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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 | Digital Dream Door:Songs of the year, 1920-2024 |
Digital Dream Door offers multiple best-of music lists, including song-of-the-year lists from 1940 to present. Here are the best songs from each year: Check out other “songs of the year” lists here.
Resources/Related Links:
First posted 4/6/2019; last updated 12/31/2025. |
 | HappyPharrell Williams |
Writer(s): Pharrell Williams (see lyrics here) Released: November 21, 2013 First Charted: January 18, 2014 Peak: 110 US, 18 BA, 111 DG, 14 ST, 13 RR, 16 AC, 16 A40, 14 AA, 112 RB, 14 UK, 110 CN, 112 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 11.0 US, 2.63 UK, 15.12 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2446.02 video, 1219.47 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:2013 was a remarkable year for Pharrell Williams. He aided Robin Thicke in landing at #1 for 12 weeks atop the pop charts with “Blurred Lines” and gave Daft Punk an assist on their #2 hit “Get Lucky,” which took home a Grammy for Record of the Year. Thanks to Pharrell’s work on the latter, ecstatic record label managers encouraged him to record a solo album, something he hadn’t done since 2006’s In My Mind. Things kicked off with “Happy,” a song which Pharrell contributed to the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack and served as the first single for his 2014 album G I R L. The single was launched with a website, 24hoursofhappy.com which was billed as the world’s first 24-hour music video. The song is played repeatedly with people in Los Angeles dancing and miming along with the song. Pharrell appeared in the first segement of each hour. The song, which Williams had originally written for Cee-Lo Green, became the year’s most inescapable hit, spending 10 weeks atop the U.S. pop charts and hitting #1 in 23 other countries. With 12 million in worldwide sales, “Happy” ranks as one of the 100 best-selling songs of all time. The song also garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. The standard four-minute video has garnered more than 500 million views on YouTube, making it one of the top 100 most-watched music videos in history. His falsetto on the song earned favorable comparisons from critics to Curtis Mayfield. Music journalist Paul Tingen called “Happy” a “mid-tempo soul song in a faux-Motown style” WK while Rolling Stone critic Jody Rosen called it a “standout” with a “sprightly neo-soul funk groove.” WK Huw Woodward, critic from Renowned for Sound, described the song as a “happy affair with a cheerful beat and exuberant vocal that would indicate that the…singer is finding a lot of lightheared fun…in both music and life.” WK Contactmusic.com’s Holly Williams described the “unbelievably catchy” song as “the kind…that makes you want to dance and sing along.” WK Resources:
Last updated 7/24/2023. |
 | Dave’s Music Database:Top 50 Songs of 2013 |
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%:
Resources/Related Links:
First posted 12/30/2013; last updated 1/18/2023. |
 | Get LuckyDaft Punk with Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers |
Writer(s): Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams (see lyrics here) Released: April 19, 2013 First Charted: April 27, 2013 Peak: 2 US, 2 RR, 18 AC, 8 A40, 29 AA, 37a RB, 5 MR, 14 UK, 2 CN, 11 AU, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 7.0 US, 1.82 UK, 11.34 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.25 radio, 1018.55 video, 1181.82 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details.
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About the Song:For the lead single for fourth album, Random Access Memories, French dance duo Daft Punk released the feel-good party song “Get Lucky.” The song was a move away from Daft Punk’s pure house music of the past to a more funk style. SF The song is “about the good fortune of connecting with someone as well as sexual chemistry.” WK It went top ten in more than 30 countries. WK On the day of release, “Get Lucky” garnered more streams on Spotify in the UK and U.S. than any other song had to that point. SF The Guardian’s Michael Cragg said “it was the best thing Pharrell Williams has been involved with for a long time” WK while Pitchfork said the song’s “real elegance lies in the hands of Nile Rodgers.” WK The New Yorker’s Sasha Frere-Jones echoed that sentiment, saying Rodgers’ performance was “as close to magic as pop comes.” WK BBC Radio 1’s Annie Mac said Daft Punk weren’t making electronic dance music, but “real music to dance to.” WK PopCrush’s Amy Sciarretto said “it represents all that’s right with electronic music.” WK They reached out to Nile Rodgers, best known for his work with Chic. They met him at a listening party in New York City for their 1997 album, Homework and acknowledged his influence in their song “Around the World.” WK After a series of scheduling conflicts, they finally came together to collaborate on three songs which ended up on Random Access Memories. For “Get Lucky,” Rodgers stripped down what they’d recorded to just drums, plugged in his 1959 Fender Stratocaster, and went searching for a groove. SF He kept playing with guitar lines until, as he said, he saw “both guys smiling. Then I thought, ‘OK, I’m there.’” SF He told The Daily Telegraph, “In my way of composing, of feeling if something is grooving, it’s got to himt me in the soul.” SF He said collaborating with them makde him realize that he needed “to be in the studio with people…I just started going in with whomever I could” SF The duo met Pharrell Williams at a Madonna party and he offered his services, jokingly saying “if you just want me to play a tambourine, I’ll do it.” SF Pharrell met with the duo in Paris and shared of his material that coincidentally was inspired by Rodgers, unaware they were already working with him. SF They looked at each other and then played a clip of the riff Rodgers had already given them. Williams jokingly refers to the duo as “the robots,” talking about them as if they came from another planet, but marveling at their ability to write “human” music. SF Resources:
Last updated 7/23/2023. |
