DavesMusicDatabase.com is devoted to ranking, rating, and reviewing music of all genres and eras. The DMDB blog serves up album and song reviews, best-of lists, music history snapshots, and music-related essays.
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 | Spotify:Songs of the Year, 1960-2025 |
These are the top songs each year (1960 to present) according to most streams on Spotify. Click here to see other ‘Songs of the Year’ lists.
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First posted 11/6/2021; last updated 12/31/2025. |
 | DMDB Songs of the Year:1800-2024 |
These are the best songs for each year from 1800 to present, according to Dave’s Music Database. Rankings are determined by aggregating multiple best-of lists along with chart data, sales figures, radio and video airplay, and streams. Check out other “songs of the year” lists here.
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First posted 3/31/2019; last updated 5/12/2025. |
 | USA’s #1 Pop Songs:2020-2029 |
These are the #1 pop songs on the United States pop charts from 2020 to 2029. Songs could have hit #1 on any of the following charts:
Numbers following the letter codes indicate how many weeks the song spent at #1 on that chart. Links go to specific lists of the biggest songs of all time for that chart. Click here to access a full list of #1 songs from 1890 to present. See other chart-based lists here. 2020:
2021:
2022:
2023:
2024:
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First posted 2/24/2021; last updated 12/28/2024. |
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| Dave’s Music Database:Top 50 Songs of 2021 |
These are the top 50 songs of 2021 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 more than 30 year-end lists. Check out “Top Songs and Albums of the Year” lists here. Check out Dave’s Music Database podcast: The Top 20 songs of 2021 based on this list. 
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First posted 12/26/2021; last updated 1/17/2023. |
Sour |
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Released: May 21, 2021 Peak: 15 US, 15 UK, 110 CN, 18 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.6 UK, 4.58 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 34:41 |
Rating: 4.077 out of 5.00 (average of 33 ratings)
Quotable:“A collection of polished, precociously accomplished pop that doubles as one of the most gratifyingly undignified breakup albums ever made.” – Rachel Aroesti, The GuardianAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album:At the beginning of January 2021, Olivia Rodrigo “was playing in the celebrity minor leagues, the not-quite-18-year-old star of the Disney+ show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” PF By month’s end, she “had smashed streaming records and blanketed TikTok with her debut single, Drivers License, a piano-driven power ballad steeped in suburban malaise and teen anguish,” PF “written among the ruins of first love.” GN It had the biggest first week for any song ever on Spotify and went on to reach 100 million streams faster than any song in history. GN It debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent eight weeks at the pinnacle. The magazine called it “one of the most dominant number-one songs of the last 30 years” WK and, at year’s end, named it the song of the year. The song also landed Grammy nominations for Song and Record of the Year and won for Best Pop Solo Performance. Rodrigo also proved to be a commercial and critical juggernaut beyond “Drivers License.” The follow-up singles, Déjà Vu and Good 4 U, debuted at #8 and #1 respectively, making Rodrigo the first artist in history to have her first three chart entries debut in the top ten. WK Those three singles preceded the release of Sour, setting it up for the biggest opening week on Spotify for a female artist. WK It topped the album chart and was named album of the year by Billboard and Rolling Stone. It also won the Juno International Album of the Year award and got Grammy attention, securing a nod for Best Album and a win for Best Pop Vocal Album. She also took home the coveted Best New Artist prize. Rodrigo said the album title referred to the “emotions young people experience but are often criticized for, such as anger, jealousy, and unhappiness.” WK “Writing a whole album about how furious and devastated you are that your ex has forgotten you seems like the sort of thing any good friend would strongly advise against,” GN but Sour is “a nimble and lightly chaotic grab bag of breakup tunes, filled with both melancholy and mischief.” PF She does it all without resorting to “the meaningless word salad that popstars often hide behind.” GN
