The 100 Best Songs of 2022

Calling Bad Bunny unpredictable is starting to feel like a cliché, but his collaboration with the Colombian electro-fusion band Bomba Estéreo was a genuine surprise — and a standout on Un Verano Sin Ti that netted him a Record of the Year nomination at the 23rd annual Latin Grammys. Produced by Tainy, the track marries the best of Bad Bunny’s laidback baritone with Li Saumet’s spunky delivery for one of summer’s most wistful tracks. Saumet told Rolling Stone that her verses came to her instantly, a process she described as “very magical.” “That’s how things come together when they come from a real place,” she added. — J.L.

Pop disruptor Sky Ferreira’s first single since 2019’s chaotic “Downhill Lullaby” is a colossal synth-pop anthem with a vengeful streak — “I won’t forget, I don’t forgive,” she wails on the chorus. Ferreira’s petulant alto is made for sentiments like the rancor and anger that animate “Don’t Forget”; when swirled into the echoing synth strings and overdriven guitars, it sounds even more menacing. Ferreira’s second full-length, Masochism, has been on the verge of coming out for about seven years, but if “Don’t Forget” is any indication, its eventual arrival will be a gift to the patient. — M.J.

Rema likes to call his spin on the Afrobeats sound “Afro-rave.” Is it much different than regular Afrobeats? Not a ton. Is it sublimely lovely all the same? Yes it is. Rema is the kind of singer who savors simple pop pleasures; the gently rolling “Calm Down” is literally about trying say hello to a girl who’s mellow and dressed in yellow, with a track that’s appropriately warm, bright, and captivating. The big-eyed wonder in Rema’s voice makes it sound like he’s the first guy ever to behold the majesty of girls or colors. — J.D.

So much of the polarizing discussion about the state of R&B hinges on the way that artists have fused the music with hip-hop — a style popularized by many others, and now embodied like no one else by Gunna. Over tender Metro Boomin production, he croons to his fantasy girl, telling her exactly why she’s his type. “Know you fuckin’ a man that’s made, hey/Keep it low-key, she ain’t after fame,” he sings on his straightforward love note. Instead of leaning on a Nineties R&B sample, he channels that energy in his own manner, stretching out over an unconventionally lengthy three-plus minutes. Released on Valentine’s Day, it’s a song that displays Gunna doing what he does best over the kind of production that allows him to do so. — A.G.

King Von’s “Don’t Play That” starts by letting the beat run for eight bars. The Kid Hazel-produced track employs the kind of electro-pop loop an indie act might license for a car commercial. But then Von subverts the mood with his characteristic menace, matter-of-factly rhyming, “I did a drill with a face mask/I wash my hand with the Ajax.” The late Chicago rhymer delves into a gritty, braggadocious verse, and 21 Savage follows up with the same. Von was known for rhyming over sinister, high-octane production, but “Don’t Play That” shows what he could do over a more palatable soundscape. His effortless delivery radiates the vibe of a burgeoning master of his craft. It’s tragic that “Don’t Play That” instead became the lead single for a posthumous album from an artist slain before his time. — A.G.

Tokischa has a rare gift for provocation that’s yielded some of the most exhilaratingly unfiltered music on the planet, along with some of the worst tweets this side of the guy who made The College Dropout. On her single with the boldly behatted DJ/producer Marshmello, she pulls off one of her most stunning coups: taking a mainstream EDM beat as big and empty as they come and making it thoroughly, distinctly her own. Boasting about sex, drugs, and other pastimes over a high-gloss house vamp, she vividly renews the commitment to hedonism that underlies all great dance music. If she can make Marshmello cool, what can’t she do? — S.V.L.

We’re all familiar with the sad country song about a woman stuck in a one-horse town, slinging hash in some roadside dump as she dreams of a big, wide world she’ll probably never touch. Oklahoma singer-songwriter Kaitlin Butts gives us something different; in her devastatingly sung version, the woman makes it out of Nowhereville but washes out because, “Her small-town pretty didn’t play in the city too well.” Too proud to go back home, she throws on her apron and heads out for another 12-hour shift pouring coffee for strangers. The result is a perfect shot of Red Dirt naturalism — Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie by way of Kacey Musgraves’ Same Trailer, Different Park — and proof that Butts is herself deserving of much bigger things. — J.D.

