Pop music's best wasted no time getting into formation this year, with major releases from a galaxy of our brightest stars cluttering the calendar's opening months. But even with so many established huge names taking up space on the marquee, what really made the last twelve months in pop special was how they also found room for the lesser-known little guys; a Desiigner for every Drake, a Kiiara for every Kanye. Soundtracking a period of seemingly limitless real-world disagreement and strife, these artists big and small provided us with rare moments of much-needed unity, ones we all would've actually wanted to freeze time on. Here are the pop songs that pulled us closer in Note: Songs were considered eligible for this list if they were either released in or peaked on the Hot during that time — unless they already appeared on our list. After decades of men singing to women they know "want it" on the dance floor, Meghan Trainor hits the club and K. Flume feat. Kai, "Never Be Like You". Amber Coffman, "All to Myself".
Follow Billboard
Navigation menu
Broken hearts and righteous anger have always made some of the greatest hits. Since the s, emotions such as sadness and loneliness have become increasingly prevalent in song lyrics. Does it simply reflect a change in the way music is consumed? Or is it simply expressing the emotional undercurrents of society today? Adele: Turning tears into gold Credit: Getty Images.
The best-selling and most streamed hits of the year revealed.
Recent work in the sociology of music suggests a declining importance of genre categories. Yet other work in this research stream and in the sociology of classification argues for the continued prevalence of genres as a meaningful tool through which creators, critics and consumers focus their attention in the topology of available works. Building from work in the study of categories and categorization we examine how boundary strength and internal differentiation structure the genre pairings of some 3 million musicians and groups. Our analysis shows that the musical universe is not monolithically organized but rather composed of multiple worlds that are differently structured—i. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
This article describes trends in popular music in the s. See also: s in the music industry. By the mids, the style of vocals popular in indie pop have become immensely widespread among pop instrumentalists as they are commonly used by younger artists, like Selena Gomez , Lana Del Rey , Lorde and Birdy. Traditional instruments , such as the mandolin, dulcimer, ukulele, bongos and accordion, have been used more often, especially by indie rock musicians and singer-songwriters, including Mumford and Sons , Vance Joy , Phillip Phillips , and The Lumineers , along with country players, such as Chris Stapleton and Zac Brown Band. Adult Contemporary Music had been successful on the charts. Throughout the s, hip hop music grew as a genre. In , with the increase in streaming services influence over the Billboard Hot rap music became the most popular genre in the US in its 4th decade of growth, surpassing Rock and Pop music. In the decade movements like Trap music , Cloud rap , Drill music , and Emo hip hop became mainstream. Progressive and experimental rock have started to become widespread, mainly in the second half of the decade.
