Best 2010s Songs: 60 Throwback Hits That Still Go (2026)

The Short Answer

If you want one 2010s playlist that never misses, start with these ten and build outward:

"Uptown Funk" — Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars · "Rolling in the Deep" — Adele · "Sicko Mode" — Travis Scott · "Somebody That I Used to Know" — Gotye · "One Dance" — Drake · "Shape of You" — Ed Sheeran · "Party Rock Anthem" — LMFAO · "Royals" — Lorde · "Old Town Road" — Lil Nas X · "bad guy" — Billie Eilish

That is the spine. Between them they cover the club-pop years, the Adele supernova, streaming-era hip-hop and the bedroom-pop finale — and every one of them still detonates a room in 2026.

Below are sixty songs grouped by era rather than dumped in one list, because the 2010s were really three decades stacked on top of each other — the EDM-pop club years, the streaming changeover in the middle, and the hip-hop-runs-everything back half. Pick the phase you actually want.

You can play all of it free, no subscription: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/trending-music-player/id1139055265

(Want to go further back first? Start with the best 90s songs or the best 2000s songs — this is the final chapter of the trilogy.)

2010–2012: The Club Years — EDM-Pop, Adele and One Korean Earthquake

The decade opened inside a strobe light. Every pop record wanted to be a festival drop — and then Adele sold thirty million albums of the exact opposite.

"Tik Tok" — Kesha (2010) "California Gurls" — Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg (2010) "Dynamite" — Taio Cruz (2010) "Love the Way You Lie" — Eminem ft. Rihanna (2010) "Just the Way You Are" — Bruno Mars (2010) "Firework" — Katy Perry (2010) "Rolling in the Deep" — Adele (2010) "Party Rock Anthem" — LMFAO (2011) "Super Bass" — Nicki Minaj (2011) "Someone Like You" — Adele (2011) "Moves Like Jagger" — Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera (2011) "We Found Love" — Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris (2011) "Somebody That I Used to Know" — Gotye ft. Kimbra (2011) "Ns in Paris" — Jay-Z & Kanye West (2011) "Call Me Maybe" — Carly Rae Jepsen (2012) "We Are Young" — fun. ft. Janelle Monáe (2012) "Gangnam Style" — PSY (2012) "Thrift Shop" — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (2012) "Locked Out of Heaven" — Bruno Mars (2012) "Diamonds" — Rihanna (2012)

Why this era holds up: it was the last time the whole planet partied to the same songs at the same time. "Gangnam Style" breaking the YouTube view counter is the early 2010s in a single sentence.

2013–2015: Streaming Arrives — Funk Revivals, Lorde and the Last Monoculture Hits

The middle of the decade is the deepest stretch — the charts switched from radio to streams mid-era, and the songs got weirder and better for it.

"Get Lucky" — Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams (2013) "Royals" — Lorde (2013) "Can't Hold Us" — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (2013) "Radioactive" — Imagine Dragons (2013) "Happy" — Pharrell Williams (2013) "Wake Me Up" — Avicii (2013) "Counting Stars" — OneRepublic (2013) "All of Me" — John Legend (2013) "Take Me to Church" — Hozier (2013) "Dark Horse" — Katy Perry ft. Juicy J (2013) "Fancy" — Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX (2014) "Shake It Off" — Taylor Swift (2014) "Blank Space" — Taylor Swift (2014) "Uptown Funk" — Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars (2014) "Thinking Out Loud" — Ed Sheeran (2014) "Shut Up and Dance" — Walk the Moon (2014) "Trap Queen" — Fetty Wap (2015) "See You Again" — Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth (2015) "Hotline Bling" — Drake (2015) "Hello" — Adele (2015)

The sleeper hit of this section is "Take Me to Church". A five-minute Irish blues sermon with no drop and no feature became one of the most-streamed songs of the decade purely because it stops conversations. (Why songs get stuck in your head)

2016–2019: Hip-Hop Runs Everything — Streaming's First Native Superstars

By the back half, streaming had rewritten the rules: hip-hop became the biggest genre on earth, and the first artists who grew up on SoundCloud took over the charts.

"Work" — Rihanna ft. Drake (2016) "One Dance" — Drake ft. Wizkid & Kyla (2016) "Closer" — The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey (2016) "Starboy" — The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk (2016) "Black Beatles" — Rae Sremmurd ft. Gucci Mane (2016) "Shape of You" — Ed Sheeran (2017) "Despacito" — Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee ft. Justin Bieber (2017) "HUMBLE." — Kendrick Lamar (2017) "Bodak Yellow" — Cardi B (2017) "Mask Off" — Future (2017) "XO TOUR Llif3" — Lil Uzi Vert (2017) "rockstar" — Post Malone ft. 21 Savage (2017) "God's Plan" — Drake (2018) "SAD!" — XXXTENTACION (2018) "Sicko Mode" — Travis Scott (2018) "thank u, next" — Ariana Grande (2018) "Sunflower" — Post Malone & Swae Lee (2018) "Old Town Road" — Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus (2019) "bad guy" — Billie Eilish (2019) "Truth Hurts" — Lizzo (2019)

This is the part of the decade the internet built by hand. "Old Town Road" started as a TikTok meme and spent nineteen weeks at #1 — the longest run in chart history — and "bad guy" made whisper-quiet bedroom pop the new stadium sound.

