Top 10 Best Popular Songs of 2019

I had a rough 2019, to say the least. I got to see Carly Rae Jepsen live, sure, but after that moment, it was all downhill. Something in me definitely snapped that year, and I'm very much in the suspicion that everything after Carly Rae Jepsen's concert is a vivid Brazil-type mental break, what with the relationship drama I'd created, the world literally going to fucking shit, and also apparently I've reapplied to join this organization that rejected me twice (breaking my rule of not going to places or organizations if they rejected you twice) because I realized that if I wanted to be a writer, I needed to be with the best writers I could find (and yeah, that is definitely me complimenting a few people I know but will not name).

So that's my excuse for why this list is so late. I don't usually write reviews and critiques anymore. They're too hard, nobody reads them, and everyone wants an argument afterward. But recently, I've been seeing someone (not physically, however, because quarantine and de-facto martial law and whatnot) who's been really interested in what I've got to say about music, and it's something I haven't heard sober in a while. Like, someone who's legitimately interested in what I know about the music I like, and who openly and honestly likes listening to what I've suggested. She doesn't like them all, but she's willing to listen, enthusiastically so. So I'm kinda making this list for her as like a recommendation list of stuff she can listen to from last year.

If you don't wanna bother with the personal stuff, you can START READING HERE. This is the Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 2019. My criteria is simple: the song has to have been in the Billboard Year-End charts or to have charted in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 to be even considered. I would use the Philippine equivalent, but we don't have that. Clear? Clear. Let's get started!

10. "Lover" by Taylor Swift

I'm late to the game in being a Taylor Swift fan. I didn't like her till reputation, and by that point, fans were leaving her because she was now too famous (and also Kanye). Meanwhile, I was impressed with how personal her music finally sounded. Her other albums felt too overwritten--which is fine for some songs, but mostly it makes her look like a poser. But in reputation, she (knowingly or unknowingly) gets off her high horse and finally shows a dirtier reflection of herself. It revealed a lot of things about her, including the fact that she and Kanye are exactly the same type of ego-driven songwriters as she feared, and it finally freed her to be as petty and miserable as she really felt. The album had some bad songs, but mostly I liked how good the songwriting remained even as she fought her petty battles.

Lover feels like a course-correction from that last narcissistic and spiteful album, with a more happy-go-lucky tone and no unintentional pettiness. It definitely learned from reputation's petty anger with a more righteous one with "You Need To Calm Down," "The Archer," and "The Man," but it also goes back to the 1989 pop aesthetic that she abandoned. It's great, and the balance struck makes Taylor Swift sound like the most holistic she's ever sounded.

"Lover" is good, I guess. Definitely not the best song in the album, but I like how it sounds like jangle pop, like The La's or The Cranberries. The lyrics are typical Taylor Swift: descriptive and emotional. It could be better--I could imagine that not enough people in the studio had the guts to stay "No" when Taylor started yelped "LOOOOOOVER" in the studio--but it's an adequate pop song that feels like a classic Cranberries song.

9. "Talk" by Khalid ft. Disclosure

Khalid was better in his first album. His transition to a pop act feels like a betrayal of his appeal in the first place, which is that he speaks to the sensitivity of the teenage experience so well. That's why songs like "Young, Dumb, and Broke," and "Location" worked: it felt honest, the right balancing act between being an earnest singer and a young person stuck in flux to an unknown future. Recently, he's mostly just been making cheesy pop songs or appearing as the serious singer in contrast to the more famous or more flashy talent, and it's been an utterly disappointing trajectory to see.

Eh, I put three of his songs in my list anyways.

"Talk" is lower than I'd put it in my list because of overplay--for months, I heard this song endlessly in Burger Kings, malls, just everywhere. I had it goddamned memorized by June without seeking it out on YouTube or Spotify. I was definitely tired of it by September--I even stopped going to Burger King because of it.

It's on the list because the song is good. The hook is cheesy, but it's also a good approximation of the tone he used in American Teen. And the clean-sounding cellphone-squeak sounds like the entire song was hummed by R2-D2, which makes the song instantly memorable. It's easy to see why this was as big a hit as it was: it's not boring, but it slots rights in without calling attention to itself.

