Top 50 songs of 2018: critics picks

(So Far): Critics' Picks

           

Getty Images; Design by Ady Chng

6/6/2018 by Tijani Abdulmalik

When talking about 2018 so far at Billboard, it's hard to avoid the fact that the 2018 chart year has only had 24 editions of the Hot 100, and Drake has been No. 1 for 17 of them. It's the most that any one artist has dominated the listing's top spot in a year's first six months this decade -- though shout-out to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' combined 11 weeks on top in the first half of 2013 -- and it essentially leaves the non-Drake part of the field wide open when it comes to discussing the year's best and biggest singles. 

But that's fine. Beyond the Drakening, 2018 has been a year of pleasant surprises on the charts: All-Star teamups we didn't see coming, previously unknown artists coming out with left-field hits, and a handful of big-name comebacks taking us to unexpected new places, all of which made the predictability at pop's highest level forgivable. And besides, those two Drake songs are pretty great too: You'll see them both below as we recount our 50 favorite songs of 2018 so far, with a Spotify playlist of all 50 at the bottom.