list, even if it’s just the honorable mentions, because this is literally so good. The song has a relatively simple premise, it’s just a kissoff that Beyonce sells with a bunch of swagger and  dismissiveness that Bey could sell in her sleep. This basically works in all the ways “Single Soon” by Selena Gomez from 2023 really didn’t. While “Single Soon” tried to play in the same kissoff territory as this does, the D-tier Midnights-ripoff of a production made it feel like it was trying to be “Want U Back” by Cher Lloyd if it was played without a hint of irony. And that too, here Beyonce actually seems justified in dumping this guy!! He stays out too late and comes up with the worst excuses. But hell, even if this song’s content was framed just like in “Single Soon”, where Bey just wants to dump the guy because she’s tired of this toy and wants a new one, “Sorry”’s minimalism puts the focus on Beyonce’s charisma and actually makes this feel anthemic! Plus that final line just serves as the nasty burn for this guy for (I think) cheating on Bey, yeah bitch, you better call Becky with the good hair. Great stuff!!

HM #3: Selena Gomez - Hands To Myself (YE: #56, PEAK: #7)

Oh god...this song was REALLY high on my original list and it spawned maybe my most embarrassing review I ever wrote, where I was too scared to admit I found Selena hot (I’m still embarrassed to admit this fact lol). And yeah, this has shrunk on me a bit, but I do still really like the song. Sure, the backing vocals from Julia Michaels kinda make this feel weirdly claustrophobic, but I do think this song has Gomez’s strongest delivery to date outside of her Kygo collab. The production allows for Gomez’s limited range to shine here. YouTube critic Diamond Axe Studios has described her vocals as having “a venir of shy passiveness masking an intense fiery smolder waiting to be unleashed” when describing her 2023 remix of “Calm Down” and I’d argue that she fulfills said role really well here. Yes, the production is really doing a lot of heavy lifting here to make it work, especially on the prechorus, where there is some genuine swell being built up and she genuinely sounds really good on that part. No, it’s not Selena’s best song, I doubt anything will top “It Ain’t Me” for me, but I still think this is great.

HM #4: Mike Posner - I Took A Pill In Ibiza (Seeb Remix) (YE: #15, PEAK: #4)

I’ve always liked this song, but for the longest time I figured every critic on their best lists for this year was being super pretentious. Then I listened to the lyrics and...wow, this is possibly the saddest dance song of 2016. It’s a song where Mike Posner sings about how him being a one-hit wonder has fucking wrecked his life and mental health - right from the very first lyric you can feel how pathetic of a life Posner has been living after his brief run of hits in the early 2010s. And yeah, those earlier hits were pretty bad. But hearing Posner talk about how his name is just a reminder of a pop song people forgot and him just being a singer who already blew his shot made him resonate on a deeper level than him whining about a girl he approaches at a club rejecting him for being cooler than him on “Cooler Than Me”. This song is where all the wallowing in patheticness actually works for Posner and it was a moment in which that wallowing felt, for once, earned. Coupled with the tropical house production that succeeds in intensifying the emptiness that briefly being successful only to be forgotten brings you. Yeah, I may have always liked this but while it did take some time for me to fully grasp the sadness of this song, it eventually got there for me.

HM #5: Flume f/kai - Never Be Like You (YE: #60, PEAK: #20)

There isn’t much for me to say about this song but it’s still great. kai’s vocals sound genuinely beautiful and there’s a strange sort of beauty in Flume’s production as well. It’s experimental and weird without a doubt, but not in a way where the emotion gets undercut. In fact, I’d argue the production only amplifies the emotion more than anything. Yeah, great little track.

HM #6: Charlie Puth - One Call Away (YE: #43, PEAK: #12)

I stand by my opinion in my original list, this is the most overhated song of 2016. I’ve always thought this was genuinely an adorable song where even its more cringeworthy moments make it more charming - yes, the “Superman got nothing on me” lyric really isn’t as good of a lyric as Puth seems to think it is but in a way, that makes the song really charming to me. Yes, it’s probably about Puth trying to pick up a girl, but I’ve always imagined this song as trying to be your friend or companion when you don’t have anyone else. Yes, it’s pretty damn white and a bit wimpy, but I still really like it, even if in hindsight I was a bit too kind to it by placing it in my top 5 on my original list haha.

