America loves Luke Combs. During 2021, Combs charted five songs, three of which spent a combined 75 weeks on the chart and ended up at or near the top of the Top 40. Of those, “Forever After All” remained at No. 1 for nine weeks — more than any other song in the country countdown — and finished the year as 2021’s top country song. Toward the end of the year, the duo of Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood stormed the Top 40 with “If I Didn’t Love You,” and held on to No. 1 for eight weeks and landed at 2021’s No. 2. That was followed by Combs’ “Better Together,” which was No. 1 for five weeks in January and February. The remainder of 2021’s Top 10 was “The Good Ones” (Gabby Barrett), “What’s Your Country Song” (Thomas Rhett), “Chasing After You” (Ryan Hurd & Maren Morris), “Famous Friends” (Chris Young), “Single Saturday Night” (Cole Swindell), “Things a Man Oughta Know” (Lainey Wilson) and “Waves” (Luke Bryan).
Below are the Top 50 songs for 2021. Each song is linked to its official video on YouTube, where possible. To listen to the full playlist of these songs, visit our page on Spotify.
| Pos | Song | Artist | Wks | Peak |
| 1 | Forever After All | Luke Combs | 33 | 1 |
| 2 | If I Didn’t Love You | Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood | 22 | 1 |
| 3 | Better Together | Luke Combs | 20 | 1 |
| 4 | The Good Ones | Gabby Barrett | 25 | 1 |
| 5 | What’s Your Country Song | Thomas Rhett | 21 | 1 |
| 6 | Chasing After You | Ryan Hurd & Maren Morris | 36 | 3 |
| 7 | Famous Friends | Chris Young | 40 | 1 |
| 8 | Single Saturday Night | Cole Swindell | 34 | 1 |
| 9 | Things a Man Oughta Know | Lainey Wilson | 28 | 1 |
| 10 | Waves | Luke Bryan | 25 | 1 |
| 11 | Glad You Exist | Dan + Shay | 30 | 1 |
| 12 | Thinking ‘Bout You | Dustin Lynch | 25 | 1 |
| 13 | Starting Over | Chris Stapleton | 20 | 1 |
| 14 | Cold As You | Luke Combs | 22 | 2 |
| 15 | Drinkin’ Beer. Talkin’ God. Amen | Chase Rice | 30 | 1 |
| 16 | Down to One | Luke Bryan | 17 | 1 |
| 17 | Fancy Like | Walker Hayes | 26 | 1 |
| 18 | Same Boat | Zac Brown Band | 28 | 3 |
| 19 | Just the Way | Parmalee & Blanco Brown | 14 | 1 |
| 20 | Cold Beer Calling My Name | Jameson Rodgers | 26 | 3 |
| 21 | Memory I Don’t Mess With | Lee Brice | 29 | 2 |
| 22 | Country Again | Thomas Rhett | 23 | 2 |
| 23 | Knowing You | Kenny Chesney | 34 | 2 |
| 24 | My Boy | Elvie Shane | 35 | 5 |
| 25 | Hell of a View | Eric Church | 23 | 2 |
| 26 | Settling Down | Miranda Lambert | 32 | 5 |
| 27 | Blame It On You | Jason Aldean | 31 | 3 |
| 28 | Made For You | Jake Owen | 24 | 3 |
| 29 | We Didn’t Have Much | Justin Moore | 36 | 3 |
| 30 | Gone | Dierks Bentley | 29 | 3 |
| 31 | Breaking Up Was Easy in the 90s | Sam Hunt | 25 | 4 |
| 32 | Almost Maybes | Jordan Davis | 29 | 7 |
| 33 | You Time | Scotty McCreery | 24 | 2 |
| 34 | I Was On a Boat That Day | Old Dominion | 24 | 7 |
| 35 | Beers and Sunshine | Darius Rucker | 10 | 1 |
| 36 | Tequila Little Time | Jon Pardi | 29 | 5 |
| 37 | Whiskey and Rain | Michael Ray | 28 | 2 |
| 38 | Buy Dirt | Jordan Davis | 24 | 3 |
| 39 | Good Time | Niko Moon | 12 | 1 |
| 40 | One Too Many | Keith Urban & P!nk | 33 | 8 |
| 41 | Long Live | Florida-Georgia Line | 16 | 4 |
| 42 | You Should Probably Leave | Chris Stapleton | 32 | 4 |
| 43 | Lady | Brett Young | 16 | 2 |
| 44 | Nobody | Dylan Scott | 24 | 5 |
| 45 | Freedom Was a Highway | Jimmie Allen & Brad Paisley | 28 | 6 |
| 46 | Somebody Like That | Tenille Arts | 19 | 7 |
| 47 | Momma’s House | Dustin Lynch | 16 | 8 |
| 48 | Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home) | Elle King & Miranda Lambert | 37 | 14 |
| 49 | Minimum Wage | Blake Shelton | 28 | 8 |
| 50 | Just About Over You | Priscilla Block | 39 | 14 |
Note: We suffered a catastrophic crash after our last post on September 18, but were able to recover all data and rebuild the chart before the end of the year. Lesson learned? Back up everything more in more than one location!
The American charts all have their whims. We look across the pop music landscape to put together a reliable snapshot of what is truly trending today. We tracked 137 songs that trended in various ways during 2021.
Copyright © 2022 Doug DeBolt.