This was the year of stacked vocals in Afropop, in which tracks like Wizkid’s “Bad to Me” and Burna Boy’s “It’s Plenty” featured what sounded like a mass of mighty but whimsical singers. Pheelz and Bnxn’s “Finesse” came earlier, though, and used the trick to delightful effect on its carefree hook, in which the Nigerian artists throw caution and money to the wind. In March, it was one of the most Shazamed songs in the world, and deservedly so. — M.C.

“I write songs about feeling confident!” Lizzo proclaimed in a Saturday Night Live sketch last April, about the time this bumping disco strut debuted. The bit was a joke, but that line wasn’t, and “About Damn Time” is the best proof possible. Lizzo has never sounded so effortlessly celebratory, and the easy groove, which samples the World’s Famous Supreme Team’s early-Eighties bubblegum jam “Hey D.J.,” fits her like a pair of faux-snakeskin boots. No wonder — co-producer Ricky Reed’s endlessly uncoiling bass line delivers a good time all by itself. — M.M.

GloRilla’s come up has been one of the joys of 2022, recently culminating in her breakout hit “F.N.F (Let’s Go)” earning a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance. It’s a particularly appropriate category for GloRilla, as part of the magic of her tracks is her raw delivery. The visceral umph that punctuates her bars on “Tomorrow 2” could make you twist your face into a grimace. Then, the gleeful venom of Cardi B’s uber-quotable verse could make you laugh in disbelief. “Long ass weave, it be ticklin’ my ass crack/Wonder what I’ll do tomorrow that these hoes will be mad at,” is one of many Cardi couplets that make her so loveable.–M.C.

FKA Twigs is as celebrated for her dancing as she is for her avant-garde, experimental R&B, but it wasn’t until this year’s Caprisongs that she focused on making sweaty, beat-driven songs meant for everybody to dance to. “Papi Bones” taps into the star’s Jamaican heritage and features an excellent cameo from British DJ and artist Shygirl. The result is a sexy and fun anthem for all the “champagne bubble girls” and a perfect step forward for Twigs. “I grew up listening to Afrobeats on pirate radio stations, or when I was a teenager, at Notting Hill Carnival,” she said earlier this year. “So I really wanted to show that side of myself, and connect with who I was when I was around 16 or 17 and started seeking out music and clubs and people that represented my heritage.” — B.S.

Smino and J. Cole share a penchant for unearthing the intertwined roots of hip-hop and the blues with tender melodies and concerns — and that’s why they made such an excellent duo when they reconnected for “90 Proof.” Romantic love is Smino’s central meditation on the track, backed by warm guitar and crisp drums; the kind of love that stretches and molds you into something different, maybe better. Through most of his quick but hefty verse, Cole’s cautious gloating deviates from Smino’s thematic path, but the Dreamville head takes melodic cues from the St. Louis rapper’s template. It’s some of both of their best work this year. — M.C 

Seventeen’s popularity grew exponentially this year following the release of their fourth studio album, Face the Sun. The 13-member South Korean group known for self-producing, both in songwriting and choreographing, filled the album with hits like “Cheers” and “Darling,” but “Hot,” the lead single, towers above them all. You can’t help but to “drop it like hot, hot, hot” when you hear the Wild West-inspired guitar strum that kicks off the track. — K.K. 

Wizkid’s tour-de-force couple of years celebrating the success of Made in Lagos and its hit single “Essence” could have made for a tough act to follow, but the Nigerian superstar took on his follow-up in stride. “Bad to Me” was the lead single off his latest album More Love, Less Ego, and it further solidifies him as the type of genre-unifying pop superstar music very much needs. The slick tune is an infectious, fun victory lap for the star — don’t be surprised if it’s heating up everyone all winter long. — B.S. 