HM #7: Justin Bieber - Sorry (YE: #2, PEAK: #1)

Yep, both “Sorry”’s are actually making this list! And yeah, this song did slip significantly for me, partially because Bieber at this point in 2016 didn’t feel like he earned any forgiveness for his, let’s call them eventful, mid-2010s, but I do genuinely love this still. The production from Skrillex is top notch here, even if the drop feels a bit thin, and the horn flourishes sound really good here! No, I don’t think it’s his best song, since in recent years he has made “Ghost”, which I genuinely consider one of my top 5 favorite songs of all time. But this is still excellent.

HM #8: The Chainsmokers f/ROZES - Roses (YE: #27, PEAK: #6)

I was a bit stunned when relistening to the 2016 year-end list how much this really worked for me. Don’t get me wrong, I did like this song back when I made my original 2016 lists, but I remember at the time something about ROZES’s vocals didn’t really fully click for me, but wow, when listening to this, I was soooooooooooooooo wrong back then. Her vocals have an odd high feeling aura to them that adds some beauty to the song. But enough stalling, the real reason this song made this list is the transition to the drop. It straight up may be one of the best things I’ve ever heard in an EDM song, even if I feel the drop doesn’t fully pull all the build up off. Yeah, this genuinely may be my favorite hit from The Chainsmokers outside of “Paris”, excellent song!!

HM #9: Justin Bieber - Love Yourself (YE: #1, PEAK: #1)

Yeah, this being the YE #1 in 2016 was and still is a bit random haha. But that fact doesn’t really have much to do with the song “Love Yourself” itself. And I’ve always loved this song, it’s more sharply written than it has any right to be thanks to Ed Sheeran. It does a really effective job at painting this girl that Bieber dated as a real piece of shit, and that she can go fuck herself. And the lyric “My mama don't like you and she likes everyone” just really cuts haha. Yes, I think this song probably deserved a more emotive singer, honestly if Ed Sheeran sung this instead, it could’ve probably been even better! But as it is, I’ll certainly take this over the next time Sheeran and Bieber tried to make a song together in 2019’s atrocious “I Don’t Care”, excellent song.

HM #10: Zara Larsson & MNEK - Never Forget You (YE: #46, PEAK: #13)

I’ll start this off by saying that this song isn’t better than “Lush Life”, which really got unfairly robbed in the US. But I think “Never Forget You” is still an incredible song, yes part of it might just be because it’s in D Major haha. But seriously, Zara and MNEK have near impeccable chemistry with each other and that really fits the content, which is about companionship even despite a breakup/distancing between the two people in question. Because when you have a relationship on any scale with someone - be it a friendship, a romantic partner, or even just an undying bond with a family member, however good or bad it may have been, they will always be a part of your life. This song is the best-case scenario of the aftermath of distancing between these two people, they’re both continually on good terms. And then there’s the final chorus where (stealing this point from Spectrum Pulse lol) they somehow pay off a crescendo with handclaps!! The only reason this isn’t in the actual top 10 is purely subjective opinion, because this was a VERY painful cut from the top 10, this is amazing.

So that’s a great start, now onto the list proper...

10...So a few critics seemed to cite this when retrospectively looking back on the pop music this year, but the biggest reason that 2016 was widely panned as one of the worst years for pop music in recent memory was that for current events, let’s just say it, it was a pretty dismal year. And just as I discussed in my research project on the COVID-19 pandemic affected the pop music scene, people turn to music as a distraction and I imagine that the music happening to turn to more darker tones in 2016 while all this batshit crazy stuff was happening was really overwhelming and only proceeded to intensify those terrible events. But honestly, in an age where darker songs are now just as likely to be hits as happier songs, I think this year has honestly aged really well. This for example was one of the best darker songs you could find on the YE for 2016...

