Top Songs of My Lifetime 1957 to Today

“Angry” the huge Rolling Stones hit from 2023.

Songs Per Year From the Start of My Life

Once again re-visiting my list of Top Songs per year of my life. I took the opportunity to revise the list once again, adding the 2023 and 2024 entry and replacing the one from 1967. The last update to this list occurred in March 2023.

It was very hard choosing just one song, per year since the start of my life. Many classic songs from every year had to be left off. Some songs you may know and recognize as classics.  Many were big Top 40 hits, with several going to #1.

Others were just #1 in my mind, but I love em to this day. So check the list out and listen to the Spotify Playlist provided at the end of the chart.

Have a great day!

Top Songs of My Lifetime

One song for each year of my life: 1957 to 2024.

Personal favorites or significant songs from my pop music history.

Updated November 25, 2024.

        Year - Title - Artist

• 1957 - Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
• 1958 - Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran
• 1959 - Sweet Nothins - Brenda Lee
• 1960 - The Twist - Chubby Checker
• 1961 - Travelin' Man - Ricky Nelson
• 1962 - Soldier Boy - The Shirelles
• 1963 - Rhythm of the Rain - The Cascades
• 1964 - A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
• 1965 - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
• 1966 - I Fought the Law - Bobby Fuller Four
• 1967 - Light My Fire - The Doors
• 1968 - Hey Jude - The Beatles
• 1969 - Honky Tonk Woman - The Rolling Stones
• 1970 - Let It Be - The Beatles
• 1971 - Joy to the World - Three Dog Night
• 1972 - American  Pie - Don McLean
• 1973 - Crocodile Rock - Elton John
• 1974 - Band On The Run - Paul McCartney & Wings
• 1975 - Philadelphia Freedom - Elton John
• 1976 - Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win) - Fleetwood Mac
• 1977 - Dreams - Fleetwood Mac
• 1978 - Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees
• 1979 - My Sharona - The Knack
• 1980 - (Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon & Yoko Ono
• 1981 - The Break Up Song - Greg Kihn Band
• 1982 - I Love Rock n Roll - Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
• 1983 - Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
• 1984 - When Doves Cry - Prince & the Revolution
• 1985 - Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
• 1986 - Papa Don't Preach - Madonna
• 1987 - Just Like Heaven - The Cure
• 1988 - Sweet Child o' Mine - Guns And Roses
• 1989 - Lovesong - The Cure
• 1990 - Black Velvet - Alannah Myles
• 1991 - Valerie Loves Me - Material Issue
• 1992 - Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
• 1993 - Dreamlover - Mariah Carey
• 1994 - Because the Night - 10,000 Maniacs
• 1995 - Kiss From A Rose - Seal
• 1996 - Don't Speak - No Doubt
• 1997 - Tubthumping - Chumbawamba
• 1998 - The Way - Fastball
• 1999 - Maria - Blondie
• 2000 - Smooth - Santana featuring Rob Thomas
• 2001 - Island in the Sun - Weezer
• 2002 - Hella Good - No Doubt
• 2003 - Stacy's Mom - Fountains Of Wayne
• 2004 - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - Green Day
• 2005 - Love In A Trashcan - The Raveonettes
• 2006 - Dani California - Red Hot Chili Peppers
• 2007 - Phantom Limb - The Shins
• 2008 - Pork and Beans - Weezer
• 2009 - I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
• 2010 - Need You Now - Lady Antebellum
• 2011 - Paradise - Coldplay
• 2012 - Drive By - Train
• 2013 - Change - Churchill
• 2014 - Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars
• 2015 - Hello - Adele
• 2016 - Spirits - The Strumbellas
• 2017 - Shape of You - Ed Sheeran
• 2018 - Perfect - Ed Sheeran
• 2019 - Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi
• 2020 - Living in a Ghost Town - The Rolling Stones
• 2021 - Save Your Tears (remix) - The Weeknd with Ariana Grande
• 2022 - Hurricane - Cannons
• 2023 - Angry - The Rolling Stones
• 2024 - APT. - Rosé & Bruno Mars 

Mel’s Current Top 20 Hits For This Week

Welcome to the periodic Mel's Current Top 20 Chart. This chart is updated on a weekly basis. The music can be streamed from the YouTube video link below. All charted  music show up on the Spotify link at the posting. The songs may play through on some browsers but not all. Spotify works best with a paid subscription.

Mel’s Current Top 20
This is the Most Current Chart of This Week


Note: Some of the embedded videos may not play on this site due to copyright restrictions.

The chart is updated on a weekly basis. The date of the last update to the chart appears on the chart.

SPOTIFY - Be sure to check our Spotify playlist to listen to all 20 hits.

Mel's Top 100 Hits of 2023

 

Mel’s Top 100 Hits of 2023.

The following chart was compiled from data pulled from my Current Top 20 weekly lists that are posted to M4B Charts, my website and on this blog.

"Angry" by The Rolling Stones was a surprise 2023 entry for me when it debut in early September. From that point on it was the battle of senior bands for the latter quarter of 2023. The Rolling Stones took "Angry" to #1 for 9 weeks. That was good enough to crown the Grammy nominated song as the #1 track of the year.

