Top Ten Most Popular Songs in Austria in 2018
2018 is almost over, and looking back at the past 12 months, there were quite a few huge hits, some of which undeniably leave an impact on the music scene. Comparing the chart toppers of the past couple of years, it became very apparent that the American and Austrian, who once shared many hit songs, drift apart more and more. Personally, I think the USA had the better looking charts, but that possibly depends on the perspective (e.g. to an Austrian, the songs on this list might be overplayed, but to an American, most of them might be fresh and new - and of course the other way around).This list is ho show which songs dominated the Austrian music scene in 2018. Most of them aren’t Austrian themselves, and some are originally from last year, but these are what people were listening to most in the past 12 months.
The list is not about ranking the song’s quality, only how famous and successful they were. The tracks on this list were simply inescapable this year, unless you found yourself a comfortable rock to live under, or simply refuse to listen to any recent music.
The British-American pop collaboration was one of the year’s biggest number one hits, having spent 7 weeks on top of the charts. It came out of nowhere and was not exactly an anticipated work, but when it was there, it was everywhere.
Ed Sheeran’s melodious ballad from last year still remained a favorite in 2018 that was on heavy rotation on all popular radio stations. This is definitely a song of the 2010s that will stay around and become a cult classic in the years to come. The version with Beyoncé was briefly popular early in 2018, but overall, the solo version was what was played mostly.
Towards the end of last year, Bausa’s hip hop / RnB single about drowning your loneliness in a fake love that you know isn’t real but still want to pretend it was became a huge hit, one of the biggest of the decade, and it remained highly popular all throughout the first half of 2018, with 4 weeks on top of the charts this year (and additional 6 weeks in 2017).
"One Kiss” was one of the biggest pop songs of the year, produced by Calvin Harris who already had many, many hits in the past few years. With a soft dance beat and a slight 90s eurodance touch, it is just the pleasant earworm people wanted to hear, and it is a good example of pop music that succeeds over here.
The soul ballad “Nobody But You”, the debut single by Cesár Sampson, was Austria’s contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest of 2018 in Lisbon. Since the contest is always anticipated and watched by a large part of the country and is surrounded by huge media coverage, the song was very present in early 2018. It did very well in the competition, coming at third place behind Israel and Cyprus. The ultimate rank of a song consists of a combined score of juries and votings, of each of the countries, and Austria had the best score of the juries. Afterwards, it was even more popular and topped the charts.
I ranked this song last because it’s fairly new and emerged in the last two months of 2018, but the catchy earworm is already on its way of becoming one of the big pop hits of the 2010s. American singer-songwriter Ava Max is a newcomer who had big success with this song in many European countries, but she was ignored in the US so far. Let’s see if she’ll manage to establish herself in the future or stay a one hit wonder.
Catchiest song of 2018. I think Ava Max has potential to become better.