10. Adele - When We Were Young The Weeknd - In The Night (YE: #61, PEAK: #12)

This song is The Weeknd’s darker side really working well. While I’d struggle to call it better than songs like “Blinding Lights” or even “False Alarm”, “In The Night” is still incredible. The song delves into the life of a sexual abuse survivor. Where the girl is hearing her abuser’s words in the night because of the trauma it’s faced. She’s turned to being a stripper to escape the pain but she is still left with those tears falling down her face with the dollar bills. The production consists of dark, menacing synths that are as cold and unforgiving as the outside world can be. The Weeknd’s vocals here also sound AWESOME here, heavenly on the prechorus before reveling in all the darkness when that chorus hits. It represents the sharp change that can occur between one day living a happy life and the next day facing a traumatic event that changes your life forever. A stark reminder how in one instant your life could change forever, sometimes for the better, but it can also be for the worse. Yeah, incredible track. It’s definitely not an easy listen, but it’s still a kickass track. And a cold, unforgiving one, too.

9...So in my worst list redux, I put Lukas Graham’s “7 Years” in my dishonorable mentions because of how terribly it fumbles its execution. I only bring it up because that song was about aging and it truly exemplified how you do it wrong. For how you do it right? Well...

9. Fifth Harmony f/Ty Dolla $ign - Work From Home Adele - When We Were Young (YE: #83, PEAK: #14)

This is easily my favorite Adele hit. It feels so timeless in a way where it feels like Adele fully realized her potential here. Adele’s vocals here are head and shoulders above every other song I’ve heard from her. And so many aspects of this song work so well that it’s kinda wild. The piano melody is nostalgic and timeless in the way that a good classic should be. And then the lyrics, which just steal the entire show here; the song is about an encounter Adele has with an old friend she hasn’t seen in years and all the memories just flood back to her. She was scared of getting older, scared of the inevitable realization that your youth has slipped away. After all, time flies by, whether or not you’re having fun. One moment, you’re 11 years old in that 5th grade science camp and struggling to figure out who that girl is that everyone says has a crush on you and fearing the thought of being independent in college one day, the next you’re actually in college starting what might as well be the next chapter of your life. I know, I don’t quite have the life experiences to resonate with this song’s lyrics on such a profound level, but Adele was only 28 when she released this song but this song’s content is so mature I would’ve genuinely guessed that this was written by her grandmother. And I could nitpick here, like how the symbols feel like they’re trying a bit too hard to make this pick up tempo or that Adele’s delivery on the final chorus could be a bit less oversold, but every flaw is so minor that it doesn’t really matter to me. Incredible song, if any Adele song from this year will get hailed as a classic generations down the line, it won’t be “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” or even “Hello” (that song hasn’t aged as well as you’d think), it’s this song.

8...So one song that may have been shocking to see have missed my worst list redux altogether was “Work” by Rihanna featuring Drake, given how much I vehemently detested that song for years. And look, I’m not gonna say I like the song or anything but one day, it came on at my rehab clinic and I had to admit it wasn’t terrible at all, it was actually pretty decent! That said, I’ve always considered this song the better song that utilized the repetition of the word “work”, and if you haven’t figured out what song this is by now, I’m worried for you...

8. Selena Gomez - Hands To Myself Fifth Harmony f/Ty Dolla $ign - Work From Home (YE: #16, PEAK: #4)

This was a defining song of my summer in 2016, and whenever I listen to it, I’m always reminded of that simpler time. The members of Fifth Harmony all have a great sense of playfulness in trying to get this guy fired from his work so they can have more sex at home. But the reason I’m so reminded of that summer in 2016 is that tropical house production. Yeah, I love this song a lot to this day. And people taking issue with this song’s lyrical content are really being too pretentious. I said it.

7...There are a lot of artists on this list that may have made a great enough song to land here, but I still wouldn’t call it their best work, we had Zara Larsson, The Weeknd, there is at least one more artist up next, and we also got Hailee Steinfeld!!...

7. Hailee Steinfeld & Grey f/Zedd - Starving (YE: #94, PEAK: #12)

This is just really cute. I know, the drop is definitely just a bunch of random noises that don’t fit together at all that really make it feel like Grey and Zedd had a fistfight over how the drop should sound and decided to split the difference to rather unsuccessful results. And this doesn’t touch the level of quality of “Let Me Go” or “Capital Letters” (the fact that neither of those were hits is an absolute crime, seriously). But I think Steinfeld really sells her genuine newfound attraction for this guy. Really cute song, call it a guilty pleasure all you want, but I love this! But on the topic of great songs that I still wouldn’t call the artist’s best work...