The Beatles followed next with their last ever song, "Now And Then" which is well known for using A.I. for removing background noise on the original John Lennon cassette recording.  

"Now And Then" became a #1 song for 5 weeks. The Rolling Stones then reclaimed the #1 spot for the last two weeks of 2023 with "Mess It Up".

Taylor Swift placed several records in the Top 100 including two #1 songs: The Grammy nominated "Anti-Hero" is #3 for the year after holding on to #1 for 5 weeks at the end of 2022 and into 2023. The song was on the chart for 25 weeks.

Swift's second #1 song of 2023 was a track called "Karma". Both songs were taken from one of three incarnations of Taylor Swift's Midnights album.

The Linda Lindas hit #1 with "Resolution/Revolution" for three weeks in late summer. 

Rapper Tom MacDonald broke out of his rap genre and greeted 2023 with an ode to his girl friend Nova Rockafeller titled "Ghost". The song is an unexpected thing of beauty that held the #1 spot on the Current Top 20 for 7 non-consecutive weeks, good enough to end up at #2 for the year.

The rest of the Top 100 follow below. 

No.	Song Title	Artist	Peak	WAP	WO
1	Angry	The Rolling Stones	1	9	16
2	Ghost	Tom MacDonald	1	7	21
3	Anti-Hero	Taylor Swift	1	5	23
4	Now And Then	The Beatles	1	5	8
5	Resolution/Revolution	The Linda Lindas	1	3	15
6	Pointless	Lewis Capaldi	1	2	16
7	When I Die	Fanny Lumsden	1	2	15
8	Wish You The Best	Lewis Capaldi	1	2	15
9	I Feel Like Dancing	Jason Mraz	1	2	14
10	Karma / Karma (featuring Ice Spice)	Taylor Swift	1	2	13
11	Flowers	Miley Cyrus	1	2	13
12	End of the World	Tom MacDonald featuring John Rich	1	2	10
13	Try That In A Small Town	Jason Aldean	1	2	10
14	Love Again	The Kid LAROI	1	2	10
15	Mess It Up	The Rolling Stones	1	2	9
16	Lux Æterna	Metallica	1	2	9
17	Heavenly Kind of State of Mind	Lewis Capaldi	1	1	14
18	Curtains	Ed Sheeran	1	1	14
19	Lost	Linkin Park	1	1	14
20	Eyes Closed	Ed Sheeran	1	1	12
21	Rich Men North of Richmond	Oliver Anthony Music	2	4	13
22	Need A Favor	Jelly Roll	2	2	16
23	Blind For Love	American Authors	2	3	14
24	Be More	Stephen Sanchez	2	2	16
25	Get Her Back	Michael Ray	1	1	9
26	I Can See You (Taylor's Version)	Taylor Swift	2	2	10
27	Atomic City	U2	2	1	12
28	I'll Be Seeing You	Iam Tongi	2	1	9
29	Houdini	Dua Lipa	2	1	4
30	Evangeline	Stephen Sanchez	3	2	13
31	Sweet Sounds of Heaven	The Rolling Stones	3	1	12
32	Bejeweled	Taylor Swift	3	1	12
33	Trustfall	P!nk	3	1	11
34	Lavendar Haze	Taylor Swift	3	1	11
35	I'm Feelin' Good (Steve Miller Band)	King Calaway	3	1	11
36	Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)	Bruce Springsteen	3	1	9
37	How I'm Feeling Now	Lewis Capaldi	3	1	9
38	Paradise (Universal Sound Version)	Stick Figure	4	4	9
39	Seasons	Bebe Rexha & Dolly Parton	3	1	8
40	Fast Car	Luke Combs	4	2	18
41	Night Owl	The Dollyrots	4	2	10
42	Vampire	Olivia Rodrigo	4	2	10
43	Thank God	Kane & Katelyn Brown	4	1	27
44	Calm Down (featuring Selena Gomez)	Rema	4	1	14
45	Bad Idea Right?	Olivia Rodrigo	4	2	8
46	Until I Found You (Em Beihold Version)	Stephen Sanchez & Em Beihold	4	1	13
47	Giddy Up!	Shania Twain	4	1	12
48	I'm Good (Blue)	David Guetta & Bebe Rexha	4	1	11
49	Billy	The Shang Hi Los	5	2	12
50	Jolene	Olivia Newton-John & Dolly Parton	4	1	7
51	No Bad Days (featuring Collett)	Macklemore	5	2	8
52	Desire	Cannons	5	1	10
53	Dirty Money	Tom MacDonald	5	1	10
54	Cruel Summer	Taylor Swift	5	1	9
55	One More Time	Blink-182	5	1	7
56	Is It Over Now? (Taylor's Version)	Taylor Swift	5	1	6
57	Thunder Rumbles	The Cat Empire	6	2	11
58	Why Kiki?	Iam Tongi	6	2	10
59	If the Loneliness Don't Kill Me	Whitehorse	6	1	11
60	Made You Look	Meghan Trainor	6	2	9
61	American Town	Ed Sheeran	6	1	9
62	Hey Girl / I Touch Myself	The Dollyrots	6	1	8
63	Until I Found You	Stephen Sanchez	7	2	22
64	Save Me (with Lainey Wilson)	Jelly Roll	7	1	9
65	Loving You	Cannons	8	2	13
66	Too Many Things	The Linda Lindas	7	1	8
67	Boom Boom	The Cat Empire	7	1	8
68	Dreamin' All The Time	Trevor Beid Jimenez	8	2	10
69	Silver Fish	Dengue Fever	8	1	8
70	TQG (featuring Shakira)	KAROL G	8	1	8
71	Your America	Tom MacDonald	8	1	6
72	Mother	Meghan Trainor	8	1	6
73	American Flags (with Adam Calhoun)	Tom MacDonald	8	1	5
74	Songbird (Orchestral Version)	Christine McVie	9	1	10
75	Thank God I Do	Lauren Daigle	9	1	10
76	Everyone and Everything	Ringo Starr	9	1	7
77	I Remember Everything (w/ Kacey Musgraves)	Zach Bryan	9	1	6
78	Get Him Back!	Olivia Rodrigo	9	1	6
79	Hold On	The Strumbellas	9	1	6
80	Island in the Sun (featuring American Authors)	Smallpools	10	3	9
81	Monsters	Courtney Hadwin	10	2	10
82	I Like The Rain	Tiffany	10	2	7
83	Single Soon	Selena Gomez	10	2	5
84	I Won't Back Down	The Goo Goo Dolls + O.A.R.	10	1	7
85	What's Up (featuring Linda Perry)	Dolly Parton	10	1	7
86	Pepper	Panic at the Disco	10	1	6
87	Padam Padam	Kylie Minogue	10	1	6
88	The American Dream is Killing Me	Green Day	10	1	6
89	Groovy Christmas	The Linda Lindas	10	1	5
90	Catalonia (Live at the Sydney Opera House)	Vance Joy	11	2	5
91	Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree	Brenda Lee	10	1	2
92	The News	Paramore	11	1	8
93	Save Me The Trouble	Dan + Shay	11	1	6
94	Your Side of Town	The Killers	11	1	6
95	Gonna Be You	Dolly Parton, Belinda Carlisle, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, Debbie Harry	11	1	5
96	Better Days (from Trolls Band Together)	*NSYNC	11	1	4
97	That Girl Don't Live Here	Courtney Hadwin	12	2	7
98	74-'75 (2023 Remaster)	The Connells	12	2	6
99	Let It Be (with Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr)	Dolly Parton	12	2	6
100	Life Goes On	Ed Sheeran & Luke Combs	12	1	6