One of the year’s most memorable indie songs, and an instant standout from Alex Giannascoli’s God Save the Animals, “Runner” contains lines both pure of heart (“I like people who I can open up to/Who don’t judge for what I say, but judge me for what I do”) and utterly dark (“What’s a couple grand rolled up in your pocket?/I won’t tell nobody, baby you don’t tell nobody”). Giannascoli plays every instrument on the song — including synthesizer and drums — to create a blissful, free-wheeling rocker with comforting echoes of Tom Petty. Need proof? Listen to the chorus of “Louisiana Rain” right after “Runner,” and you’ll see what we mean. — A.M.

When Rosé yells, “I’m so rock & roll!,” believe the woman. Blackpink kick down the door in their summer hit “Pink Venom,” an unbelievably fun raising-hell anthem full of Eighties hair-metal glam. Even the song title sounds like the name of a tribute band playing Poison and Def Leppard covers at the sleaziest bar in town. The Blackpink queens warn you not to mess with them, because you can’t handle their “Pink Venom,” boasting in Korean and English. It peaks as Rosé sneers, “Look what you made us do,” proving that bad blood is a universal language. — R.S.

More than half a century has passed since Black Sabbath invented heavy metal as we know it, but on “No Escape From Now,” a track off Ozzy Osbourne‘s Patient Number 9 album, he and his Sabbath bandmate, guitarist Tony Iommi, have rooted themselves in the present. “Gone are the yesterdays,” Osbourne keens over Iommi’s brooding riffs, “Tomorrow’s getting cold … There’s no escape from now.” As on the best Sabbath epics (and this song stretches nearly seven minutes), the pair find a syrupy groove that evokes several grim moods, from the dark to the really dark, with help from Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and producer-bassist Andrew Watt. It’s only a partial Sabbath reunion, but it lives up to the legacy of the Iron Men. — K.G.

A meeting of two goddesses: the Colombian pop/reggaeton queen Karol G and the L.A. pop singer Becky G. They’re not exactly in a forgiving mood. In “Mamiii,” they drag their no-good exes for one of the year’s fiercest and funniest break-up songs, choosing violence in every possible way over a lilting guitar. The stars destroy any two-legged rat of a man who ever did them wrong, and if he wants to get back in touch, he should call “1-800-jódete.” (In other words, “fuck off.”) It’s a tribute to sisterhood as well as rage, proving that both of these Gs know how to twist the knife. — R.S.

A longtime fixture of Nashville’s rap underground, Jelly Roll made a turn toward country with his latest project and revealed himself to be a great singer with a raspy tenor. Born Jason DeFord, Jelly Roll sings believably and candidly about his struggles with addiction in “Son of a Sinner,” trying to feel OK about being “somewhere in the middle” and “just a little right and wrong” instead of always squeaky-clean. It was a story of personal struggle without a tidy ending, but it turned out to be one that a lot of people understood very well. — J.F.

When Asake — the Nigerian street-pop star whose debut album seemed to have generated the biggest buzz of the year — told his friend and peer Oxlade that he had a hit on his hands in “Ku Lo Sa,” the singer was skeptical. Asake was one of the first people to hear the song that would soon go global, and knew its tender pleas, pointed hook, and delicate rhythm were irresistible. “He was like ‘Yo, the song is going to go crazy,’” Oxlade told Rolling Stone. “‘I was like, ‘Ehh, every song, everybody says it’s going to go crazy.’” Over 150 million streams later, it looks like Asake was right. — M.C.

“I’ma need a bigger bag for the cohort,” begins Earl Sweatshirt on “2010.” The former Odd Future rapper has evolved into one of the genre’s great abstract artists, depicting his all-too-public life in poetic yet incisive terms. Over a tickling keyboard beat from Black Noi$e that sounds like a light sprinkling rain, Earl remembers a youth spent with his mother “rockin’ Liz Claiborne” and recaps a journey of “triumph over plight and immense loss.” The wordplay may not be easy to decode. But the imagery he conjures, thanks to lines like “rainy day came, couldn’t rinse the stains off,” will resonate with anyone. — M.R.