She uses the “angsty and uptempo”
Traitor is “an indie pop ballad with a folk instrumental” WK and lyrics about “post-grief anger and bargaining.” WK Enough for You is “a minimal bedroom pop song” WK about being “very insecure and vulnerable.” WK Favorite Crime is an indie pop song with a “thinly veiled Bonnie and Clyde-type metaphor.” WK
“Like any teenager, Rodrigo is trying on identities.” PF She said, “My dream is to have it be an intersection between mainstream pop, folk music, and alternative pop.” WK “Brutal” is “anthemic 90s alt-rock…in the vein of the Breeders ‘Cannonball.’” GN On “Good 4 U” one “might hear pop punk fireworks à la Paramore” PF while 1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back offers “dewy-eyed soft balladry à la Ingrid Michaelson” PF and Jealousy, Jealousy serves up “alt-rock squall à la the Kills.” PF
Rodrigo has cited Alanis Morissette, Kacey Musgraves, No Doubt, and the White Stripes as influences WK but has “most obviously styled herself after Taylor Swift.” PF She “treats emotional turmoil like jet fuel, and laces her lyrics with specifics – a Billy Joel song she and her ex listened to together, the self-help books she read to impress him.” PF “1 Step Forward” interpolates Swift’s “New Year’s Day” PF and “Déjà Vu” was inspired by Swifty’s “Cruel Summer.”
On Hope Ur Ok, Rodrigo “steps away from…self-referential narratives to secondhand stories from her friends.” WK “Over a twinkly instrumental, Rodrigo sings directly to a victim of child abuse, a queer girl rejected by her family, and to outcasts more broadly.” PF “It reads as a last-minute effort to demonstrate perspective and maturity.” PF “It’s as close to a palate cleanser as a song with such a cloying sentiment can get, but thankfully doesn’t overshadow the glorious myopia of Sour.” GN
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First posted 2/17/2023. |
 | Drivers LicenseOlivia Rodrigo |
Writer(s): Olivia Rodrigo, Dan Nigro (see lyrics here) Released: January 8, 2021 First Charted: January 23, 2021 Peak: 18 US, 15 BA, 13 DG, 14 ST, 16 RR, 9 AC, 14 A40, 19 UK, 17 CN, 16 AU, 7 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 6.0 US, 1.8 UK, 12.68 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 710.97 video, 2293.45 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:Olivia Rodrigo was only 17 years old when she hit #1 with “Drivers License.” She had previously been known for roles on Disney Channel’s Bizaardvark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The “atmospheric power ballad,” WK produced by Dan Nigro, was the lead single from her first album, Sour. Billboard magazine’s Gab Linsberg and Jason Lipshutz called it the kind of debut single “that aspiring artists dream of.” WK The song mixes “bedroom pop, indie pop, and power pop” WK and is characterized by “a minimalist, piano-led production, incorporating kick drums, harmonies, syncopated hand-claps, and a dreamy bridge.” WK Rodrigo has said the song has Taylor Swift and Lorde influences. WK Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos echoed this, saying the production of the song “is reminiscent of Lorde’s Melodrama…while the lyrics and detailed storytelling channel Swift’s Fearless.” WK She was inspired to write the song after breaking up with her boyfriend. They used to talk about how exciting it would be once she had her driver’s license and could drive to his home. Instead, she ended up driving aimlessly around the suburbs of Los Angeles listening to sad songs and longing for him. SF She said, “Putting all those feelings into a song made everything seem so much simpler and clearer – and at the end of the day, I think that’s the whole purpose of songwriting. There’s nothing like sitting at the piano in my bedroom and writing a really sad song. It’s truly my favorite thing in the world.” UR On its fourth day of release, the song set a record on Spotify for the most single-day streams for a non-holiday song. It also had the biggest first week for a song on Spotify (65 million) SF as well as Amazon Music. The song debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, making her the youngest artist to achieve that feat. The song’s eight weeks at the pinnacle made it the longest-running number-one debut single in the history of the chart. WK It also hit #1 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Resources:
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First posted 10/26/2021; last updated 10/12/2024. |