Khalid and Disclosure are great artists, and it's hard to see them slumming it to material as weak as this. Still, so long as the end product works, it's easy to forgive and just enjoy the moment.

8. "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus

It's still mindblowing to believe that the biggest hit of the year (and the longest-reigning chart hit) is a rap-country song by a rapper with the worst pseudonym since Young Thug and Hannah Montana's fucking dad. Like, what are the chances, huh? And this was like the most controversial song of the year because Billboard didn't consider it a country song, and it seems like a racist thing for them to do that since the only reason they did that was because of Lil Nas X being a non-Nashville rapper making a better rap/country crossover than Nashville ever could (choosing Billy Ray Cyrus as the country feature artist instead of someone like Garth Brooks or Dolly Parton kinda proves that Lil Nas X knew nothing about country music and this song was all accidental magic).

Anyways, yeah, good song. Can't believe that the biggest hit song ever has the Achy-Breaky Heart guy in it. Like, what the fuck even is 2019.

7. "Shallow" by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper

"Shallow" is a great ballad. Great chorus, great build-up, everything just works. Reminiscent of a hair metal ballad from the '80s, but smaller in scale.

Love the song, not interested in talking about it. I'm more interested in talking about that scene in the film where Bradley Cooper's character pisses his pants at the Grammys. I didn't know A Star is Born could be made interesting in the modern age, but yeah, definitely could imagine a drunk rapper or aging rock star piss his pants at the Grammys.

Because of course, that's all I remember from the film, hahaha. (I also remember the very serious alcoholism subplot that the love interest had, but that's because it hit close).

6. "Beautiful People" by Ed Sheeran and Khalid

I hate "Perfect" and "Shape of You" so much. I once had a really enjoyable date where all we did was mock the five or six Ed Sheeran songs that this restaurant played in a row. I watched Yesterday and laughed at the idea of this ginger-haired Englishman being the world's biggest pop star.

And yet I still can't say I hate Ed Sheeran, no matter how mockable he is. I liked "The A Team," "Love Yourself," "Photograph," "Castle on the Hill," and other songs he's written. He reminds me of Jim Croce and I find him a great songwriter and a dynamic performer willing to go to weird places, and I can imagine going to a concert where he plays only an acoustic guitar and enjoying myself greatly. He just feels too famous nowadays, like I can't enjoy his music properly when it's the only music being played (again, a restaurant played five or six of his songs straight).

He seems to feel the same way.

"Beautiful People" seems to be the only good song to come out of his terrible No. 6 Collaborations Project that he released last year, and it's about how he's afraid that being famous will make me a terrible person. The song is judgmental of famous people, like in a way that I would be uncomfortable with if it was applied to a more marginalized group. But how he expands in detail on the shallowness and superficial existence of the rich, LA types really work once he gets to the post-chorus, where he calls himself ugly--which, yeah, Ed Sheeran is like a Muppet brought to life--and wears it like a badge of honor, as if declaring that he refuses to sand down his rough edges to fit in.

Bringing Khalid sells this idea well, if only because Khalid constantly projects honest earnestness even at this more popular stage of his career. It feels like a lament, a cry of help from Ed Sheeran, begging himself to remember his roots so he doesn't become empty and miserable.

His actions, like releasing No. 6 Collaborations Project, suggest that he's losing. But you never know.

5. "bad guy" by Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish's persona scary. I definitely was her growing up, all angst and sadness and creepiness. Usually songwriters like those don't make hit songs, but have you heard "bad guy"?

Like, in any other context, this song would be an indie hit and not a number one hit that finally stopped the reign of giant "Old Town Road". But holy shit, that beat is propulsive, with that bassline so funky and that goddamn clown music at the chorus and the weird, electric laughter in the end. And she sings it with such effortless boredom, I can feel this villainous energy that just scares me.

She seems like a fun, cool person in real life, but damn, I can't wait for her next album. Her ability to project darkness and create an atmosphere of fear within an album is just so impressive I want to see how far she can take it before it crosses a line of either repetitive or try-hard.

