Billboard Staff Reveal The Top 10 of The Best 500 Pop Songs of All Time | Billboard News - video Dailymotion

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It was August 4th, 1958 -- the Billboard Hot 100 was born! In honor of the chart's 65th anniversary Billboard staff has been pulling together a huge list of the top 500 best pop songs.

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00:00 It was August 4th, 1958.

00:02 The Billboard Hot 100 was born.

00:05 In honor of the chart's 65th anniversary,

00:07 Billboard staff has been putting together a huge list

00:10 of the top 500 best pop songs.

00:13 Everything from Tony Bennett to SZA,

00:15 The Kinks to The Chainsmokers,

00:17 Chevy Checker to NSYNC.

00:19 And now we're revealing the top 10,

00:22 coming to you from the people who put the list together.

00:25 Here is the Billboard top 10

00:27 from the 500 best pop songs of all time.

00:31 Let's kick off the top 10 with The Beatles,

00:33 "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

00:34 ♪ You let me hold your hand ♪

00:38 ♪ I wanna hold your hand ♪

00:40 The Beatles are the group that turned rock music

00:43 into the new pop music.

00:44 They combined the rock and roll of early rockers

00:47 like Little Richard and Chuck Berry,

00:49 melded it with girl group singles.

00:51 The result was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

00:53 It became the first Beatles song

00:55 to top the Billboard Hot 100.

00:57 This was the song that had a generation of teenagers

01:00 losing their minds, screaming in the streets,

01:02 ripping their clothes off.

01:03 The Beatles were the original boy band,

01:05 and this is the song where all that started.

01:07 ♪ I wanna hold your hand ♪

01:11 (crowd cheering)

01:13 Coming in at our number nine spot,

01:16 Tupac featuring Dr. Dre, "California Love."

01:19 ♪ Bumping and grinding like a slow jam ♪

01:21 ♪ It's west side so you know to roll a bell ♪

01:23 ♪ Damn, the no man ♪

01:24 This was the song that the last 10 years

01:26 of West Coast rap had been leading up to.

01:28 Dr. Dre had been the best producer for about a decade.

01:31 Tupac had been the best rapper for about a half decade.

01:34 So Tupac gets out of jail, he comes to Death Row Records,

01:37 he gets a Dr. Dre beat, and they make "California Love."

01:39 It's one of the best rap songs of the decade,

01:42 and it does what all the best rap songs do,

01:43 which is that it's super local to the West Coast,

01:45 but it's super global in its appeal.

01:47 We talked about what rap songs

01:49 should sort of be the highest on this list,

01:50 and "California Love" is sort of the beginning of the era

01:53 where rap music could be pop music.

01:55 Today, rap is the most popular music on the globe.

01:57 It's more popular than pop, even.

01:59 At its heart, pop stands for popular,

02:01 and this was the most popular music at the time,

02:03 and it was the number one hit,

02:04 and it's a song that everybody still remembers.

02:06 ♪ Only in Cali where we riot, not rally ♪

02:08 ♪ So live and die ♪

02:09 ♪ In L.A. we wear chucks, not belly ♪

02:10 ♪ Yeah, that's right ♪

02:11 Now let's move on to the song in our number eight spot.

02:14 Carly Rae Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe."

02:16 ♪ But here's my number ♪

02:18 ♪ So call me maybe ♪

02:19 During the birth of the streaming age,

02:22 "Call Me Maybe" was a early viral video.

02:25 It proliferated on the internet,

02:27 it became huge over the course of weeks and months,

02:31 and then radio and streaming platforms

02:33 and TV and award shows all latched on.

02:36 It hit number one on the Hot 100,

02:38 it stayed there for nine weeks.

02:39 "Call Me Maybe" was the type of enormous hit

02:42 that is career-defining.

02:43 It will always be her biggest hit.

02:45 ♪ Hey, I just met you ♪

02:47 ♪ And this is crazy ♪

02:49 ♪ But here's my number ♪

02:51 Coming in at number seven is Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean."

02:54 ♪ Billie Jean is my number ♪

02:57 When "Billie Jean" came out in 1983,

03:01 not only was it this new sound

03:03 that we had never heard from Michael Jackson,

03:05 it was a new sound completely for any artist.

03:09 Between his vocal delivery

03:12 and Quincy Jones' impeccable, pristine production,

03:17 it was a revelation.

03:19 And it was also Michael Jackson talking about something

03:23 he'd never talked about before.

03:24 The song is about an illegitimate child,

03:27 and he's saying, "This child is not my kid."

03:29 ♪ The kid is not my son ♪

03:32 It just set the world on fire.

03:34 And then, what I really remember about it personally

03:38 is on Motown's 25th anniversary television special,

03:42 he performed it and he did the moonwalk

03:44 on TV for the first time.

03:45 It felt like the country just exploded,

03:48 and then it got added to MTV

03:50 and was one of the first videos by a black artist

03:53 to be in heavy rotation.

03:55 So it really was not only an incredible song,

03:59 it was an incredible cultural moment.

