Ranking the Song of the Year Winners of the Decade

This is usually the time of the year that I spend talking about the best-received Couch pieces of the last year. But COVID-19 has made our 4th blogaversary considerably more muted, for as you might have noticed, there has been a whole lot less to write about with the world under lockdown.

This is also the time of year where I’d start peppering with you some of the best film, music, sports and television of the first half of the year. But with COVID-19 greatly lessening the presence of new sports and music, and essentially halting new movies and television, we have had very little of that to write about. Instead, what I’m hoping to do over the next several weeks is do what many publications and TV channels alike have been doing over the last 5 months: retrospectives!

More specifically, I’m going to be looking back at the last decade in major awards show decisions. The Grammys and the Oscars— but really the Hollywood awards circuit in general —have become annual viewing experiences and emotional investments for me. They’re my favorite thing outside of actual sporting events to get needlessly worked up and competitive about, and it’s over the last decade that those annual loud and unsolicited opinions of mine really began.

Previously, we've discussed the Grammy for Best New Artist, the Oscar for Best Director and last week, the Grammy for Record of the Year.

Next up, it's the Record of the Year's companion award, the Grammy for Song of the Year! Note that the years listed in the rankings denote the year of the song that they were nominated for, not the year of the ceremony itself.

The Song of the Year may not get quite as much attention as the Record of the Year does from the Recording Academy, as it usually features earlier in the Grammy night with less fanfare. But to me, this is strange, not only because more often than not (7 times this decade) the two awards go to the same artist, but this one actually goes to the writer and performer themselves, as opposed to the Record of the Year which goes to the producer(s). For that reason, I actually tend to get a little more invested in the Song of the Year category, which is referred to by the Grammys themselves as the “songwriter’s award.”

Accordingly, this piece, while featuring many of the same songs as my Record of the Year piece, will have a little more subjective bias involved than my last one did. The quality of one’s music and lyrics, after all, tends to be more in the eyes and ears of the beholder than a record’s production does. So, without further ado, my rankings of the decade’s winners for Record of the Year:

10. "That's What I Like," Bruno Mars (2017)

Okay, I know I just got done blathering about being more subjective, but I’m going to start with a ranking borne out of objectivity. This isn’t actually my least favorite song on the list; I admit it's both catchy and fun. Besides, unlike Bruno's wins for Record and Album of the Year, "That's What I Like" didn't exactly face a murderers' row of fellow nominees. Julia Michaels' "Issues" was heartfelt but cringe-inducing musically, Logic's "1-800-273-8255" well-intentioned but a little on the nose, and Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" addictive but not exactly lyrics-driven.

Still, this was one of the most bizarre wins. Bruno Mars is immensely talented, but nothing about this song screams impressive musicality, and its lyrics are nothing more than surface-level sexual bravado. It was a decent hit, to be sure, but wasn't a constant radio presence or timeless classic many other winners have been. On a big Grammy night for Bruno, this win might have been the most inexplicable.

9. "Thinking Out Loud," Ed Sheeran (2015)

This is my probably my personal least favorite of the entire list, but I at least give Ed credit for writing an emotional, unabashed love song. And there's no denying "Thinking Out Loud" was everywhere in 2015; I remember some friends of mine began counting the number of times it came on the radio during #SpringBreak2k15 and the number was north of 30.

That said, Americans' (/the World's?) obsession with "sappy British lad strums a guitar" artists is a little tiresome, and it's frustrating to see how often Grammy nominations and victories have reflected that trend. This is absolutely basic musically, so unoriginal in fact that it spawned copyright lawsuits by representatives of both Led Zeppelin and Marvin Gaye. This winning over Taylor Swift's "Blank Space," Little Big Town's "Girl Crush," and Charlie Puth & Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again"? Fine. None of those do anything for me either. But it's immensely tough to swallow the fact that it beat out Kendrick Lamar's "Alright," a fiery, jazz-infused hip-hop declaration of self-love that became the unofficial anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement.

8. "Stay With Me," Sam Smith (2014)

This winner was a slow, heartfelt song, from a soft-spoken British artist that ultimately faced a copyright lawsuit. No, I didn't copy and paste that sentence from the last paragraph; this was true of two consecutive winners, the first of them being Sam Smith. In fairness to Sam, I thought Tom Petty's lawsuit about the similarities between "Stay With Me" and "Won't Back Down" was a little, well, petty, and was somewhat surprised that it was successful.

I led this ranking off in jest, but seriously, it is striking how similar thematically to "Thinking Out Loud" this tune was, and thus, I am also fairly unimpressed by this one musically, and also a bit oversaturated with how much I heard it played. I do prefer the vocals of Sam Smith between the two, though, and can at least appreciate how "Stay With Me" reflected a vulnerability and insecurity rarely found in the music of male artists.

7. "Hello," Adele (2016)

Adele’s here because I really wanted my rankings to reflect three consecutive slow British crooners like the Grammys did from 2014-16. I’m mostly kidding, but in all seriousness, though I like Adele and like this song, I was a bit fatigued at the type of tracks winning Song of the Year each year. (In fact, in retrospect, maybe I should have been happier with Bruno Mars’ win the year after this just by virtue of it being something different.)