The Deep Cuts People Forget

Every 2010s playlist contains the same thirty songs. These are the ones that make yours the good one.

"Pumped Up Kicks" — Foster the People (2010) — the decade's brightest-sounding dark song. "Midnight City" — M83 (2011) — that saxophone outro is the sound of every 2011 film trailer at once. "Sweater Weather" — The Neighbourhood (2012) — quietly became a generation's autumn anthem a full decade after release. "Do I Wanna Know?" — Arctic Monkeys (2013) — the riff that saved rock radio for one more cycle. "Ribs" — Lorde (2013) — never a single, streamed like one for ten years straight. "Redbone" — Childish Gambino (2016) — the slow-burn funk cut that outlived the meme it spawned. "Ivy" — Frank Ocean (2016) "Tongue Tied" — Grouplove (2011) "Electric Love" — BØRNS (2014) "Slow Dancing in the Dark" — Joji (2018)

A tactical note on sequencing: the 2010s pivot hard at 2016 — the club-pop front half and the moody streaming back half barely speak the same language. "Party Rock Anthem" into "SAD!" sounds like a playlist malfunction, so bridge eras with Drake or Bruno Mars, who lived in both. (How to build a playlist that actually flows)

Why 2010s Songs Hit Different Already

The 2010s just became a throwback decade, and the nostalgia is arriving faster than it did for any decade before it.

The music you hear between roughly 12 and 22 gets encoded differently. Psychologists call it the reminiscence bump — and for Gen Z and younger millennials, the 2010s *are* that window. "Call Me Maybe" is now as old as "Wonderwall" was when "Call Me Maybe" came out. Sit with that.

It was the decade the charts switched engines. The front half was still radio and iTunes; the back half was pure streaming. That's why the early hits sound engineered for a club PA and the late ones for headphones — one decade, two completely different definitions of a hit.

Every song comes with footage. The 2010s were the first fully-documented decade — these songs soundtracked the first Instagram posts, the first Vines, the first TikToks. The music is fused to a video memory in a way no earlier decade can match.

And if a song here used to embarrass you and now you love it with your whole chest — documented phenomenon. (Why you suddenly love songs you used to hate)

Building the Playlist

Sixty songs is more than most people need in one sitting. Cut it down by occasion.

For a party: "Uptown Funk", "Party Rock Anthem", "One Dance", "Sicko Mode", "Gangnam Style" if you are brave. End on "Old Town Road" — nobody stays seated. (Building a party playlist properly)

For a road trip: "Wake Me Up", "Counting Stars", "Shut Up and Dance", "Midnight City", "Sweater Weather" — the streaming decade was secretly great at windows-down. (More road trip songs)

For karaoke: "Rolling in the Deep", "Somebody That I Used to Know", "Call Me Maybe", "Hello", "thank u, next" — half the modern karaoke canon is this decade. (The best karaoke songs)

For the gym: "HUMBLE.", "Sicko Mode", "Mask Off", "Black Beatles", "Can't Hold Us". (High-energy workout songs)

In Trending Music you can play every song here free, save them into a playlist, and tap the heart to download so the playlist keeps working when the venue Wi-Fi does not. There is no subscription in front of any of it: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/trending-music-player/id1139055265

Common Questions

What is the most iconic song of the 2010s? The usual finalists are "Uptown Funk", "Rolling in the Deep" and "Old Town Road" — the biggest pure hit, the biggest voice, and the song that proved the internet now decides what a hit is.

What songs defined the early 2010s specifically? "Party Rock Anthem", "Tik Tok", "We Found Love", "Call Me Maybe" and "Somebody That I Used to Know". If it sounds like a strobe light or an acoustic breakup, it belongs to 2010–2012.

What was the biggest 2010s party song? "Uptown Funk" for the groove, "Party Rock Anthem" for the chaos, "Gangnam Style" for the one dance everyone on earth briefly knew. "One Dance" is the connoisseur's pick and it never misses.

Are the 2010s considered throwback now? Officially — the decade's earliest hits are fifteen-plus years old, TikTok runs 2014-core nostalgia edits daily, and "Sweater Weather" has been adopted by listeners who were in kindergarten when it dropped.

Which 2010s genre aged best? The streaming-era hip-hop run — Kendrick, Travis, Drake, Cardi — still sounds current, and the moody late-decade pop (Billie, The Weeknd, Joji) basically invented how 2020s pop sounds.

How do I listen to all of these for free? Trending Music plays them free with no subscription, and you can download them for offline playback. (Listening offline without premium)

Where are the older decades? Right here: the best 2000s songs and the best 90s songs — same idea, one and two decades earlier.

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