I always like making best hit songs lists of any given year,
it’s fun to remember the songs you loved during a year and know that so many
other people were also loving the same songs hence making them massive hits and
honestly while 2019 did have some pretty dire stuff that I’ve already discussed
in the Worst Hit Songs of 2019, it also had Taylor Swift making a solid to good
album, the breakout success stories of Billie Eilish, Tones and I, Lil Nas X
and rather belatedly Lizzo and you know what? All four artists produced some
quality, hell three of the four artists I mentioned made this list.
A reminder that the
songs on this list must have made the ARIA year end list for 2019 and 2018 and other past hit songs don’t count unless they ended up higher on the 2019 list than they did in
2018 or previously which rules out a song like "Bohemian Rhapsody"
First though a couple of shoutouts to songs that missed out
so consider these my honourable mentions
- “Choir” by Guy Sebastian
- “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish
- “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I
- “Never Seen the Rain” by Tones and I
- “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper
- “Wow” by Post Malone
- “Sunflower” by Post Malone feat. Swae Lee
- “Woke Up Late” by Drax Project feat. Hailee
Steinfeld
- “If I Can’t Have You” by Shawn Mendes
- “Mess Her Up” by Amy Shark
- "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X
All good to great songs but just missed out because I simply
couldn’t find room in my top ten for them so let’s get on with the list proper.
There’s a deep part of me frustrated that this song wasn’t
the breakout global smash like it deserved to be for Tones and I but hey it
made the year end of 2019 still so it is making this list.
10. “Johnny Run Away” by Tones and I
For as much as I liked “Dance Monkey”, it won’t be making
the list proper as ridiculously catchy as it is, “Johnny Run Away” just connects for
me so much better. The story of a young man opening up about his sexuality to
his father at a young age and his father not being at all accepting of it and
how the young man deals with being judged and the pain of being rejected by his
father, his wider family and a world that while is growing to be more accepting
of homosexuality, there’s still many that reject it for whatever reason, it’s
actually heart breaking to listen to
This song is just a well crafted pop gem that tells a story
very effectively and while it wasn’t the smash Tones and I’s next single was,
this song deserves your attention all the same, check it out.
This next artist is making two appearances on this list and
while this song has appeared at number one on several other best hits of 2019
lists, it’s only appearing at number nine here but it’s place on this list is
so richly deserved.
9. “When the Party’s over” by Billie Eilish
You know, there hasn’t been an artist with this much
intrigue over her music career as Billie Eilish in a while and this haunting
sparse piano ballad about a toxic relationship that’s at the breaking point
turned a lot of heads when it was released in 2018 as it should because “When
the Party’s Over” is the sort of song with a self-aware framing where Billie
knows she’s not good for this other person and often that loneliness that she’s
feeling is better than being around that other person even if it blows to get
to that point and she just wants the other person to let the relationship end
and both move on with their lives.
It’s a bitter track but framed in a way that shows both
Billie and this other person have done wrong and it’s time for both to part and
move on with their lives. Great song.
I never imagined I’d be putting this next act on my best
hits list of ANY YEAR but in 2019, he really improved to a point where four of
his songs ended up on my most played of 2019 playlist on Spotify and while this
wasn’t his big number one hit of 2019, this was the song that saw him get even bigger if that was possible...
8. “Circles” by Post Malone
2019 was the year I made an about face on Post Malone, I
like “Sunflower” with Swae Lee, Young Thug’s verse on “Goodbyes” is the worst
part of that song and “Wow” is so incredibly stupid it comes together well but
“Circles” is the song of his hits this year that blew me away, mainly because
it was a step away from the trap sound into a more chill brand of pop rock
music that instrumentally was so chill yet Post Malone is frustrated that he
and this girl are still doing the same thing over and over again and he wants
her to make up her mind and make a decision instead of sending them both around
in circles, it’s a good song and the fact it’s still in the top ten at the end
of February is testament to that.
Speaking of artists who in the recent past probably would
have been more likely to make my worst list…come on down, Taylor Swift.
7. “Lover” by Taylor Swift
The title track from Taylor Swift’s surprisingly good album
“Lover” is not the best song from it, hell, “The Archer” and “Paper Rings” are
better but given Taylor chose “Me!” with Brendon Urie and “You Need to Calm
Down” (the latter would have been a
dishonourable mention on my worst list if I’d done dishonourable mentions) as
singles and make “The Archer” a promotional single, “Lover” was the song that
stood out mostly because it’s a very intimate song where Taylor is deeply in
love wanting to go wherever her new beau goes, its actually a sweet love song
and I am glad it made the ARIA Year end list,
Empowerment songs are generally mediocre, they tend to only
work if the person singing as a powerful and passionate voice and genuinely
believes what they are attempting to sell to the public, when they don’t work,
they sound tinny, whiny and kind of conceited. Not the case for this though…
6. “Good as Hell” by Lizzo
So 2019 saw me come to grips with the fact that try as I
might, Lizzo is not my cup of tea, “Truth Hurts” frequently reminds me of
Khalid’s “Young, Dumb and Broke” and really its not a great song and Lizzo is an artist really does give a LOT of
personality in her songs and she can be very in your face however I think that
kind of confident persona is something that works so well on “Good As Hell”,
she’s this breezy, confident person who can sell this sort of self-empowerment
song.
