Song of the decade

Does a decade's worth of music mean anything anymore? To me, it doesn't feel like it, and hasn't really since the '90s, which probably just means that I'm old. Time flies and a lot of life is happening, so I'm just getting around to taking a look at the past decade. Rather than serving up a big list, I've decided to simply crown my most-played song of the twenty-teens.

The winner is '90s survivor Robyn with "Dancing on My Own," which was released in June 2010 as lead single from the excellent Body Talk album (my #9 album for the decade, including music from all decades, per Last.fm), and which she cowrote and coproduced with Patrik Berger. It's a devastating dance music ballad, all swirling synths and heartbreak, that should have shot an arrow through the heart of the pop music audience. It is the epitome of the melancholy cast against a euphoric upbeat arrangement, which defines so much of my favorite music. How does a song this brilliant (and featured prominently in HBO's Girls) not even crack the Billboard Hot 100? Despite making no impression on the chart, it did, deservedly, go platinum in the U.S.