WAP = Weeks at Peak | WO = Total Weeks on Chart

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The Mel’s Top 100 of 2023 Hits on Spotify

Best of 2023: A #1 Song 65 Years After Release

 Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree Went to #1

I'm happy that BRENDA LEE made it to #1 with her 65 year old holiday hit, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree". The song came out in 1958 and has shown up on every Billboard Hot 100 chart since Christmas music was regularly listed during the holiday season. 

The song also charted on the 1960 and 1961 Hot 100s. "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" has never been a number one record until the Billboard Hot 100 was released on December 5, 2023. 

UPDATE: Billboard announced that "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" will top the Hot 100 for a second week in a row! Congratulations Brenda Lee (December 11).

With that accomplishment, Brenda Lee became the oldest person to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, eclipsing a record Louis Armstrong had since 1964's "Hello Dolly" when he was 64. Today (December 11) Brenda Lee turned 79.

In 1960 she had two #1 songs... "I'm Sorry" and "I Want To Be Wanted" both ballads in a lush, country crooning style. Most of her early records were produced by Owen Bradley, who also produced country music records for Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn.

My favorite Brenda Lee song is "Sweet Nothins'" a rock n roll track reached #4 on the Hot 100 in 1959. That track along with "I'm Sorry" and several others appeared on her great 1960 album release, Brenda Lee. We had that record in our family's collection since the 1960s. The whispering intro of "ah ha honey, alright..." grabbed it for me on "Sweet Nothins'".

This year a new video was produced for "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" which appears in the link below (YouTube). She also sang the song at the Grand Ole' Opry on December 2023 telecast shown on NBC TV.

Best of 2023: The Beatles Now And Then

 

The Last Song by The Beatles

"Now And Then", the song recorded by The Beatles was released on November 2. The song written by John Lennon was given to Paul McCartney by Yoko Ono, John's widow in 1994 along with the songs "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love".

In 1994 George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney worked on the three songs releasing two of them on the Anthology I and Anthology II albums that came out in 1995 and 1996. "Now And Then" laid on the back burner for more than 25 years due to technical reasons. You can learn more about "Now And Then" by watching the short video documentary below:

"Now And Then" made its debut on my Current Top 20 chart at #3 on November 3. By the next week it jumped to #1, replacing "Angry" by The Rolling Stones at that position. "Now And Then" has been the #1 song on my Current Top 20 for the four weeks now. The latest chart as of December 1 is shown below.

"Now And Then" is one of my favorite songs of 2023 and we'll see where it ends up in my end of the year Top 100 for 2023.