4. "Eastside" by Benny Blanco, Halsey, and Khalid

I really want to like Halsey more. She's an Alanis Morissette-type of songwriter who makes these utterly personal songs with great hooks and challenging lyrics. But unlike Alanis, Halsey's music reeks of pretension and overly-polished production. A lot of her work doesn't seem as loose or dirty as you'd expect a songwriter of Halsey's caliber to be.

So, of course, she releases a folk song to prove my opinion wrong.

This song is just so well-written, the storytelling so crisp with detail, it's reminiscent of a Carole King or James Taylor song, those kinds of middle-of-the-road music that pop songs rarely are. At the same time, it sounds modern, the production surrounding the acoustic guitar with clean keyboards and what sounds like handclaps to contrast the simplicity of the storytelling happening.

After hearing Halsey's last album and singles, she might actually be going in a darker direction than I expected, with Manic being a more eclectic pop album more willing to be challenging than her previous albums.

3. "Boyfriend" by Ariana Grande and Social House

There's not really a lot to say about this song. It has a silly chorus, some really relatable lines that remind me of my dynamics with someone in my past that I've fucked over, and some really smooth production that's quite easy to dance to. The thing about this song, though, is that it doesn't get old--not really. It reminds me a lot of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers: hated that song when I first heard it, but it grows because of its goofy melody and on-point songwriting choices. "Boyfriend" is less memorable than "Closer," but it's easier to like because, unlike the Chainsmokers, it's obvious that Ariana and her writers are parodying being dicks instead of being unconsciously dicks.

Ariana Grande probably won't be the next Mariah Carey--It's hard to imagine Ariana getting a No. 1 hit in four different decades--but it's easy to see Ariana be like Madonna, in both how easily she adapts, mixes, and mingles between genres, and in how well she can sell both apathy and sex, sometimes at the same time. She's not a very boring artist, truly, and she can make insignificant fluff like this shine.

2. "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" by Swae Lee and Post Malone

This song is just an amazing and relaxing gem. The composition feels chilled out and simple, and the chorus is the kind that sticks out because, as little sense as it makes, it also feels transcendent, like if a Smokey Robinson tried to write a trap song. Swae Lee comes in with an effortless cool that other rappers and singers strain to try, and Post Malone brings a lot of grit with his portion of the song, making everything feel grounded and giving some context to the song's chorus. Overall, everything works together to make this song sound well and truly lovely, a nifty piece of pop music where every beat and lyric hits with a bang.

The subtitle doesn't really make sense, but anything that reminds me of that awesome Spider-Verse movie is immediately good.

1. "a lot" by 21 Savage ft. J. Cole

This song really represents the feeling of being so emotionally-scarred that you can't really feel anything anymore. The chorus is monotonous by design, a sad sing-a-long where you get to feel the utter depression of living in 21 Savage's universe. It's not fun to be in his position and even the stuff that other rappers made fun before he turns around in a different way, like he's saying "Money and hoes are fun at the start, but that shit gets boring really quickly."

Instead, he dwells on the sadness of growing up having to hustle his way to success, of people he trusted snitching on him, on relating to immigrants and people abandoned by their own government. It's all utterly depressing stuff, but it works because it feels honest, the soul of someone struggling with deep unhappiness and trauma in the face of great success.

And J. Cole just knocks it out the park with his verse. I'm not really a fan of J. Cole because he feels a lot more boring than his contemporaries like Kendrick Lamar, but in here he matches 21 Savage's low-key depression with a more aggressive list of well-done, intelligent lines about the music industry, cancel culture, and learning from failures. It's interesting because of the ideas he provides, like using 6ix9ine (stupid fucking name, by the way) as an example of how the chase for immediate fame and success tends to force people to do terrible things, aren't really talked about a lot because the music that usually becomes hits are those kinds of terrible.

This song just vibes with me so much.

Honorable Mentions:

"Now That I Found You" by Carly Rae Jepsen

"Truth Hurts" by Lizzo

"If I Can't Have You" by Shawn Mendes

"EARFQUAKE" by Tyler, the Creator

"in my head" by Ariana Grande