As Slate’s Chris Molanphy noted, “Mood” was a particularly radio-friendly distillation of what we think of as a TikTok record. A year ago, it was Arizona Zervas, “Roxanne.” October saw Surf Mesa’s “ily (I love you baby),” Jawsh 685 x Jason Derulo’s “Savage Love,” and 24KGoldn f/Iann Dior’s “Mood” in the CHR top five together. The rise of the TikTok-driven hit was visible too at 2019’s end. This week there are only seven and the song finally falls out of the top 10 and moves to recurrent.)

“Watermelon Sugar” was there because Columbia wasn’t working it yet, going with the more typical “Adore You.” “Blinding Lights” was effectively the B-side of “Heartless,” also a more Top 40-compliant song at the time, but it was already being championed by the Cox CHR stations on the way to becoming a power for most of the year. I wrote about Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar” and the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” in last year’s “Songs That Made a Difference” article. In fact, two of the most prominent of them existed in 2019. Just as often, I end up writing about the “medium-weight” up-tempo songs that confirm that listeners still respond to what we think of as a “hit song.” When there are enough of those songs, Top 40 radio stages a comeback.Ī few of those up-tempo pop songs existed at Top 40 in 2020. Some are the sonic breakthroughs that would have been hard to anticipate when the year began. In recent years, the “Songs That Made a Difference” column has often ended up saluting two different types of hit songs.

Jason derulo songs 106.1