Love triangles are brutal; being the side that’s cast out when the two others form a line is pure agony. That’s the cruelty that Omar Apollo excavates on “Evergreen,” as teardrop guitar licks spill against the soft edges of his falsetto. Apollo packs it all in there — anger, anguish, self-loathing, doubt — but still builds to a bridge bursting with defiant confidence: “You know you really made me hate myself/Had to stop before I break myself/Shoulda broke it off to date myself.” Apollo has always excelled at these kinds of songs, and it’s thrilling that such a superb display of his skills has finally scored him a well-deserved place on the charts and the broader pop ecosystem. — J. Blistein

Muna have a reputation for not giving a fuck. But “Home By Now,” the highlight of their self-titled album, is a surprising pop lament placed amid brash confessionals. The narrator of this song is unsteady on their feet, but they’re not so much desperate for a doomed relationship, as they are reaching for the feeling of shelter, a place to rest. The song acts as a much-needed momentary retrospective in an otherwise future-forward album, and it adds to the queer themes richly embedded in Muna’s work. “Home By Now” is reminiscent.  It’s longing. It’s the feeling of driving in a tunnel with the windows down— recalled long after the car is parked. — C.T.J.

It’s a little wild to think that Asake’s current reign as Nigerian pop’s streaming record-breaker only began this year. Within one month of the release of “Sungba,” from his debut EP, a remix and video with Burna Boy made the already-formidable track a powerhouse — Burna even performed it solo at his history-making Madison Square Garden show, sending the audience into an uproar. An electric meeting of the South African house sound amapiano and Nigerian flows, the “Sungba” remix demonstrated the strength of Asake’s sound, and he hasn’t let up since. — M.C.

Move over the Eagles’ “The Last Resort,” there’s a new “The Last Resort” in town. This great Midland song is more proof that Nashville has become America’s leading soft-rock exporter (c’mon, L.A., this is supposed to be your thing). It’s top-shelf Buffett-core, a smooth, heartbroken ballad from the saddest bar on the beach, with steel guitars coming down like a tequila sunset. Midland sing about going down the coast, chasing a case of the blues as big as the ocean, and it goes down so well because, deep down, the dude in this song isn’t some self-pitying bum — dude knows, it’s his own damn fault. — J.D.

If Sam Smith planned to come back with a bang after their 2020 LP Love Goes, “Unholy” proved to be the perfect song with which to do so with. Accompanied by the sass of trans pop star Kim Petras, Smith “threw out the rule book” and stepped away from their signature ballad sound to create a catchy, dirty song about a “daddy getting hot at the body shop” behind mummy’s back. The sexy banger quickly skyrocketed on the charts, making Petras and Smith the first trans and nonbinary artists to reach Number One on the Billboard Hot 100.–T.M.

With its addictive choreography and catchy chorus — “‘Cause I know what you like, boy/You’re my chemical, hype boy” — this was a standout from NewJeans’ hit-filled first EP. “Hype Boy” lets each member’s voice really shine through, and Hanni notably contributed to the cute lyrics that encapsulate young love (“got me chasing a daydream”). NewJeans’ peers and seniors in the K-pop industry, like Stray Kids, StayC, Twice, and even JYP are still covering the “Hype Boy” dance at events and concerts. RM of BTS was also recently captured singing and dancing along to a recent performance. It’s the kind of phenomenon that makes it clear NewJeans have hit on something special. — K.K.

Carly Rae Jepsen always knows how to find the emotional core of any glossy pop confection, and her wonderful team-up with Rufus Wainwright ranks right up there with her finest moments.  “The Loneliest Time” is a classic disco duet about two old lovers breaking free from a breakup of Shakespearean proportions to get right back where they started from, with Rufus and Carly sharing a chemistry on the level of Stevie Nicks and Kenny Loggins in “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’,” which is to say, as sweet as it gets. — J.D.

It seems like it would be massively intimidating to stack up to the talent that Bizarrap, the rising Argentine producer, regularly features on his ultra-popular BZRP Music Sessions — but the Puerto Rican rapper Villano Antillano barely batted an eye when she took the mic for a knockout video that blew away the Internet (155 million YouTube views and counting). Antillano, who has broken barriers as a trans woman in pop, storms onto the song with a barrage of flexes and double-entendres, wiping the floor with her haters. All hell really breaks loose once Bizarrap accelerates the beat: Antillano whips out a black handheld fan, waving it triumphantly with each explosive bar. — J.L.