6...Granted, this is a weird case. I know “objectively” - for whatever that means in music - this isn’t the artist’s best work, but I’ve always loved it, even through all the overplay the song suffered! But going back to some of the defining songs of my 2016 summer...

6. Justin Timberlake - CAN’T STOP THE FEELING! (YE: #9, PEAK: #1)

I know, for as much as I considered JT very overrated, for this song of all his songs to be on my best list probably would invalidate my opinion instantly. But fuck it, “CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!” is just so infectious and fun for me, it radiates constant positivity and summery vibes that just puts a smile on my face and literally makes me wanna dance. I’ll repeat what I said in my original 2016 best list: this song is like if “Happy” by Pharrell Williams was as cheerful and fun as it wanted to be. Yes, it’s radio filler that the radio utterly ate up hard in 2016 to the point where you probably got sick of it, but listen to this with fresh ears, it’s a ton of fun, even if the movie it was from was pretty mediocre.

5... But on the topic of some of my defining 2016 summer songs...

5. Justin Bieber - Sorry Major Lazer f/Justin Bieber & MØ - Cold Water (YE: #25, PEAK: #2)

I have such a random memory of this song: in 2016, during the summer, my dad would take me to swimming lessons and this song was playing on the radio one evening when we were going. When I listen to this, I can practically feel the water splashing on me as I’m jumping into that pool doing freestyles, backstrokes, etc. And yeah, this might be one of my definitive 2016 summer songs just for that fact haha. But I do think this may be Justin Bieber’s best vocal delivery until “Ghost”, to the point where even if he and MØ have less chemistry than you’d like, I still can’t help but immerse myself in all those memories as an innocent 11 year-old. Excellent stuff!

4...These guys literally held all of my top 3 slots in my original best list for one simple reason: if you wanted any act that defined my 2016, there’s no clearer example than Twenty One Pilots...

4. Charlie Puth - One Call Away Twenty One Pilots - Heathens (YE: #21, PEAK: #2)

Granted, I do recognize that in hindsight, putting this way up at #3 was being a bit too kind to this song. But especially when compared to the other Suicide Squad song this year - “Sucker For Pain” - I’ve always thought this captured that haunted and eerie brooding tone that that song wanted but couldn’t get way better. The major reason this works well at all is that it takes its brooding tone and puts some actual energy behind it! Hintitty hint hint, any remaining post-grunge acts, if you are out there, this is how you make it work!! It also helps that Twenty One Pilots have a knack for really catchy hooks that make this really memorable. Yeah, incredible song, this really kicks ass!!

3...Have you ever come across a song that you find so objectively perfect to the point where even its flaws only make it more perfect in your eyes?...

3. Twenty One Pilots - Heathens Ariana Grande - Into You (YE: #51, PEAK: #13)

Yeah, I’m serious, this is genuinely one of the best pop songs I’ve ever heard. This is on a level of perfect akin to “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift, “Don’t You Worry Child” by Swedish House Mafia, “Take On Me” by a-ha, ”Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd, “Rainbow” by Kacey Musgraves, and “Run Away With Me” by Carly Rae Jepsen. And this is a song that while I’ve always loved, did take me a while to recognize this as a perfect song. I wasn’t very wild about how loud the bass was at first, I think, but then everything clicked for me. This is literally so perfect in every way, the fat bass may be too heavy at points, but honestly nothing else could make them work. And then we got the synth crescendos during the bridge that always knock me off my feet in the production to Ariana Grande probably sounding more sensual here than on any other song I’ve ever heard from her. This song (and the others I mentioned) are so high on my 10/10 scale that they’re basically banging on the door of an 11/10 for me (well, other than “Blinding Lights” and “Rainbow” which I do actually consider 11/10 songs lol). But yeah, this is a magical pop song that is at a level of perfection that so few songs can hit that I can count the number of songs I’ve heard that achieve this on only 2 hands. So what two songs topped this masterpiece?

