Obviously the song was massive all year - rare was the hour of 2021 you could flip channels and not hear it somewhere - but its disco flavorings did make a little more sense in 2020, when it was flanked on the airwaves by similarly strobe-lit hits from Doja Cat, Harry Styles and Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande. For this reason, IвЂ™d give вЂњLevitatingвЂќ a 6 on the scale of appropriateness.ДЄndrew Unterberger: 6. Though вЂњLevitatingвЂќ wasnвЂ™t quite that old for most of 2021, it still falls in line with that trend which was up significantly from 60.8% of so-called вЂњcatalogвЂќ listening from MRCвЂ™s mid-year report in 2018.

According to MRC Data, 66.4% of total album consumption in the US is made up of music released over 18 months prior to when the user pressed play. Kristin Robinson: I was tempted to say it was not representative because вЂњLevitatingвЂќ came out in 2020, but this is actually in line with what MRC Data noted in its mid-year report this year. Meanwhile, вЂњLevitatingвЂќ became a radio juggernaut this year, and overtook hits like вЂњDonвЂ™t Start NowвЂќ and вЂњNew RulesвЂќ to become LipaвЂ™s signature song, a testament to both her new standing as a pop A-lister as well as a cultural moment in need of some carefree tunes. After Dua Lipa helped kick off the nu-disco movement last year - a year in which we all needed to dance the lockdown away - with Future Nostalgia, the trend has persisted in 2021 in hits like вЂњButterвЂќ by BTS and вЂњKiss Me MoreвЂќ by Doja Cat and SZA, as well as on The WeekndвЂ™s various retro-leaning smashes.

But what helped launch this song to the top of our year-end tally is the swift course-correction from team Lipa (who condemned the rapperвЂ™s words), radio programmers (who reverted to playing the original version) and fans (who pleaded for Lipa to remove DaBaby altogether) that saved it from plummeting - and helped it continue to levitate all these months later. For better and worse, it has two key components of a 2021 hit: it arrived at the peak of the pandemic, offering sweet relief in the form of a bouncy, dance floor-ready escapist anthem (вЂњIf you want to run away with me, I know a galaxy and I can take you for a ride,вЂќ sings Lipa), and it had a brief encounter with controversy thanks to its remix featuring DaBaby, who this year was pulled from several festival performances following homophobic remarks. On a scale from 1-10, how appropriate a 2021 representative do you think the song is as the top hit of the year? Dua LipaвЂ™s вЂњLevitatingвЂќ closes the year as our No.

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