The breakthrough single from Oklahoma-raised singer-songwriter Zach Bryan is a bare-bones showcase for his weathered wail and painfully precise descriptions of how heartbreak can ravage the mind. Accompanied by a ghostly slide guitar and his own strumming, Bryan pours out his heart to a straying lover, with the encroaching dusk — the “orange” that bleeds into all of Bryan’s imagery — serving as a harbinger for a long, lonely night of solitude. Bryan’s lament smolders with regret and anger, threatening to burst into flame at any moment. — M.J.     

The Cyrus family legacy runs from “Achy Breaky Heart” to Plastic Hearts, but youngest sister Noah Cyrus goes her own way on “I Burned L.A. Down,” a highlight from her debut album, The Hardest Part. It’s a stark acoustic country-pop burner about feeling trapped in a one-sided relationship with a California guy — and maybe also with California. Cyrus mourns, “You can’t make a god of somebody/Who’s not even a half-decent man.” It’s a West Coast cousin to Taylor Swift’s “Maroon,” feeling lost in a city where you used to feel at home, after your heart gets broken there. — R.S.

When Megan premiered “Plan B” during her Coachella set this April, heads exploded. The scorn in her precise raps for an ain’t-shit ex was incinerating, each diss hotter than the next. “Popping Plan B’s ’cause I ain’t planned to be stuck with ya,” is mild compared to everything that comes after. And with the threat to reproductive rights becoming especially dire two months after the song’s premiere, “Plan B” is an incredible assertion of those rights’ importance. — M.C.

Country rebel Ashley McBryde turns this old-school drinking song into a future-school celebration of sisterhood. “Bonfire at Tina’s” is the highlight of Lindeville, her concept album about a small town full of wild characters, inspired by the great Nashville songwriter Dennis Linde. She sings about a group of rowdy girlfriends who don’t always see eye-to-eye — but they watch each other’s backs, pour each other drinks, light each other’s joints. She shares the microphone with Brandy Clark, Caylee Hammack, and Pillbox Patti. As she warns, “Small-town women ain’t built to get along/But you burn one of us, boy, you burn us all.” — R.S.

Doechii scores her most undeniable track yet with “Persuasive,” teaming up with SZA for the killer remix duet. The song evokes a druggy up-all-night vibe where falling head over heels in love can feel like being blunted out of your mind. She keeps singing the sleepy hook, “She’s so persuasive/That marijuana/She’s so flirtatious,” over a moody Seventies R&B groove. SZA adds her signature swagger, demanding, “Get off my balls, I said it nice.” They keep coming back to the key question, “How does it feel to be you?” The answer: damn good whenever “Persuasive” is playing. — R.S.

This heartache anthem was a huge hit for the Nigerian superstar, topping Billboard’s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart and racking up more than 100 million streams on Spotify alone. You can hear why: The beat samples a different love-gone-bad anthem, Toni Braxton’s 2000 hit “He Wasn’t Man Enough,” creating a seductively moody bed for Burna Boy to vocalize with canny self-assurance. Burna’s delivery is both elegant and a little broken as he laments lost love and turns “I need igbo and shayo” — weed and booze, basically — into a sung hook that lit up stereos from Lagos to L.A. — C.H.

There are so many amazing lines in this bonkers country-pop bash, from “Got my invitation, to eternal damnation” to “Fuck what they did to Britney, to Lady Di, and Whitney.” But the award goes to the opener, where Sawayama utters “Let’s go girls,” effortlessly invoking Shania Twain. Artists from other genres dabbling in country music is nothing new, but Sawayama does it better than nearly anyone here, proving she’s just trying to have a good time — while also inspiring change. “I get messages from people who connect the idea of country music with their conservative parents,” she told Twain in their recent Musicians on Musicians interview for RS. “They’ve been like, ‘You’ve taken trauma out of the genre. Thank you.’” — A.M.

