If you're not diligent, music can pass you by. That's true now more than ever. Artists have the tools to create and release new music at any moment with the push of a button. This means any newcomer—any passionate or lonely kid in a room with a song in his or her head—can have as much power as any established artist with a SoundCloud. In many ways the streaming age has become the great equalizer. Lil Peep, a largely unknown emo rapper, can amass internet fame and help direct the future of a new hybrid genre. Yet music this year was defined by outrage, by progress, by passion and escapism. Listen to our Spotify playlist here or at the bottom of the page.

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And of course, if there was a week in which sales and streams or just general excitement seemed to be lagging, the pop machine reverted to a tried-and-true formula established as a sure shot back in ' Just throw Justin Bieber on it. Here are our 50 favorite songs of so far -- the biggest hits, the songs that fell through the cracks, and everything in between. 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. Logic feat.
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If albums had something of a soft landing on the pop landscape in , then songs more than picked up the headline-grabbing slack. The Man and Sam Hunt did so domestically. And even with all this, it was still a year where the very best singles might not have been the very biggest. Lady Gaga, "The Cure". Following her rootsy, personal Joanne LP, "The Cure" comes across like Gaga's concession to radio's now waning love affair with trop-pop. Even so, the track is unmistakable Stefani Germanotta, from the smoky coo on the verses hello, jazz chanteuse Gaga to the full-throated, mountain-top-tickling bellow that announces the chorus.
The Billboard Hot is a chart that ranks the best-performing singles of the United States. Its data, published by Billboard magazine and compiled by Nielsen SoundScan , is based collectively on each single's weekly physical and digital sales, as well as airplay and streaming. At the end of a year, Billboard will publish an annual list of the most successful songs throughout that year on the Hot chart based on the information. For , the list was published on December 11, calculated with data from December 3, to November 25, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 11, Retrieved December 12,