M.A.A.D City
2012 · From good kid, m.A.A.d city
Sounwave and THC build the first half, Terrace Martin the second, and MC Eiht walks in from Compton's own past.
★ 7.7
Browse by time · decade
2010s
2010 – 2019
Showing 254 songs from the 2010s
Niggas in Paris
Kanye West and Jay-Z
2011 · From Watch the Throne
Hit-Boy's beat, a Blades of Glory sample, and twelve straight encores of it one night in Paris.
★ 7.6
Get Lucky
2013 · From Random Access Memories
Rodgers' guitar, Pharrell's vocal, Nathan East on bass, and disco walked back onto the radio wearing robot helmets.
★ 7.6
Money Trees
2012 · From good kid, m.A.A.d city
DJ Dahi slowed Beach House's guitar intro and ran it backwards, and Jay Rock's verse steals the whole record.
★ 7.6
Blank Space
2014 · From 1989
Swift plays her own tabloid caricature, a clicking pen for percussion, and she replaced herself at number one.
★ 7.5
Midnight City
2011
Gonzalez built that shrieking hook from his own distorted voice, then let James King's saxophone close the record.
★ 7.5
Rolling in the Deep
2010 · From 21
Written with Paul Epworth in one afternoon after a breakup, and the credits list stiletto heels as percussion.
★ 7.5
Thinkin Bout YouFrank Ocean
Thinkin Bout You
2012 · From Channel Orange
Ocean wrote it for Bridget Kelly's album, kept it instead, and the falsetto he reaches for does the rest.
★ 7.5
Someone Like You
2011 · From 21
Dan Wilson of Semisonic at the piano, Adele singing, nothing else added; five weeks at number one.
★ 7.5
Do I Wanna Know?
2013 · From AM
A stomping riff, a desert studio in Joshua Tree, and the band's first single to reach the Billboard Hot 100.
★ 7.5
Royals
2013 · From Pure Heroine
Sixteen years old, the lyrics done in half an hour, the title from a 1976 photo of George Brett.
★ 7.5
Uptown Funk
2014
Six studios, eighty-two takes at the guitar part, Ronson collapsing in the studio, and fourteen weeks at number one.
★ 7.5
Swimming Pools (Drank)Kendrick Lamar
Swimming Pools (Drank)
2012 · From good kid, m.A.A.d city
T-Minus made the beat for Trey Songz, who passed; Lamar turned the rejected demo into a study of addiction.
★ 7.4
Chandelier
2014
Written first for Rihanna, kept by Sia instead, and given a video where an eleven-year-old dancer did the acting.
★ 7.4
PyramidsFrank Ocean
Pyramids
2012 · From Channel Orange
Cleopatra dragged into the present, two halves hinged on a midpoint beat switch, and John Mayer's uncredited closing solo.
★ 7.4
All of the Lights
Kanye West and Rihanna
2010 · From My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Rihanna sings the hook, Elton John plays piano, and West spent two years stacking fourteen singers behind the horns.
★ 7.3
Drunk in Love
2013
Detail's beat was called "Drunk" before Beyoncé heard it; she and Jay-Z freestyled their verses in Manhattan.
★ 7.2
We Found Love
2011
Calvin Harris wrote and produced it alone, and Rihanna rode ten weeks at number one, 2011's longest run.
★ 7.2
Style
2015 · From 1989
Ali Payami and guitarist Niklas Ljungfelt built the track; Swift turned an on-off romance into a fashion metaphor.
★ 7.1
Hold On, We're Going Home
2013 · From Nothing Was the Same
Drake wanted a record that weddings would still play in ten years, and Majid Jordan's synths delivered exactly that.
★ 7.1
Wicked Games
2012
Doc McKinney and Illangelo built the guitar figure and the fog; Tesfaye gave away House of Balloons for free.
★ 7.0
Latch
Disclosure and Sam Smith
2012
Too weird for radio, not clubby enough for clubs, by the duo's own reckoning; Sam Smith's falsetto settled it.
★ 6.8
I Knew You Were Trouble
2012 · From Red
A wobble bass drop grafted onto a country breakup song, and Swift's full move to pop became inevitable.
★ 6.8
Happy
2013
Written first for CeeLo Green, whose label passed, cut in Miami, and given pop's first 24-hour video.
★ 6.7
Holocene
2011 · From Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Horns and clarinets swell over guitar in a converted Wisconsin veterinary clinic; Grammy voters nominated it for record and song.
★ 6.7
Blood on the LeavesKanye West
Blood on the Leaves
2013 · From Yeezus
Nina Simone's 1965 Strange Fruit against TNGHT's blaring horns, a breakup rendered enormous; platinum without ever being a single.
★ 6.6
Super Bass
2011
Kane Beatz's synth bounce, a bonus track buried on the Pink Friday deluxe, and Minaj's first solo top ten.
