"Blinding Lights" — The Weeknd

There's a reason 'Blinding Lights' outlasted every song that tried to dethrone it: The Weeknd built a chorus so immediate it barely needs the verses. Released at the tail end of 2019, it rode an 80s synth-pop pastiche to a Hot 100 chart run — 90 weeks — that no song had managed before, and it's been Spotify's single most-streamed track since overtaking 'Shape of You' in 2023. Whatever you think of the retro gloss, it did something few songs manage twice: it sounded exactly right for the exact wrong moment, arriving right as the world went into lockdown.