Bronx rapper Ice Spice landed one of the year’s breakout hits with “Munch (Feelin’ U),” a track that found her blending the rhythmic aggression of drill with a cool vocal style. On musical terms, she sounds unflappable, dismissing suitors and gawkers alike. Ice Spice’s image was as omnipresent as her music this summer, as fans debated her come-up. Only time will tell if “Munch” is just a TikTok-fueled one-off or the start of something bigger, but for now we’ll keep it on repeat. — M.R.

The simple, Donny Hathaway-sample-driven backdrop of “Dreamin’ of the Past” was the perfect canvas for Pusha T’s winding raps, which touch on everything from bankrolling Christmas with drug money to his annoyance with women who can’t pronounce the name of a luxury fashion house. Kanye West, who produced the song, offers a quick, smart, but slightly troubling verse; his reflections on finance, faith, and family feel foreboding given all we know and have seen of him now. But this is clearly Pusha’s show.— M.C.

When Yahritza Martinez first played “Soy El Unico” for her brother Armando, he was sure his 13-year-old sister was playing a cover. It’s for good reason: The stunning acoustic ballad, steeped in the traditional ballads and corridos of her parents’ native Michoacán region of Mexico and guided by Martinez’s stunning old-soul vocals, sounds like it’s existed forever. The reality is that the devastating torch song, which Martinez wrote by observing teenagers around her going through heartbreak, is a bonafide hit: After going viral on TikTok earlier this year, it topped the Latin music charts and racked up nearly 100 million streams on Spotify alone. But even if it hadn’t become nearly as popular, it’d still be the most astonishing debut single of the year. — J. Bernstein 

Kendrick Lamar’s “N95” opens with a flurry of commands: “Take off them fabricated streams and them microwave memes.” His intro hearkens back to De La Soul’s 1989 track “Take It Off,” yet Lamar is not only distinguishing himself from his peers, but also confronting a world tentatively lowering its N95 masks amidst the ongoing Covid pandemic. “Bitch, you ugly as fuck!” he exclaims before adding “you outta pocket” in a different tone of voice. With moody, bass-y production, this is Lamar confronting societal clichés with restless intellectual fervor, and claims that he doesn’t care about the consequences. — M.R.

Nestled at the end of Drake’s club-music adventure Honestly, Nevermind, “Jimmy Cooks” finds the 6 God on familiar ground, snapping and talking trash with 21 Savage. “Love the way they hang babe, fuck the silicon,” he opines lasciviously. “I be with my gun like Rozay be with lemon pepper,” adds 21. The track is split into three parts, including a Memphis rap-sampling intro as well as a beat apiece for the two rappers, and they bounce around the track with effortless bars, completely in the pocket. — M.R.

The lead single from Harry Styles’ third album balances its agitated inner monologue, where the shape-shifting pop star picks at the details of a relationship in crisis, with spun-sugar synths that give cover to his torment. From its playful opening — Styles’ goddaughter Ruby giggling “Go on, Harry, we want to say goodnight to you!” — to its singsong bridge, during which Styles’ thoughts are ping-ponging around his head at “high-speed internet” velocities, “As It Was” paints an unusually vivid picture. Everything might seem fine on first glance, but it all becomes more troubling (“What kind of pills are you on?”) with each repeated glimpse. — M.J.   

What timing! Beyoncé’s spiritual successor to Johnny Paycheck’s immortal “Take This Job and Shove It” came into a post-Nomadland world of increasingly transient work. By year’s end, it could have been written for the engineers flocking from Twitter. The record hit like a shock wave — was Beyoncé really doing house music? She was, indeed — and her interpolation of Robin S.’s classic “Show Me Love” and sample of Big Freedia’s New Orleans bounce classic “Explode” (“Release ya job!”) has already helped pivot the wider pop world to house as a lodestone. — M.M.

Pharrell came back strong with “Cash In Cash Out,” with a little help from the all-star duo of 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator. Pharrell neither sings nor raps on the track — he just keeps that hypnotic, minimalist 808 loop pumping, and with a beat this cold, that’s all he needs to do. 21 Savage flexes his rudest humor, boasting, “She swallow all my kids, she a bad babysitter/Kim Jong-Un, in my pants is a missile.” Tyler, on a roll after Call Me If You Get Lost, reports that he refused a multi-million-dollar show — “I declined because the stage didn’t match my ethos” — and slips in the boast, “Going both sides, you could say I’m B-I.” — R.S.

