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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 | Music VF:Songs of the Year, 1900-2025 |
Music VF is an online database of more than 120,000 U.S. and UK chart hits. One can search for top songs and artists by year and by decade. Here are the top songs of each year according to Music VF: Check out other “songs of the year” lists here.
Resources/Related Links:
First posted 4/8/2019; last updated 12/31/2025. |
 | DrakeTop 100 Songs |
Rapper/R&B singer was born Aubrey Drake Graham on 10/24/1986 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He first gained recognition in the teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation from 2001 to 2008. He started his recording career in 2006, releasing his first mixtape the next year. His first album, Thank Me Later, came out in 2010. In 2021, his album Certified Lover Boy produced nine top-10 hits, the record for most top-10s from one album. As of 2023, he’d reached #1 thirteen times, tying him with Michael Jackson for the most #1 songs by a male solo artist. He has also had more top 10 hits (68) and more charted songs (294) than any other artist in Billboard history. He is ranked as the highest-certified digital sales artist in the United States and has sold over 170 million records. For a complete list of this act’s DMDB honors, check out the DMDB Music Maker Encyclopedia entry. |
Awards:
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Top 100 SongsDave’s Music Database lists are determined by song’s appearances on best-of lists, appearances on compilations and live albums by the featured act, and songs’ chart success, sales, radio airplay, streaming, and awards. #1 songs on the following charts are noted below: Billboard Hot 100 (BB), Billboard radio airplay (BA), Billboard digital sales (DG), Billboard streaming (ST), Billboard R&B chart/airplay (RB), UK charts (UK), Canadian pop charts (CN), and Australian pop charts (AU).
DMDB Top 1%:
1. One Dance (with Wizkid & Kyla, 2016) BB, BA, DG, ST, RB, UK, CN, AU DMDB Top 2%:
6. Nice for What (2018) BB, DG, ST, RB, UK, CN, AU DMDB Top 5%:
8. What’s My Name? (with Rihanna, 2010) BB, BA, DG, UK DMDB Top 10%:
19. Take Care (with Rihanna, 2011)
21. Jimmy Cooks (with 21 Savage, 2022) BB, ST, RB, CN
31. Fuckin’ Problems (with A$AP Rocky, 2 Chainz, & Kendrick Lamar, 2012) DMDB Top 20%:
39. Right Above It (with Lil Wayne, 2010) DG
41. Only (with Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, & Chris Brown, 2014) RB
51. Moment 4 Life (with Nicki Minaj, 2011) RB
61. Fair Trade (with Travis Scott, 2021) Beyond the DMDB Top 20%:
71. Sticky (2022)
81. Never Recover (with Lil Baby & Gunna, 2018)
91. With You (with Party Next Door, 2016) Resources and Related Links:
First posted 10/22/2023; last updated 10/24/2023. |
 | WorkRihanna with Drake |
Writer(s): Jahron Braithwaite, Matthew Samuels, Allen Ritter, Rupert Thomas, Aubrey Graham, Robyn Fenty, Monte Moir (see lyrics here) Released: January 27, 2016 First Charted: February 13, 2016 Peak: 19 US, 12 DG, 18 ST, 9 RR, 111 RB, 2 UK, 14 CN, 5 AU, 22 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 8.0 US, 1.3 UK, 32.5 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1475.0 video, 1868.68 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:After her seventh album, Unapologetic (2012), Rihanna intended to take a hiatus from recording. It lasted a week and she found herself back in the studio. She released three singles in 2015 and then, at the onset of 2016, released “Work,” the lead single from her eighth album, Anti. It became her 14th #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, putting her just behind The Beatles, Mariah Carey, and Elvis Presley. WK It was also her 50th song to chart on the Hot 100 and 27th to hit the top ten. WK She also became the first artist to have #1 songs from seven consecutive studio albums. SF It was her third collaboration with Drake, following 2010’s “What’s My Name?” and 2011’s “Take Care.” SF The song was written in the summer of 2015 by a team while at Drake’s house. One of the writers, Sevn Thomas and Boi-1da, who’d previously worked with Drake, crafted the dancehall rhythm SF and then sent it to PartyNextDoor, who wrote the