25. Halsey – “100 Letters”
It’s practically impossible to follow the narrative on Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, but for three and a half minutes I’m entirely swept up in the world she’s created and emotionally invested in its protagonist. “100 Letters” is a stirring opening statement with a solid-gold chorus that might just become her first solo #1 if she ever gets around to releasing it as a single.

24. Bruno Mars – “That’s What I Like”
Any song off 2016’s joyous and immaculate 24K Magic would be a lock for this list if it had much of an imprint in 2017. The bouncing, snapping “That’s What I Like” is just the one that happened to hit #1 this year.

23. Selena Gomez – “Bad Liar”
I really like the song…and her performance too.#selenagomez #BadLiar #psychokiller

22. Drake – “Passionfruit”
More Life was Apple Music’s most-streamed album of 2017 — hmm — but after dominating 2016, Drake seemed largely absent from this year’s pop landscape once the “playlist” project’s spotlight moment gave way to DAMN. Still, “Passionfruit” stayed with me, its heartbeat pulse and weeping synths and gently cooed melodies adding up to a recurring soft-rock dream I was always happy to relive.

21. SZA – “The Weekend”
This woozy, melancholic, sultry, complicated R&B slow jam sounds good seven days a week. I look forward to 40 flipping this into a really good Drake loosie someday, too.

20. Kesha – “Praying”
A piano-laden reckoning of this ilk is really the only way Kesha could have announced her comeback from all she’s been through, and “Praying” powerfully fulfills that purpose. It’s one of those cases where a song is elevated by knowing its background, yet I have to imagine it’s an emotional wrecking ball even if you aren’t familiar with her battle against Dr. Luke. By getting inspirational pop balladry exactly right, it does justice to the weight of a very ugly situation.

19. Calvin Harris – “Rollin” (Feat. Future & Khalid)
Khalid released a promising debut album this year and generated a whole second album’s worth of music by collaborating with seemingly anyone who asked. Among the fresh wealth of songs in his young discography, none communicate his talent like this sweltering summertime funk-rap jam about coping with a bad breakup by cruising the highway to nowhere.

18. Demi Lovato – “Sorry Not Sorry”
Even the firmest gospel-pop foundation will not stop Demi Lovato from blowing your house down every time.

17. DJ Khaled – “Wild Thoughts” (Feat. Rihanna & Bryson Tiller)
That thumping “Maria Maria” bass alone was enough to make “Wild Thoughts” one of 2017’s greatest bangers. Never mind that it also has Rihanna selling every syllable, imbuing repeated words like “wild” and “naked” with colorful inflection and confidence beyond belief. Bryson Tiller is also present.

16. Lil Uzi Vert – “XO Tour Llif3″
Let me be the umpteenth person to point out that it says a lot about this year and this generation that one of 2017’s great sing-along anthems is built around the hook, “Push me to the edge/ All my friends are dead.” But it also says so much about Uzi’s charisma that “XO Tour Llif3,” in spite of its grim subject matter, brims with irrepressible life.

15. Kesha – “Woman”
Hear her roar.

14. Future – “Mask Off”
It is impossible to hear this song without whipping my head back and forth and bouncing up and down in my chair. Yet the song that incites this physical reaction is subtle, overlaying its steady booming undercurrent with a ballet of sorts between Future’s wizened croak and Metro Boomin’s wispy flute loop. As addictive as the drugs that probably fueled its creation.

12. Kygo & Selena Gomez – “It Ain’t Me”
Here we have a tropical house prince and an ascendent pop icon teaming up to achieve the impossible: artfully merging festival folk-rock and low-key EDM into musical manna. “It Ain’t Me” flashes back to bar-hopping nights and hung-over mornings, and fittingly you can imagine a whole room of drunken revelers belting out its chorus together. It also must be noted that this is the best song the on-again, off-again Justin Bieber-Selena Gomez romance has yielded yet.

11. Frank Ocean – “Chanel”
It has become a critical cliché to praise an artist for embracing their contradictions. Personally I reject the notion that such contradictions are inherently interesting or praiseworthy, but damn, they added up to magic in the case of this generational talent who sees both sides like Chanel.