2 & 1...Doing the last two songs together here. I must apologize because the titles of my lists have been lies ever since I started doing them. I pointed out in my article of the top 50 worst songs of all time that there is a key difference between songs you consider the worst of [any time period] and your least favorite songs of [this time period]. The same principle applies to your favorite songs and what you consider to be “objectively” the best songs of all time. These last few years, these top 10 lists have less been “the top 10 best/worst hit songs of [x year]” and more “my top 10 favorite/least favorite songs of [x year]”. If this was truly a “top 10 best hit songs of 2016” list, “Into You” would handedly be my #1 here. But in evaluating my personal favorites of a year, personal significance is always gonna be a huge overriding factor in my evaluation of songs. So what I’m choosing for my top 2 on my best list redux are probably the defining songs of my 6th grade. Two songs I still hold unbelievably close to my heart to this day, relics of an era of my life where I was an innocently huge fan of this band. Yup, Twenty One Pilots may not have had my top 3 this time, but they are still comfortably getting my top 2!...

2. Twenty One Pilots - Ride (YE: #20, PEAK: #5)

In 2016 finding out that I could rap the rap verse here was a defining moment of little 11-year-old  me’s life back then haha. And I’ve gone off about defining songs of my 2016 summer, but “Ride” was arguably the biggest defining song of that year for me, even if I didn’t really think that at the time. I love the reggae influences here and Tyler Joseph’s earnestness here are what really make this song for me. I get that the rap verse is very “lyrical miracle”-esque, but to me I’m always reminded of that happier time in my life when I just sang along to Blurryface-era Twenty One Pilots with my friends without much of a care about what the songs actually meant haha. Yeah, These days, I think I need to take more of my time on my ride. But anyway, what about my #1, “Stressed Out”?

1. Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out (YE: #5, PEAK: #2)

Let me put my personal significance off to the side for just a sec. If there was any song that accurately captured the genuine exhaustion people felt after a rough year in 2016, it was this. The writing strikes a perfect balance of being relatable and universal yet also personal. The public at large likely wished they could turn back time to the good old days, when they didn’t need to worry about slaving away for the simplest amount of money needed to survive, when we didn’t need to remind ourselves to take care of ourselves because we’re just so overworked and burned out we don’t have time to do or even think about doing the shit we love doing. After all, out of student loans and treehouse homes we all would take the latter, right? Even if the “My name’s Blurryface and I care what you think” lyric is a bit...weird to me in hindsight (I’m sorry, even in my TOP stan days I wasn’t really invested in the lore in this band’s music). But anyway, let’s bring my personal significance back into the picture now, those who know me even somewhat well know that I cite two songs as contributing to my overall love of music today; one being this and the other being WALK THE MOON’s “Shut Up And Dance”, when listening to this song, as soon as the chorus hits, I’m immediately transported to 8 years ago (Jesus fucking Christ I’m getting old), when I sang this song with my friends without a care in the world. And for good measure, I’m reminded of how I used to make literal skit videos with fucking Angry Birds toys and I used this song as my intro music (don’t search for these please I deleted them for a reason lol). You know, it’s funny, I touched upon it when reviewing “When We Were Young” by Adele earlier, but one instant you are in 6th grade thinking you got the world figured out and waiting for adulthood to come and letting the smallest, most insignificant mishaps ruin your day, the next thing you know, you’re off in college, longing for just one more day of innocence just so you can take a moment to cherish it. But yeah, “Stressed Out” by Twenty One Pilots, the best hit song of 2016, my favorite hit song of 2016, whatever you may call it. It was the case in 2021, and 3 years later, it still is. As Five For Fighting said in “100 Years”, "You only got 100 years to live”, time just slips away quietly and quickly like sands in an hourglass, huh.

Wow, soo...uh...that got a lot heavier than I expected it to near the end. But yeah, I still find this year extremely overhated for pop music, now the next year I’ll be redoing is 2014, where I’ll be seeing if my take on it being the worst year of pop music of the 2010s still holds true!! Stay tuned for that and until next time, Spotify playlist as always, is right below this article, and with that said, keep it Fire (full credit to SabrinaFan for this signoff lol)!!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2AYx8Y63OeEtxEohXBsP3B?si=24e2f93dd29d488d