lyrics, which talk about working for money as well as fragile relationships. WK Drake then wrote and recorded a verse before the song was played for Rihanna. WK However, her label didn’t care for the Caribbean flavor of the song and it was nearly passed on to Alicia Keys. However, Rihanna fought to keep it, saying “this is my family’s favorite song.” SF Billboard’s Taj Ran said the song had “deep roots in Jamaica’s club scene that spun off from reggae in the 1970s.” WK Forbes’ Hugh McIntyre described the song as urban with hip hop influences and “island vibes,” WK an observation echoed by Rolling Stone’s Daniel Kreps, who said it had a “tropical house vibe.” WK Slant Magazine’s Alexa Camp called it an understated midtempo jam” which “recalls Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s masterful production work on Janet [Jackson]’s The Velvet Rope.” WK Complex’s Zach Frydenlund said the song “is slower and very rhythmic with Rihanna showing off her vocal skills over the crafty production.” WK By contrast, The A.V. Club’s Robin Reiff said “the sheer repetition of the hook creates a built-in experiation date for when this song transitions from catchy to mildly annoying.” WK Rolling Stone called it a “barely-there tune,” but noted it was still irresistible. WK The song’s “off-kilter” nature led The Guardian to name it the best track of 2016. The song was nominated for a Grammy for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Resources:Related Links:
First posted 2/6/2021; last updated 7/29/2023. |
Anti |
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Released: January 27, 2016 Peak: 12 US, 14 RB, 7 UK, 11 CN, 5 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.3 UK, 3.75 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop |
Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts.
Total Running Time: 43:36 |
Rating:  3.572 out of 5.00 (average of 31 ratings)
Awards: (Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album: Anti “began in the autumn of 2014 and proceeded in semi-public, progress being measured in Instagram posts and tweets, along with intermittent singles, each released to white-hot anticipation but none metamorphosing into massive hits.” AMG However, when the album was released, it didn’t have any of the singles released from 2015, which included “Four Five Seconds” with Kanye West and Paul McCartney and “Bitch Better Have My Money.” Neither “functioned as appropriate anchors for the album,” AMG which would be Rihanna’s first release “to feel constructed as a front-to-back album.” AMG After predecessors “where album cuts often felt like afterthoughts” AMG this made Anti “an ambitious album-statement” RS’20 “whose heart lies within its deep cuts.” RS’20 “On Anti, she recast pop as her own hazy playground, referencing Dido and hair metal, covering Tame Impala, and merging dancehall and torch ballads.” RS’20 “Mood matters more than either hooks or rhythm: it’s a subdued, simmering affair,” AMG “brilliantly sustaining the tipsy two-in-the-morning vibe of this moody midcareer reinvention.” RS’20 Rihanna said, “I just gravitated toward the songs that were … the things I want to listen to…The things that I want to smoke to.” RS’20 The songs are “subtly shaded yet interlocked to create a vibe caught halfway between heartbreak and ennui. The latter has always been a specialty of Rihanna – her distance from her material was at once appealing and alienating – so hearing her lean into Love on the Brain and Higher is something of a revelation: her voice is hoarse and ravaged, yet she’s also controlled and precise, knowing how to hone these imperfections so her performance echoes classic soul while feeling fresh.” AMG “These songs come at the end of the album, after a series of songs that drift and wonder, the sound of an artist trying to figure out not only what her album is but who she is. By the end of Anti, Rihanna may not arrive at any definitive conclusions about her art but she’s allowed herself to be unguarded and anti-commercial, resulting in her most compelling record to date.” AMG
Notes: “Goodnight Gotham,” “Pose,” and “Sex with Me” were added to the deluxe edition. |
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First posted 4/23/2022. |
