It is entirely possible that my reaction to the hits of 2018 were proof of my “get off my lawn” phase — a time when pop music was just fine, and I was just too old to appreciate it. I found validation in the knowledge that Top 40 ratings were already on the decline at that moment, although they’ve hardly turned around since the quality (if not quantity) of the hits got better.
I regard 2018 as the nadir of a five-year bottoming out period. What had at least sounded different (although not much better to me) at the time of “Dark Horse” and “Royals” had become an 85-bpm haunted house. I would open the e-mail blast for a new superstar release and be bummed to hear it begin with yet another “chop” — another manipulated vocal sample that could have easily been the song I heard yesterday.
I went to three streaming services to take a Fresh Listen to the hits of 2018. Writing about the durability of the era is a reminder that no year is without its legitimate hits. When you see the list of hits at the top of most playlists, you are reminded that this is the year of “Havana,” Halsey, Post Malone’s breakthrough, A Star Is Born, and “Feel It Still.” But only the last of those was truly fun/uptempo and hearing the year’s music at random made me feel very trapped by trap pop. If you feel strongly otherwise, I hope you’ll comment below.
Here’s Spotify’s Top Hits of 2018 playlist. It’s heavy on UK-only hits and a lot of songs that never made it to pop radio. I listened to this one on shuffle, but even if I’d listened to the first 10 songs in the published playlist order, it would have been eclectic in a similar way. (Taylor Swift’s “Delicate” was first but followed directly by Vance Joy’s “Saturday Sun” and shortly after by King Princess’s streaming-driven “1950.”)
- Rita Ora & Zayn, “For You (Fifty Shades Freed)”
- Tom Walker, “Leave the Light On”
- Imagine Dragons, “Natural”
- Zac Efron & Zendaya, “Rewrite the Stars” — the UK radio hit was James Arthur & Anne-Marie, but it still comes across now as a song American radio missed in either version
- Mac Miller, “Self-Care”
- Rita Ora, “Anywhere”
- DJ Khaled f/Justin Bieber & Quavo, “No Brainer”
- NF, “Let You Down”
- Lil Dickey f/Chris Brown, “Freaky Friday”
- Years & Years, “If You’re Over Me”
Amazon’s Music Best Songs of 2018 playlist also goes beyond mainstream radio hits — Robyn’s “Honey,” John Mayer’s “New Light,” Rayland Baxter’s “Casanova” (a 2018 favorite that I wish had made it beyond Triple-A, and perhaps could in our current environment) — but the segment I heard was closer to Top 40 at the time and heavier on enduring songs.
- Justin Timberlake f/Chris Stapleton, “Say Something” — Timberlake had worn down his superstardom of a decade earlier with a long break and follow-up projects that couldn’t live up to the anticipation, but this sounded pretty good now
- Zedd f/Maren Morris & Grey, “The Middle”
- Camila Cabello, “Never Be the Same” — definingly what I didn’t like about pop then, and unchanged by time so far
- Ariana Grande, “Thank U Next”
- Halsey, “Without Me”
- Shawn Mendes, “In My Blood”
- Selena Gomez, “Back to You”
- Post Malone, “Better Now”
- Anne-Marie, “Friends”
- Bebe Rexha, “I’m a Mess”
- Elle Goulding f/Diplo & Swae Lee, “Close to Me”
- Clean Bandit f/Demi Lovato, “Solo”
- Zedd & Ellen Duhé, “Happy Now”
Here’s iHeart Top Hits of 2018 playlist. As you’d expect, it’s heavier on songs that had some radio footprint, although many of those stopped short of “real hit” status: Meghan Trainor, “No Excuses”; Dua Lipa, “IDGAF”; Bryce Vine, “Drew Barrymore,” etc.
- Logic f/Alessia Cara & Khalid, “1-800-273-8255”
- Demi Lovato, “Sorry Not Sorry”
- Maroon 5 f/Cardi B, “Girls Like You”
- Zedd f/Maren Morris & Grey, “The Middle”
- Ariana Grande, “No Tears Left to Cry” — a bright spot then and now
- Khalid, “Young Dumb and Broke”
- Juice WRLD, “Lucid Dreams”
- Camila Cabello f/Young Thug, “Havana”
- Alessia Cara, “Growing Pains”
- Post Malone, “Better Now”
- DJ Khalid f/Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper & Quavo, “No Brainer”
- Anne-Marie, “Friends”
- Shawn Mendes, “In My Blood”
Finally, to be fair, I went back to my Top 100 of 2018 playlist. When I publish my year-end list, I usually cheat and end up somewhere around 120 songs. That year, I struggled to reach 94 titles. What stands out now is that there’s not just a very low CHR hit factor — unlike my Big Hits Energy playlist, there’s no claim that these should have been radio hits — but there’s also not a lot of hits from other formats, other territories, etc., unlike the early ’80s when there were plenty of such records that American CHR just wouldn’t play.
- Jordan Davis, “Singles You Up” — a Country hit that you will still hear on the radio
- Bigflo & Oli, “Dommage” —French-language rap that was a hit on CKOI Montreal, my favorite CHR at that moment
- Rayland Baxter, “Casanova” — the aforementioned Triple-A hit
- Lake Street Dive, “Good Kisser” — more Triple-A
- YG f/2 Chainz, Big Sean & Nicki Minaj, “Big Bank”
- Brynn Elliott, “Might Not Like Me” — the best pure-pop record at the time, never pushed beyond Hot AC
- Tom Petty & Heartbreakers, “Keep a Little Soul” — a 1982 outtake
- Blue October, “I Hope You’re Happy”
- Bradley Cooper, “Maybe It’s Time” — the other A Star Is Born highlight
- David Byrne, “Everybody’s Coming to My House”
- Elle King, “Shame”
- Lil Wayne, “Uproar”
- Shawn Mendes, “Nervous” — sounded like a rare uptempo, mainstream hit to many of us at the time, but never worked as a single, something that was jaw-dropping then, less so now.
