The Top Twenty Best Hit Songs of 2021 Part 2 (10-1)

10. Starting Over - Chris Stapleton

I am not super familiar with Chris Stapleton but I really like most of what I've heard from him, and this is my favorite song I have heard from him (unless you count his feature on Say Something by Justin Timberlake). It's a song about him and his wife starting over at a better place than they were before. Sure there's a chance it ends up worse on them, but they're willing to take the risk. But the best part of this song is how it sounds. The instrumental is serene, beautiful and delicate in the best way and it sounds amazing. And Chris's voice glides over it perfectly selling the emotions very very well. And he's a great singer as usual. Great song. 

9. My Ex's Best Friend - Machine Gun Kelly, Blackbear

If you told me back in 2019 that I would be putting this guy on a best list, I would have said "Yeah, and I'm Donald Trump" but here we are. MGK made a really good album last year in Tickets To My Downfall and while his singles since then have been horseshit, luckily the one that became a hit this year was from Tickets, and one of my favorites on the album as well. My Ex's Best Friend is just a pop punk banger that was so much fun! The fantastic drum and guitar groove from Travis Barker, one of the catchiest and funnest hooks of the year, both MGK and Blackbear doing great performances, and the lyrics of them realizing that their new girl is actually their ex's best friend and panicking! This was so much fun and it easily earned itself a spot on this list for me. 

8. Rapstar - Polo G

The fact this is only #8 on this list just tells you how stacked this year was because this song is absolutely exceptional. This is a song about how Polo G's success isn't making him happy and he feels alone and sick of the rapstar lifestyle, and he sells it incredibly well and makes me really feel for him. Also the part in the 2nd verse where he starts saying "shut the fuck up" to someone asking about his feelings but then in the middle regains his composure and realizes he needs to be polite and just tells them to leave him alone just hits really hard and is one of the best moments of pop music 2021. Also, it has a fantastic hook, great ukele driven beat, and Polo G sounds great.

7. Kiss Me More - Doja Cat, SZA

Remember when I said in Part 1 that listening to Planet Her was when I fully got on board with Doja Cat? Well, this was the start of that, and is easily my favorite song I have heard from her. The bubbly, beautiful and warm production that makes me feel like I'm cuddled in a nice warm blanket, Doja's fantastic singing and rapping, her charisma, all of her iconic quotable lines, SZA sounding fantastic and having just as many iconic quotables as Doja, the phenomenal hook, this song is just an absolutely warm, radiant, blanket of a song but beyond that also a fantastic time at the same time. Awesome song!

6. Easy On Me - Adele

This is my favorite Adele hit since Someone Like You and I stand by that. It seems like outside of Someone Like You being my favorite hit of hers, I have very unpopular opinions when it comes to her singles. I've never been the biggest fan of Rolling In The Deep, I mean it's good but it's the 2nd worst of her hits in my opinion. And Send My Love (To Your New Lover) a song most people consider one of her worst is one of my favorites of her hits. And with this song, the lead single from her album 30 that came out in late 2021, and her comeback single, her first new song since 2015, a lot of people were underwhelmed by it. But for me, it's her best single in years, and also my favorite song on 30. The song is just a simple piano ballad sure, but so was Someone Like You and while this isn't as exceptional as that song, it's still a beautifully performed well written ballad that I adore! Adele sounds phenomenal as usual, and she sells the emotions perfectly. This song is about how she was in a relationship with this guy and had a son with him, and how she changed who she was to put them first but now she needs to focus on herself and so she is divorcing him and asking her son for forgiveness for leaving his father. And as I said earlier she absolutely sells this song out the roof with so much emotional presence. Damn exceptional song and one of my favorite songs of her entire career! The fact this song missed my top 5 just tells you the type of year we had in 2021!

5. Leave Before You Love Me - Marshmello, Jonas Brothers

I never expected a collab between Marshmello and the Jonas Brothers to work and yet this did in spades! I mean sure, I have come around on Marshmello, even if he still has some garbage hits like FRINDS and One Thing Right, but the Jonas Brothers comeback outside of Sucker which I still like was very bad. Only Human will make my 2019 worst list when I make it and pretty high too, and Cool is even fucking worse. And yet Leave Before You Love Me was one of my biggest listening pleasures of the year. The groove on this thing is legit phenomenal, absolutely perfect production and the Jo Bros fit it perfectly and deliver great performances. The lyrics are also pretty great, about how he came over to see his ex because she was lonely, but knows to leave before he falls back in love with her because he knows that isn't gonna work. And the Jo Bros sell this incredibly well. But yeah back to the sound. This song just calms me down and works well as an escape mechanism when I just need to escape the world for a few minutes. Phenomenal song!

4. Montero (Call Me By Your Name) - Lil Nas X

Ah yes the song with a music video where Lil Nas X twerks down a pole down into hell, kills Satan and takes his crown, which pissed off every religious right side politician for no reason other than homophobia. But anyway, Montero is just a damn exceptional pop song, with incredible flamenco based production, several of the catchiest hooks of the year, and lyrics about a gay relationship. But beyond being a damn exceptional pop song, this song is incredibly important, because it's a song about a gay relationship by a gay man becoming a #1 hit and a huge phenomenon in addition to being a radio staple and one of the ten biggest songs of the year according to Billboard. A song about being gay by a gay artist becoming such a massive hit should really help gay become more normal and socially accepted so I have faith that the success of this song is a good thing beyond just how much I love this song. 

3. Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo was the breakout star of 2021, having a massive year in the first year of her career as a musician. She had four hits this year, and I love three of them close to equally so I'm gonna talk about these three here in the order from my least favorite to my favorite. 

3a. Traitor - Olivia Rodrigo

This one seems to be a love it or hate it song, and while it is my least favorite of her hits this year, I am still very much on the love it side. It's a song about how she feels betrayed because her partner moved on very quickly and found a new girl. Sure it's immature, but that's the charm, I mean she's a teenager, which makes it feel very real. This song has a very beautiful ballad atmosphere, and Olivia is a great singer and performer, she sells it very well.

3b. Deja Vu - Olivia Rodrigo

Well this was a huge grower. The first few times I heard this song I thought it was just meh, now I think it's exceptional. I love the synth production, it reminds me of Lorde and pop Taylor Swift in the best way, Olivia sounds beautiful and sells the lyrics so well, and I adore how the song builds up as it goes on. The lyrics are also great, about how she sees her ex with his new girl impressing her with the same things Olivia impressed him with, and she's very jealous. Again, sure this is immature, but that's the charm. Then there's the bridge where it just goes crazy and interpolates Cruel Summer, a fan favorite song from Taylor Swift's album Lover, which is one of my favorite songs on that album for the record, and it just sends this song into the stratosphere for me! 

3c. Good 4 U - Olivia Rodrigo

Okay, am I the only one who doesn't hear the resemblance between this song and Misery Business by Paramore, like, at all? I mean I guess they have slightly similar instrumental melodies if you squint at them, but what this reminds me of more is a song like Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson. But anyway, this song was one of my most streamed songs of 2021 and for good reason, because this song is insane in the best way. The song is similar to Traitor but with anger as the main emotion rather than sadness, and it works better in my opinion. Just like with Traitor and Deja Vu, sure it's immature, but that's the charm of it because she's a teenager! I just love how she in the verses pretends to be calm and composed, but then in the chorus just screams all all anger out! It reminds me of Mama's Broken Heart by Miranda Lambert, which is one of the best country songs to make a 2010's Billboard Year End list by the way. Also this song has so many iconic moments such as the "like a damn sociopath" and the instrumental and vocals slap so hard. 

2. Save Your Tears - The Weeknd

After Hours by The Weeknd was one of my favorite albums of 2020, a damn masterpiece of an album with a perfect breakup narrative and absolutely stellar 80's based synth pop production. And while this wasn't my favorite on the album when it first came out, it was a slow burn song, it is now my favorite song on After Hours. The immaculate bass groove, one of the best vocal performances I have ever heard from The Weeknd, and of course the lyrics. This song is about him reflecting on his relationship that ended and crying to her to come back to him and stop crying and regrettting his past mistakes with her. But he has to come to terms with the fact that she doesn't want to get back with him and is moving on. That's what hits so hard about this song. It's Abel realizing that he fucked this relationship up and now this girl will never get back with him. And combine that with the bleak atmosphere and Abel's incredibly emotional vocal performance it just hits so hard! And that's just talking about it as a standalone single, in the context of the album it hits even harder as this is the moment he finally accepts, after ten songs of trying to get her back, that he isn't gonna get her back and has to come to terms with that. This is one of my favorite The Weeknd songs, the best song on one of the best albums of the decade so far. So what managed to beat it? Well, normally I would say that before we find that out we have Honorable Mentions, but I had so many that I just decided I would do another list of them soon and just get to #1 so this list doesn't get tedious. 

1.

Hey when I said I loved three of Olivia Rodrigo's four hits this year equally, I didn't mean that I didn't love the fourth one, because, well...

1. Driver's License - Olivia Rodrigo

When I first heard this song in January, it set the bar so high for hit songs in 2021 for me, and I was confident nothing would top it for me, and while it did cool on me in like June for a while due to overplay, that wore off in like October and this was back to being my hit song of the year. This song is just otherworldy on a musical level, starting off slow and serene before slowly picking up the pace adding in gorgeuous synths, and then climaxing in the phenomenal bridge which was my pick for the best musical moment of pop music 2021! And Olivia is singing her ass off! She sounds legit phenomenal on this song delivering every single second of this song with so much emotional presence and pipes to make this my favorite vocal performance of any hit song of the decade so far! The lyrics are phenomenal, about how Olivia is just realizing that this guy has cheated on her just after she got her driver's license to drive up to his house like they always wanted. And she is having to come to terms with the fact that he didn't mean what he wrote in that song about her and didn't actually love her, but she still loves him and feels betrayed. And combined with the atmosphere and performance and this song feels real to me in a way no hit song has for me since Robbery by Juice WRLD. But what made this song untouchable for my #1 is that well, 2021 was a pretty bad year for me mentally. I already mentioned in my worst list that I felt depressed early this year, but that wasn't the only time this year. Nothing too serious, but this was a rough year for me mentally and this song more than any other song I heard that came out this year, was an escape. I listen to this song and suddenly I am transported to Olivia Rodrigo's world, feeling her struggles rather than my own. And this was a DEBUT SINGLE! While she has not topped this yet in my opinion, she has still been damn excellent and she has a long career ahead of her and she might just top this! This song blew me away so much that it made me a fan and it continues to be an escape mechanism for me whenever I feel depressed or stressed out. And it's easily my pick for the Best Hit Song of 2021! 

Thanks for reading! Urtar Reviews signing off! I'll see you next time!