2016: Top 25 Albums

First posted 1/8/2021.

Dave’s Music Database: Top Albums of 2016

Based on a combination of year-end lists and overall status in Dave’s Music Database, these are the top 25 albums of 2016: Beyoncé Lemonade David Bowie Blackstar Drake Views Frank Ocean Blond Rihanna Anti Solange A Seat at the Table Sturgill Simpson A Sailor’s Guide to Earth Bruno Mars 24K Magic Radiohead A Moon Shaped Pool Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree Leonard Cohen You Want It Darker The Weeknd Starboy A Tribe Called Quest We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service Chance the Rapper Coloring Book Miranda Lambert The Weight of These Wings Bon Iver 22, a Million The 1975 I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It Kane Brown Kane Brown Childish Gambino Awaken, My Love! Moana soundtrack Ariana Grande Dangerous Woman Post Malone Stoney Keith Urban Ripcord Lady Gaga Joanne Kendrick Lamar Untitled, Unmastered Resources and Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: “Other Year-End Album Awards”

Top 50 Songs of 2016

Dave’s Music Database: Top 50 Songs of 2016

These are the top 50 songs of the year based on their overall performance in Dave’s Music Database, which is determined by combining chart data, sales figures, streaming, video views, and aggregates from year-end lists. Check out “Top Songs and Albums of the Year” lists here. DMDB Top 1%: The Chainsmokers with Halsey “Closer” Drake with WizKid & Kyla “One Dance” Justin Timberlake “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” Sia with Sean Paul “Cheap Thrills” Rihanna with Drake “Work” Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like” (2016) The Weeknd with Daft Punk “Starboy” DMDB Top 2%: Pinkfong! “Baby Shark” Twenty One Pilots “Heathens” Rae Sremmurd with Gucci Mane “Black Beatles” The Chainsmokers with Daya “Don’t Let Me Down” Beyoncé “Formation” Calvin Harris & Rihanna “This Is What You Came For” DMDB Top 5%: James Arthur “Say You Won’t Let Go” Bruno Mars “24K Magic” Shawn Mendes “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back” Shawn Mendes “Treat You Better” Zayn “Pillow Talk” Fifth Harmony with Ty Dolla $ign “Work from Home” Post Malone with Quavo “Congratulations” Migos with Lil Uzi Vert “Bad and Boujee” Major Lazer with Justin Bieber & MØ “Cold Water” DJ Snake with Justin Bieber “Let Me Love You” Ariana Grande with Nicki Minaj “Side to Side” Clean Bandit with Sean Paul & Anne-Marie “Rockabye” Bruno Mars with Cardi B “Finesse” Florida Georgia Line “H.O.L.Y” Zayn with Taylor Swift “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” Maroon 5 with Kendrick Lamar “Don’t Wanna Know” Lizzo “Good As Hell” Rihanna “Needed Me” The Lumineers “Ophelia” Charlie Puth with Selena Gomez “We Don’t Talk Anymore” The Weeknd with Daft Punk “I Feel It Coming” Rag ‘n’ Bone Man “Human” Saint JHN with Imanbek “Roses” Leonard Cohen “You Want It Darker” D.R.A.M. with Lil Yachty “Broccoli” Childish Gambino “Redbone” Gnash with Olivia O’Brien “I Hate U, I Love U” Keith Urban “Blue Ain’t Your Color” (2016) Dwayne Johnson “You’re Welcome” Ariana Grande “Into You” Alice Merton “No Roots” Little Big Town “Better Man” Post Malone “I Fall Apart” Drake with Rihanna “Too Good” Rihanna “Love on the Brain” Future with the Weeknd “Low Life” Hailee Stenfield with Grey & Zedd “Starving” Resources/Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: Top Songs and Albums by Year lists Dave’s Music Database: Songs of the Year lists First posted 12/26/2021; last updated 1/17/2023.

Today in Music (1966): The Monkees’ hit #1 with “I’m a Believer”

