2016 has been a quality year for music, dominated by releases from some of the industry’s biggest artists: Beyoncé, Rihanna, Ariana Grande in pop; Radiohead, David Bowie in the world of rock; Kanye West, Chance the Rapper and more in hip-hop. Everything has felt bigger, better, sadder in the case of many (have we ever had a year more dominated by the deaths of such icons and legends?). More than ever, memes have entered our music, and music entered our memes. Our humble little community at r/popheads have been lucky enough to witness it all, and the following list is a testament to what we think have been the songs and artists that have held up at the year’s end.

A few notes before I get the list underway. The following places had unresolvable ties, and hence have been alphabetised instead: #99–75, #74–62, #61–49. Other ties have been resolved at the writers’ discretion.

I’d like to offer a huge thanks to all the other writing contributors to the list: letsallpoo, bluehxrizon, joshually, SkyBlade79, DoctorWhoWhenHowWhy, ThereIsNoSantaClaus, ffourthofjuly, Mudkip1, gannade, eklxtreme, skiddos, alternativeoxygen, Kaphox, FuckUpSomeCommasYeah, superr_rad. In addition, thanks to all of the people on the subreddit who submitted for the final ranking, and for being such a wonderful community.