The song’s message pretty boils down to not letting the
world’s or your own problems get you down and trying, it’s quite the fitting
song for Lizzo given she has been recording and releasing albums for years but
older songs like “Truth Hurts” and now “Good as Hell” and the remix with Ariana
Grande is probably better than the original given it gives us a brief break
from the very in your face personality of Lizzo. Great song!
So the top five on this list are unchanged from the mid year
list although I may have changed the ranking, this song nearly fell out of my
top five owing to how shallow it is but…
5. “Sweet But Psycho” by Ava Max
Honestly, this song is your definition of shallow pop music
but there’s a place in pop for this kind of song and Ava Max does it well, The framing
is about both people involved are completely into it, they both want it
especially as he is just as crazy as she is. Granted I am not sure how much of
a good thing sampling “Down” by Jay Sean will do for Ava Max’s career, she’s
not really had a second hit despite releasing multiple singles.
Also to those trying to take “Sweet But Psycho” seriously,
stop, take a cold shower and move on, it’s not designed to be even vaguely serious,
it’s just an absurd, ridiculously fun pop song, remember when pop music was
FUN? ‘Sweet But Psycho” gets sillier the more you think about it and you know
what? That’s okay.
This was Miley’s best performance in 2019…
4. “Nothing Breaks Like A Heart” by Mark Ronson and Miley
Cyrus
2019 was a weird one for Miley, she released an EP which
everybody forgot about a good two months after, a stand alone single called
“Slide Away” which while not being bad, it wasn’t great and she also
collaborated with Mark Ronson for “Nothing Breaks Like A Heart” a wonderful tasteful
slice of EDM crossed with pop and country that, unlike Marshmello’s horrendous
“One Thing Right” with Kane Brown, nailed this song damn near perfectly.
For one thing, Miley sounds so damn good on this song, the
day she wakes up and realizes her voice is perfect for country or country
adjacent music is going to be a wonderful day and Mark Ronson knows how to put
together production that suits the vocalist involved, its genuinely impressive,
in terms of EDM, Ronson is definitely out in front. Great job!
This is the second and last time she will appear on this
list, if anything was clear from music in 2019, Billie Eilish is here to stay.
3. “Bury A friend” by Billie Eilish
It’s amazing this song was even a hit to begin with it’s
industrial sound, it’s not anything close to being your conventional pop song
yet in 2019, “Bury A friend” was a hit signifying that the Australian public
has a whole are ready for songs that sink into a darker and more twisted
subject matter, Billie is able to warp and twist the subject matter of this
monster talking to her from underneath her bed as she seems more scared of real
life terrors rather than whatever is lurking beneath her bed. It’s an
incredibly catchy but low key song that emphasises how well Billie can capture
an audience. If anything, “Bury A Friend” is the song that made it clear that
Billie Eilish is a star and she is sticking around and for mainstream music,
that’s a good thing.
So in an era where hip hop has mostly seemed bland and
lifeless, this song particularly in early 2019 provided a reminder of how much
fun hip hop can be,
2. “Leave Mr Lonely” by Hilltop Hoods.
Yes, this is my favourite Australian hit of the year, a song
with a sublime guitar sample to start the song. MC Suffa told Triple J the song
is about the struggle of being cornered into a conversation with a close talker
who is talking a lot of rubbish and being just tired enough of it to snap hence
the line lines “Loser, I won’t dress it up. Me and my friends, we are not here
for your BS” which is a line that should be engraved into Australian culture
already.
It’s just a fun song that should have been huge around the
world given it completely steers away from the dreary trap slog that the US hip
hop scene finds itself in and I find incredibly monotonous so yeah “Leave Me
Lonely” is a slice of Aussie hip hop that the rest of the world should have
cottoned onto in 2019 but hey given its success in Australia, I’m happy and
deserves to be this high on this list.
I think my number one pick was almost set in stone by March
2019, I was deeply in love with this smooth coolness of this song and it struck
a chord for me that no other song in 2019 matched because for as much as I love
“Leave Me Lonely” and “Bury A Friend”, neither quite hit for me like this did…
1. 1. "Dancing with A Stranger” by Sam Smith and
Normani
So yeah I know, this song is light weight Emotional Oranges
and its easy to see the parallels between this song and Normani’s hit with
Khalid “Love Lies’ from 2018 but unlike “Love Lies”, “Dancing with a Stranger”
is a melancholy song where Sam Smith and Normani are seeking to move on from a
past relationship and find some relief from their melancholy with a dance.
Musically, “Dancing With a Stranger” owes a lot of it’s
sound to 80s R’n’B but my god it does it well especially at achieving the cool
not wanting to be lonely sound that the song’s subject matter deals with and
hell the watery textures work better here than they did on “Without Me” by
Halsey plus Sam Smith sounds great over a song like this, I can only hope his
upcoming album has more tracks like this one and Normani is the perfect choice
for the collab as they work so damn well together.
“Dancing With A Stranger” the best hit song of 2019.
