Pop Quiz: What Are The Decade's Best Pop Songs?

The TRL Pop Quiz works like this: our editors are posed a music-related question and have only 15 minutes and just 100 words to studies, pick and explain their answers. Since we're almost off to a brand new decade, it's almost time to look back at the years that were. This week's quiz: Name two of the ideal pop songs of the 2010s.





Solange was decided to re-define the pop landscape as we know it, and she accomplished her mission in 2012 with the Dev Hynes-produced single "Losing You." True fully changed the game for Solange and gave her the structure to build the platform she routinely envisioned on her own terms. It took a while for me to get into Grimes, however “Oblivion” used to come on If I worked at Urban Outfitters all of the time and eventually I determined to look up the lyrics. I was shocked While I realized that the song was about the association of trauma with assault. - Sydney Gore


You can’t talk about pop in this decade without naming Rihanna, an icon who, in an era of carefully-constructed images, has routinely succeeded by seeming the most human. Her self-possession, driven by an endless store of quiet confidence, feels attainable. “Needed Me” is a distillation of this attitude, a sleek refusal to be saved by anyone other than herself. Meanwhile, every ‘80s dream that the 2010s has ever had—and there have been many—culminates in Carly Rae Jepsen’s “When I required You,” a track that streams effervescent Madonna-era pop, complete with slap-happy basslines, screwy synths, and an anthemic chorus. - Gus Turner


"Where Have You Been?" by Rihanna has everything a good pop song should, riding this haunting wave of longing into crescendos of gritty passion before sinking back inside its ocean. From a pure dance-pop perspective, she could never deliver anything this brilliant. Flume’s "Never Be like You" featuring Kai came at a moment where it felt like we had just figured out how to meaningfully merge EDM with pop and R&B, and this song makes apologizing for doing wrong sound absolutely fantastic. - Terron Moore


“The Rhythm,” from MNEK’s 2015 EP Small Talk, is the electronic dance pop single of my dreams. It gives me flashbacks of late 90s R&B dance remixes like "Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here" by Deborah Cox. On the flipside, RAYE’s "Cigarette" featuring Mabel and Stefflon Don is a tropical jam. The song is from her upcoming collaborative mixtape and is about being addicted to someone’s love, like one might be addicted to cigarettes mention no to smoking, FYI)."- Kristen Maldonado


"Call Me Maybe" is definitely of the perfect pop songs of the decade: fun, light and truly impossible to not sing along to once if it comes on. Carly Rae Jepsen is the queen of pop we don’t deserve, nevertheless were blessed with anyway. “Green Light” by Lorde makes me feel like the night is young and I’m hanging my head out of a moving vehicle while feeling sad and excited and young and dramatic. And that’s exactly how I want pop music to create me feel. - Leah Williams


I’m giving my picks for best pop songs to two queer girls of color. Where was "Sleepover" by Hayley Kiyoko Once I was 14 and coming out (as what I identified as lesbian back then)? This song was me each and every month of high school, especially any time If I was having sleepovers with my crush, who also happened to be my boyfriend’s sister. And If "Sleepover" was the soundtrack to awkward high school years, then "Honey" by Kehlani is the sweet ballad of now. More songs about queer love, please! - Landyn Pan