★ 6.5
Somebody That I Used to Know
2011
Recorded at his parents' house on the Mornington Peninsula around a Luiz Bonfá sample, eight weeks at number one.
★ 6.5
New SlavesKanye West
New Slaves
2012 · From Yeezus
Projected onto sixty-six buildings worldwide before anyone had heard it, with Frank Ocean closing over a Hungarian prog sample.
★ 6.5
Two Weeks (FKA Twigs)
2014
Emile Haynie and Arca build a slow cathedral of bass, and Twigs sings desire in a whisper.
★ 6.5
Seasons (Waiting on You)
2014
One Letterman performance in March 2014, Herring's angular dancing, and Pitchfork, NME and Spin named it the year's best.
★ 6.5
Bloodbuzz Ohio
2010 · From High Violet
Cut in Aaron Dessner's Brooklyn garage, a horn part stripped out late, leaving that rolling drum pattern and Berninger's baritone.
★ 6.4
i
2014 · From To Pimp a Butterfly
Rahki built it on the Isley Brothers' That Lady, and Lamar turned self-love into two Grammys.
★ 6.4
Retrograde
2013
A wordless hum to open, then distortion flooding the chorus; lead single from the Mercury-winning Overgrown.
★ 6.4
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
2012 · From Red
Twenty-five minutes with Max Martin and Shellback, by Swift's account, and her first Hot 100 number one followed.
★ 6.3
Tightrope
2010
Cut at Wondaland with Big Boi guesting, a horn-driven groove Monae wrote about staying level under praise and criticism.
★ 6.3
Teenage Dream
2010
Bonnie McKee rewrote it repeatedly until Benny Blanco suggested studying a Teenagers single, and one word cracked the chorus open.
★ 6.3
Summertime Sadness
2012
Two labels rejected Cedric Gervais's remix; Radio 1 played it anyway, and the remix took a Grammy and number six.
★ 6.3
Pursuit of Happiness
2010
Ratatat cut the beat before Cudi arrived, MGMT added vocals, and Steve Aoki's remix made a song about intoxication ubiquitous.
★ 6.2
Step
2014 · From Modern Vampires of the City
Rostam's harpsichord reharmonizes a melody that traveled from Bread through Grover Washington Jr. to Souls of Mischief, then here.
★ 6.2
Shake it Off
2014 · From 1989
Martin and Shellback stomped the drum pattern on a wooden floor, and Swift turned tabloid noise into fifty weeks charting.
★ 6.2
Fuck You
2010
Twinkling piano, bumping bass, the Smeezingtons doing sixties Motown, and a typography video that went viral on release day.
★ 6.1
Follow Your Arrow
2013
Musgraves wrote it with Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, a shrug at conformity the CMAs voted Song of the Year.
★ 6.1
Bound 2
2013 · From Yeezus
A Ponderosa Twins Plus One loop, Charlie Wilson singing the bridge, and Yeezus ending on chipmunk soul.
★ 6.1
Thinking Out Loud
2014
Wadge was playing chords while Sheeran showered; twenty minutes later they had a Song of the Year.
★ 6.0
Poetic Justice
Kendrick Lamar and Drake
2012 · From good kid, m.A.A.d city
Scoop DeVille built it from Janet Jackson's "Any Time, Any Place", heard on the studio radio, and Drake glides in.
★ 6.0
Young and Beautiful
2013
Six-times platinum for a soundtrack ballad: Rick Nowels producing, Craig Armstrong's strings, Del Rey singing Daisy Buchanan's doubt.
★ 6.0
Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)
2014 · From Run the Jewels 2
El-P's beat, de la Rocha recruited a day after a chance encounter, and the fiercest track on the album.
★ 6.0
Love The Way You Lie
2010 · From Recovery
Alex da Kid's beat, Skylar Grey's demo hook, Rihanna's vocal cut in Dublin, seven weeks at No. 1.
★ 6.0
Helplessness Blues
2011 · From Helplessness Blues
Pecknold called it an anti-protest song, a plain opinion with no poetry, and gave it away free in January 2011.
★ 6.0
Titanium
David Guetta and Sia
2011
Sia cut the vocal as a guide for another singer; Guetta released it anyway, and she got a number one.
★ 6.0
Wake Me Up
2013
Einziger's acoustic guitar over a house drop confused the crowd at Ultra in 2013, then it became Shazam's most-searched track.
★ 5.9
West Coast
2014
Verses at 123 beats a minute collapsing to 65 in the chorus, cut live with Auerbach's band in Nashville.
★ 5.9
Set Fire to the RainAdele
Set Fire to the Rain
2011 · From 21
Rosie Danvers wrapped the strings around Adele's biggest crescendo, and 21 took its third straight American number one.
★ 5.8
Mercy
Kanye West and Big Sean
2012 · From Cruel Summer
An old dancehall toast opens it, the beat switches mid-song, and 2 Chainz walks off with the whole posse cut.
★ 5.8