04:01 ♪ Then showed a photo of a baby crying ♪

04:04 ♪ His eyes were like mine ♪

04:07 ♪ Go and dance all night ♪

04:08 Now let's move on to the song

04:09 that is in our number six spot, Madonna's "Like a Prayer."

04:13 ♪ Just like a prayer ♪

04:14 ♪ Your skin take me there ♪

04:17 Madonna is pop music.

04:18 Like, she just completely and utterly defines what pop is,

04:23 and we had to have her in our top 10

04:25 because she is just a pop legend,

04:27 and this is her quintessential pop hit.

04:30 Of course, when the song was released,

04:31 it was a little controversial,

04:33 especially because of the music video,

04:35 which included burning crosses,

04:37 it included an interracial kiss.

04:38 She even lost the Pepsi sponsorship over it.

04:40 But in the end, the song was just too big to deny,

04:44 and it got past all that controversy

04:46 and just became a timeless classic.

04:49 ♪ Just like a prayer ♪

04:51 ♪ Your skin take me there ♪

04:53 ♪ Just like a muse to me ♪

04:55 Our number five is Kelly Clarkson, "Since You Been Gone."

04:57 ♪ Since you been gone ♪

05:01 ♪ I can't breathe for the first time ♪

05:04 We put Kelly Clarkson at number five

05:06 because "Since You Been Gone" encapsulates

05:07 the perfect pop song structure.

05:09 You have soft verses, a large chorus,

05:11 and an even bigger bridge.

05:12 This is the lead single from her second album, "Breakaway,"

05:15 and it peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

05:17 ♪ So move it on, yeah, yeah ♪

05:21 Now let's move on to the song in our number four spot,

05:23 the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way."

05:25 ♪ I want it that way ♪

05:28 "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys

05:31 was peak Backstreet Boys.

05:33 It's one of those perfect encapsulations

05:35 of the late '90s bubblegum pop.

05:37 It's a mid-tempo track,

05:39 has the amazing harmonies that Backstreet Boys

05:41 were known for, and of course,

05:43 that beautiful production from Max Martin,

05:46 who we know did a lot of the really popular songs

05:49 from the 1990s in the pop genre.

05:51 ♪ Tell me why it ain't nothing but a lie ♪

05:55 ♪ Tell me why ♪

05:57 The Temptations' "My Girl" is number three on our list.

05:59 ♪ Back in the morning ♪

06:03 ♪ Talking 'bout all my lies ♪

06:06 "My Girl" is the kind of song

06:07 that everybody knows that it's great,

06:08 but nobody really thinks about its greatness

06:10 because it's just kind of self-evident.

06:12 "My Girl" has existed for almost 60 years now,

06:15 and it's just sort of in the ether.

06:16 It's just kind of part of our lives,

06:18 and we don't really think about it,

06:19 but the greatness is self-evident

06:21 because it's still around, you know?

06:22 And it's written by Smokey Robinson,

06:24 who's very arguably the greatest pop songwriter of all time,

06:27 so it's no surprise that the song

06:30 still kind of resonates today,

06:31 again, nearly 60 years after it was released.

06:33 ♪ I've got sunshine ♪

06:37 ♪ On a cloudy day ♪

06:40 Our number two is ABBA's "Dancing Queen."

06:42 ♪ You are the dancing queen ♪

06:46 ♪ Young and sweet ♪

06:47 "Dancing Queen" is so high on our list

06:50 because in a lot of ways,

06:51 what does seem like a very simple, straightforward song

06:55 is really quite an achievement.

06:57 There's a lot going on here.

06:58 There's a lot going on with their vocal harmonies.

07:00 It takes a lot of effort and a lot of sophistication

07:03 and planning to sound this effortless,

07:06 and what ABBA was so good at

07:07 is doing it without ever letting you see any of those scenes.

07:11 "Dancing Queen" is a disco song.

07:14 Most people don't really think of it that way,

07:16 in the same way that you kind of think

07:17 of a Bee Gees song as a disco song,

07:20 because there's something just so pure and liberating

07:22 about it that it's transcended the moment.

07:24 It's transcended the era.

07:26 This is a song for everyone.

07:27 It gets everyone dancing.

07:28 It makes everyone happy.

07:30 It makes everyone feel like they are

07:31 a 17-year-old dancing queen.

07:33 ♪ See that girl ♪

07:36 ♪ Watch that scene ♪

07:37 ♪ Diggin' dancing queen ♪

07:40 - Coming in at number one is Whitney Houston's

07:42 "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

07:44 ♪ Oh, I wanna dance with somebody ♪

07:48 ♪ I wanna feel the heat with somebody ♪

07:50 - Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"

07:52 is our number one song

07:53 because it did everything a perfect pop song should do.

07:56 It served a specific purpose of Whitney's career,

07:58 made her more than just a balladeer

07:59 and showed that she can compete with the big pop dogs,

08:02 but it also transcended its era and its genre,

08:05 becoming an anthem for people of all walks of life

08:07 around the world.

08:07 ♪ With somebody who loves me ♪

08:11 ♪ Oh, I wanna dance with somebody ♪

Billboard Staff Reveal The Top 10 of The Best 500 Pop Songs of All Time | Billboard News

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