When Quavo and his nephew Takeoff seemingly broke with Migos member and cousin Offset and dropped “Hotel Lobby,” it seemed like an escapade before the band eventually got back together. Now, after Takeoff’s senseless murder in November, the duo’s side project has taken on tragic significance. As always, the Atlanta rappers float together like Golden State’s splash brothers. Takeoff brags how his “diamonds be dancing like Bobby [Brown],” while Quavo warns he’s “claiming that stick/Nigga made one wrong move, just popped him.” It hurts to think that the fun wasn’t meant to last. — M.R.

In conversation, Rosalía dazzles with an encyclopedic knowledge of genres, exploring sounds that aren’t her own with a sheer, genuine love of music. That same sincerity comes through in songs like this one, which she premiered during this year’s epic Motomami tour. “Despechá” uses a mambo piano line as starting point, then delves into merengue territory chiseled by touches of avant-pop. Her respect for the bounce of the Dominican Republic’s most trusted dance format is poignant, but it is the soaring energy in her vocals that moves this summertime single closer to the sacred ground she’s aiming for. “Despechá” suggests that Rosalía’s future experiments in global hitmaking may be just as inspired as the milestone that was Motomami. — E.L.

“I’m still here.” With three words, Taylor Swift not only cemented Midnights as a middle finger to the people who prayed for her downfall — she sealed this song’s fate as its album-defining hit. Yes, “Anti-Hero” is the single, and “Maroon” is the one your moody friend keeps quoting. But “Karma” marries Swift’s mastermind lyrics (check out how “Karma is my boyfriend” shifts from smirking metaphor to lovebird literality as the song goes on) with the sleekest, most flexible production tendencies from longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff. When the track list was first released, some fans fixated on the hope that “Karma”  would relate to a long-rumored lost album. But any disappointments about getting an easter egg wrong were swept away by a tenacious revenge song so quintessentially Swift that the tour choreography is practically decided after one listen. — C.T.J.

Steve Lacy says “Bad Habit” clarified his vision for his stellar album Gemini Rights, which, sure, is about a breakup, but also about the parts of you that pulse and pull and contradict and  coexist all at once. It’s fitting, then, that its thesis track cruises like a daylit ride through a psyche in healing, at once peaceful and turbulent. Lacy’s lyrics make peace with the parting and long for reunion; he knows he has power, but gives some away. There’s musical genius in making melancholy groovy enough to soundtrack the summer and soar to the top of the charts. This thing happened for a reason. — M.C. 

Ranking one Renaissance cut above them all is no small task, but the impact of “Cuff It” is undeniable. It has thrived as a single, replete with jovial dance moves that spread like a contagion — and It’s strikingly placed on an album where sequencing is integral to the experience. At track four, the immediacy and ease of its funk is in sharp and exhilarating contrast to the shadowy electronic music that comes before it. As soon as “Cuff It” starts, we’re jetted to an ethereal disco in outer space, welcomed at the doors by the genre’s greatest practitioner, Nile Rodgers, who co-wrote the track and plays guitar on it. Aided by the Chic icon’s magic touch, Beyoncé reached the pinnacle of the modern throwback. — M.C.

The good news: Bad Bunny brought frantic dembow beats, a classy sample by bachata master Anthony Santos, and a coda with a dash of Latin psychedelia to the global mainstream. Even better? He did it all with panache and a healthy sense of humor. Using the archetype of the concerned Latin American aunt asking about her nephew’s potential girlfriends as a starting point, the Puerto Rican icon launches into a hilarious tirade of salacious puns to a bouncy party vibe that — in typical Bad Bunny fashion — unexpectedly morphs into moody self-reflection. More than any other track off Un Verano Sin Ti, “Tití Me Preguntó” showcases Benito’s unbridled creativity, his eccentric pop genius. — E.L.