The year’s 50 biggest songs
For your listening pleasure, check out our list.
2017 was a groundbreaking year in pop, in which an exciting new generation of artists challenged the big stars to create the most diverse Top 40 music we’ve heard in years. This was less a year for the Katy Perrys and the Taylor Swifts than the Cardi Bs and the Khalids, with many who began 2017 as no-name artists finishing as best-selling stars. USA TODAY worked with BuzzAngle Music and Mediabase to pull the year’s 50 biggest songs by the numbers (sales and streaming). Then we ranked them, starting with the most disappointing best-selling songs and working our way to the top to determine 2017’s defining singles.
50. Swang, Rae Sremmurd (Sales rank: No. 45 out of 50) 49. Believer, Imagine Dragons (Sales rank. No. 10) 48. Perfect, Ed Sheeran (Sales rank: No. 42) 47. Now or Never, Halsey (Sales rank: 46)
46. Bounce Back, Big Sean (Sales rank: No. 21)
45. Tunnel Vision, Kodak Black (Sales rank: No. 28) 44. Slippery, Migos (Sales rank: No. 35) 43. 1-800-273-8255, Logic (Sales rank: No. 15) 42. Slow Hands, Niall Horan (Sales rank: No. 33) 41. Strip That Down, Liam Payne (Sales rank: No. 37)
40. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker), ZAYN & Taylor Swift (Sales rank: No. 17) 39. Look What You Made Me Do, Taylor Swift (Sales rank: No. 39) 38. There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back, Shawn Mendes (Sales rank: No. 26) 37. Magnolia, Playboi Carti (Sales rank: No. 48) 36. Shape of You, Ed Sheeran (Sales rank: No. 1) 35. Feel It Still, Portugal. The Man (Sales rank: No. 41) 34. Something Just Like This, The Chainsmokers & Coldplay (Sales rank: No. 11)
33. Stay, Zedd & Alessia Cara (Sales rank: No. 18)
32. Bank Account,
21 Savage (Sales rank: No. 34)
31. That’s What I Like, Bruno Mars (Sales rank: No. 4)
30. Drowning, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie (Sales rank: No. 43)
29. Location, Khalid (Sales rank: No. 12 ) 28. Body Like a Back Road, Sam Hunt (Sales rank: No. 8)
27. Rockstar, Post Malone feat. 21 Savage (Sales rank: No. 16)
26. Thunder, Imagine Dragons (Sales rank: No. 25) 25. Portland, Drake (Sales rank: No. 40) 24. Unforgettable, French Montana (Sales rank: No. 13) 23. Issues, Julia Michaels (Sales rank. No. 14) 22. Love, Kendrick Lamar (Sales rank: No. 29 ) 21. In Case You Didn’t Know, Brett Young (Sales rank: No. 47) 20. Castle on the Hill, Ed Sheeran (Sales rank: No. 30) 19. Sorry Not Sorry, Demi Lovato (Sales rank: No. 36) 18. Attention, Charlie Puth (Sales rank: No. 27 ) 17. T-Shirt, Migos (Sales rank: No. 31) 16. Havana, Camila Cabello (Sales rank: No. 49) 15. Sign of the Times, Harry Styles (Sales rank: No. 50)
Fans’ first taste of Harry Styles’ solo career came via
Sign of the Times’ sweeping Elton John nostalgia, a preview of one of the most surprisingly solid debut albums of 2017. 14. I’m the One, DJ Khaled (Sales rank: No. 9)
A sophomoric joy, this song manages to take a snooze of a Lil Wayne verse and a feature from an overexposed Justin Bieber and spin it into gold.
13. Loyalty, Kendrick Lamar feat. Rihanna (Sales rank: No. 44)
Two artists at the top of their respective genres, Lamar and Rihanna don’t try to do too much on Loyalty, nonchalantly trading brags on a song that belongs in a time capsule of 2017 superiority. 12. Congratulations,
Post Malone (Sales rank: No. 5) Released months before Rockstar launched Post Malone to No. 1 on the Hot 100, Congratulations was a preemptive victory lap for an artist who finished 2017 as one of the year’s most unexpected defining artists.
11. It Ain’t Me, Kygo feat. Selena Gomez (Song rank: No. 22)
Bad Liar was Gomez’s actual best track of 2017, but her quietly devastating vocals on It
Ain’t Me were proof that not every pop stars’ EDM collaboration has to be soulless. 10. Young Dumb & Broke, Khalid (Sales rank: No. 38)
A statement-making track from one of pop’s shining young stars, Young Dumb and
Broke may not be as of-themoment as Location, but it’s the better song. 9. Mask Off, Future (Sales rank: No. 6)
Mask Off finally earned Future a hard-won Billboard No. 1 song, then inspired the year’s most life-affirming meme, with young musicians around the Internet flipping the song’s infectiously bleak melody into instrumental creations. 8. HUMBLE, Kendrick Lamar (Sales rank: No. 3)
Lamar has never sounded simultaneously more and less than on his bouncing No. 1 track, a pretzel of inscrutable lyrics, oddball references and some well-deserved bragging. 7. Passionfruit, Drake (Sales rank: No. 24)
After his maddeningly inconsistent 2016 release Views, Drake became loveable again on More Life this year, with Pas
sionfruit the peak of his islandinspired experimentations.
6. Despacito, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee feat. Justin Bieber (Sales rank: No. 2)
This landmark achievement for Spanish-language pop was also one of the most perfectly crafted hits of 2017, with a melody that never stops escalating. 5. XO Tour Llif3, Lil Uzi Vert (Sales rank: No. 7)
It wasn’t the best single of the year, but no song better encapsulated the end-of-days climate of 2017 than XO Tour Llif3, from a come-from-nowhere Philadelphia rapper whose ascent to stardom was reason enough to celebrate the song. 4. Wild Thoughts, DJ Khaled (Song rank: No. 23)
The pinnacle of the DJ Khaled experiment, a song that combined infectious pop production with a lineup of all-star artists to create a perfectly engineered hit. But the MVP of Wild Thoughts is Rihanna, who even in an album off year cemented her status as pop’s most consistently entertaining player. 3. Bodak Yellow, Cardi B (Sales rank. No. 20)
Not only was Cardi B the Cinderella story of music this year, her breakout single was a fiery, instantly quotable revelation, a song that became a rallying cry for underdogs and strong women and anyone else trying to make money moves. 2. DNA, Kendrick Lamar (Sales rank: No. 19)
The defining single of Lamar’s DAMN era, DNA saw the rapper cementing his status at the top of hip-hop, asserting his superiority while challenging every force in his path. 1. Slide, Calvin Harris (Sales rank: No. 32)
Slide wasn’t the biggest-selling song of 2017, or the most influential, but it was the best. Sounding like an endless summer night and combining career-best production from Cavin Harris with on-point appearances from the Migos, the song’s real blessing is its appearance from R&B’s mystery man Frank Ocean.
The very best party songs are Trojan horses for bigger emotion, and Ocean nails the slipperiness of youth and sex and relationships when life seems too full to make anything other than empty commitments, down to the sly comeon of the chorus: “Do you slide on all your nights like this?”