The Weird Little Earworms of 2016

There has been a bit of a trickster quality to the pop charts in 2016, thanks to a wave of weird success stories that feel, somewhat delightfully, analysis-proof. At the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, a broad pattern was discernible, at least for a while: sincerity and tenderness—Adele’s “Hello,” Justin Bieber’s “Sorry”—came quick and ran dry early; lust and mischief—“Work,” by Rihanna, featuring Drake; “Panda,” by Desiigner; “One Dance,” by Drake, featuring Wizkid and Kyla—ruled the summer. Then all feelings vanished. This was in August, maybe, when Sia’s “Cheap Thrills,” hit No. 1—or, more likely, in September, when the even cheaper thrills of “Closer,” by the Chainsmokers, clung to America’s ears like a barnacle that had been feeding on MDMA. “Closer” finally went quiet in the final run-up to the election. I was glad, then, for the late-breaking oddball triumph of Rae Sremmurd, two brothers from Mississippi, and their dreamy, defiant hit “Black Beatles,” which exudes a young, black, careless aesthetic. Insurgent and individual at a moment when I didn’t know how to be either, “Black Beatles” felt like an appropriately disobedient No. 1 in the weeks following the revelation that our next President would be be Donald Trump.