I’m a Believer The Monkees

Writer(s): Neil Diamond (see lyrics here) Released: November 12, 1966 First Charted: December 3, 1966 Peak: 17 US, 18 CB, 13 GR, 15 HR, 14 UK, 12 CN, 11 AU, 5 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.4 UK, 10.0 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 4.0 radio, 21.28 video, 439.40 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Jeff Barry discovered Neil Diamond singing in a coffee house in Greenwich Village. FB They became two of the biggest talents for the hit-making machine known as the Brill Building. Diamond became one of the most successful singer/songwriters, ranking #3 all-time on the adult contemporary charts and in the top 25 for the pop charts. However, his biggest success came via a made-for-television group. That group, the Monkees, were modeled after the playful spirit of the Beatles’ movies. DJ While they fought to play their own songs, producers limited the Monkees to singing and brought in session musicians for the instruments. SF The show, which aired from 1966 to 1968, propelled the Monkees to the top of the charts with debut single “Last Train to Clarksville.” When publisher Don Kirshner was seeking a million-selling follow-up, he turned to Barry and Elle Greenwich, Diamond’s producers, after hearing Diamond’s top 10 hit “Cherry Cherry” on the radio. FB Kirshner picked out several songs Diamond was prepping for his next album, among them “I’m a Believer.” The head of Diamond’s record company couldn’t believe he’d give away potential number ones, but, as Diamond says, “I couldn’t have cared less because I had to pay the rent.” SF After all, Diamond intended to give the song to country artist Eddy Arnold. KL The song featured session guitarist Al Gorgoni, who had also played on Diamond’s “Cherry Cherry.” He would go on to play on two more of the most celebrated songs of the rock era – Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” and Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl.” RC The Monkees heavily promoted “I’m a Believer” through their TV series, racking up one million in advance sales. RC It went on top the BillboardHot 100 for 7 weeks and be the biggest hit of 1966 CPM and “one of the Hot 100’s finest specimens of pure pop genius.” BB Diamond still recorded the song, releasing it on his 1967 album Just for You and as a single in 1971, peaking at #51. The song resurfaced in 2001 when the alternative rock group Smash Mouth recorded it for the movie Shrek and took it to #25 on the pop charts. Resources: DMDB blog entry (9/12/1966). “The Monkees debuts on TV” BB Billboard (9/08). “All-Time Hot 100” FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 216. RC Rod Couch (2015). The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. Pages 104-5. DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 95. KL Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh (2005). 1000 UK Number One Hits: The Stories Behind Every Number One Single Since 1952. London, Great Britain: Omnibus Press. Page 129. SF Songfacts.com CPM Joel Whitburn (1999). A Century of Pop Music. Record Research, Inc.: Menomonee Falls, WI. Page 91. Related Links: First posted 3/1/2012; updated 4/21/2024.

Today in Music (1966): Buffalo Springfield released “For What It’s Worth”

For What It’s Worth Buffalo Springfield

Writer(s): Stephen Stills (see lyrics here) Released: December 23, 1966 First Charted: January 14, 1967 Peak: 7 US, 7 CB, 3 GR, 8 HR, 1 CL, 9 CN, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 3.0 radio, 83.33 video, 590.23 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: While this has mistakenly been interpreted as “an anti-war protest song…[and] pretty much adopted as such” RC the origin of “For What It’s Worth “is “far more domestic than that.” DT “It sprang out of the civil war in miniature that [songwriter Stephen] Stills was witnessing on Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip at the time.” TB Pandora’s Box, a nightclub on L.A.’s Sunset Strip, closed down and there were, as Stills said, “a bunch of kids having a funeral for a bar.” TC Another account, however, suggests it was a protest against the 10 p.m. curfew imposed after residents complained about traffic RC and fear that the “scruffy hippies were chasing away legitimate customers.” SJ Reports suggested the “crowds of longhairs” DM were “blocking sdewalks, smoking dope, spilling into the streets.” DM In any event, “the LAPD decided to run a line-up across the street, like there was some kind of revolution going on.” TC They had been “called upon to rid the street of ‘undesirables,’ [and] they busted heads.” DM Stills had just visited Latin America “and was horrified at how similar the tensions in that region on the brink of revolution were to those in a developed democracy.” TB “The Summer of Love was unraveling before it even began.” RS500 “When song lyrics stick in our minds…the reason is not to be found in the lyrics alone, but in the combination fo lyrics and tune and beat and performance and, most of all, sound.” PW “The song is a call to awareness and, at least implicitly, resistance, but there is also a plea for brotherhood, a rejection of ‘us and them’ thinking.” WK That message is accompanied by “Neil Young’s guitar [which] tolled like a funeral bell;” RS500 it “had a beautiful ringing...basically one note…that sounded like heaven opening. The entire apocalypse was in that one note.” TC The song served as a “microcosm of what was happening on the streets, and in the hearts and minds, of America during one of the most tumultuous times in our history.” SS It became “a defining sound of the time period, in which inter-generational discord was rampant and youth were attempting to assert themselves against authority figures.” KW It “established Stephen Stills as a spokesman for ‘60s youth.” SJ Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Buffalo Springfield RC Rod Couch (2015). The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. Page 188. TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 357-8. SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. Warner Books, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 183. DM Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New American Library: New York, NY. Pages 838-9. KW Mic.com (12/25/2013). “30 Songs That Changed the Course of Musical History” by Kayli Woods RS500 Rolling Stone (4/7/2011). “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 227-8. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 69. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 96. PW Paul Williams (1993). Rock and Roll: The Best 100 Singles. Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.: New York, NY Pages 45-6. First posted 4/19/2020; last updated 4/21/2024.