In fairness, though, formulaic and all, overplayed and all, “Hello” is still a stirring song, and Adele’s vulnerable songwriting shines through as always.

6. "bad guy," Billie Eilish (2019)

“bad guy”‘s double win last year made it 4 consecutive years of the Grammys for Record and Song of the Year going to the same artist (and in 3 of those cases, the same track). I was a little higher on “bad guy” as a record than I was as a song. While its radio dominance was undeniable, and its production flawless, I didn’t particularly like actually listening (italics) to it, and found its lyrics initially off-putting.

But I’ll say this, I’d never heard anything quite like it on the radio. The first time I heard it, part of me went “what IS this?!” but another part of me went “no but actually...what is THIS?” Both musically and lyrically, it’s not much like any other song on this list, and deserves multiple listens more so than any of them.

5. "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum (2010)

Yet another double winner, the fourth of this article already, and is it was the 2010 winner, it arguably set the tone for a decade full of single-song domination. There's nothing particularly impressive about "Need You Now," hence why it was so low on my Record of the Year ranking; it's a country song, and true to form, it involves twangy guitars and vocals both, telling a story of heartbreak and loneliness.

But damn if it isn't an addicting song. It's such a pleasant melody, and the verses are so earnestly heartsore that you can't help but belt the chorus once you arrive at it. I'm no Country fan, but this is an example of when keeping it simple is at its most effective.

4. "We Are Young," fun. feat. Janelle Monáe (2012)

2012 was a bizarre year, because I would have swapped the Record and Song of the Year winners. This felt like more of a traditional 'record,' in that it involved impressive mixing and editing which resulted in a radio-ready hit, whereas the Record of the Year winner "Somebody That I Used To Know" was a lyrics-driven track with impressive musicianship. That said, there's no denying the quality of both tracks and considering "Somebody" wasn't nominated for this award, I'm glad they could share spoils.

"We Are Young" marked fun.'s explosion in to the mainstream. It's not a stretch to say that this song, a collaboration with the wickedly talented Janelle Monáe, is what vaulted fun. from indie darlings to arena band, nominees for Album of the Year and winners of Best New Artist. It's everything a mainstream hit should be; it's cathartic, up-tempo and has a timeless refrain. But though its lyrics could on the surface double as something you and your friends might roar three drinks into a night on the town, look deeper and you'll find it's a sneakily profound story of finding hope when you're at your rock bottom.

3. "Rolling In The Deep," Adele (2011)

2011 gave us a tremendous set of nominees for Song of the Year. "The Cave," by Mumford and Sons and Bon Iver's "Holocene" provided two quiet-but-mighty folk/indie options, while "All Of The Lights" was perhaps the weightiest track from Kanye West's magnum opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. But standing above all of them, and deservedly so, was Adele and her lead single "Rolling In The Deep."

Adele's surprisingly short discography has had a wealth of hits, but few as big and none as good as this one was. It's an absolute belter of a song melodically, the crescendo of the guitar and drums perfectly following the singer's. But for me, it's the lyrics that make this such an effective track. This is one of the most poetic songs of relationship regret I've ever heard, a marvelously eloquent "piss off, then."

2. "This Is America," Childish Gambino (2018)

I spoke in my Record of the Year piece about how excited I was for "This Is America" to win, but it bears repeating here: not only was this the first Rap song to take the award, it was a Rap song that was explicitly socio-political, taking aim at America's ruthless history of silencing its black citizens and their contributions to culture and society.

Admittedly, especially in comparison to most other songs in this article, it's not an easy listen. But a commentary on black life in America and American culture as a whole probably isn't supposed to be an easy listen. Furthermore, a gritty listen doesn't indicate a lack of good music. Quite the opposite, the blend of folk guitar, gospel choir and trap beats are a wild musical experience, one that that depicts the contrast between popular culture’s perception of black experience and its often brutal reality.

1. "Royals," Lorde (2013)

The best Song of the Year winner of the decade would easily make my own personal list of the best songs of the decade. 4 years before Billie Eilish was even on anyone's radar, and over 6 years before she was crowned queen of the Grammys, a different 17 year-old indie-pop artist was taking the world by storm. Unexpectedly, New Zealand's Ella Yelich-O'Connor, more commonly known as Lorde, became a household name almost overnight thanks to this very song.

We've of course come to know the depth of Lorde's brilliant songwriting, but the level of maturity from this 17-year old is still relatively astounding. "Royals" was perceived by some to be a criticism of hip-hop, but in reality, it was more a self-deprecating homage to the genre, a poetic statement on class and aspiration. And honestly, all the lyrics do is make a great song even better; "Royals" is so sonically fascinating that it could be about fecal matter, and I'd still probably listen to it on repeat. The fact that this is probably Lorde's best song to date is a statement of just how good it is, and the fact that many (myself included) think she's probably capable of making something even better just speaks to how good she is.