The Top 40 biggest songs of 2016 on the Official Chart

It's very disappointing that Clean Bandit's Rockabye, which notched up 8 weeks at number one during the year, including the much covetted Christmas top spot, could only manage 37th place. Even beaten by Stressed Out which didn't even make the Top 10.
A couple of decades ago an eight weeker top spot song would've definitely been inside the top 5 best selling songs.

drake was #1 for 15 wks over in the uk?? dang...he'd have the all time record for a male artist in the u.s. (elton john and a whole crop of others have notched 14 straight #1 weeks on the hot 100 chart).

Couldn't you post the peak positions for the songs like you do in the mid-year lists?

Dancing On My Own Ahead of Cold Water AND only ONE behind Stitches. WTAF.

Also, surprised with all the Bieber considering I thought people forgot all about his songs from last year

I wonder how many people were paid to stream One Dance and put it on repeat...

My thoughts on the Top 10…
- Congratulations to Drake for having the biggest song of the year, even though I still have no idea how it got 15 weeks at #1. Yeah, it was leading the streaming chart for what seemed like forever, but it was only atop the sales chart for just 3 weeks. It would even be out of the Top 10 on iTunes altogether & still lead the Official Chart. It’s not a bad song, but it’s nothing I will be remembering for years to come & if I’m honest, I’m pleased it didn’t break Bryan Adams’ record.
- ‘7 Years’ was quite over-hated this year, but far too over-played as well. Nice to see Sia’s & Mike Posner’s songs finish so high. I like Calvin Harris & Rihanna in general, but I wasn’t such a fan of ‘This Is What You Came For’. The drop was generic & the vocals were so repetitive that it just got annoying quick.
- Happy for Zara Larsson finishing so high, as ‘Lush Life’ is a perfect dance smash for the summer. I’m surprised that ‘Closer’ made the Top 10 though, considering it was released in late July & didn’t even become a hit until about a month later. I’m not complaining as it’s one of my favourite hit songs of 2016!
- I’d never been very interested in JB before ‘Purpose’, but I did love his new album. ‘Love Yourself’ might not have been my favourite song from it, but the acoustic guitars & Ed Sheeran’s song-writing kept me into this.
- I really enjoyed ‘Work’ for about a few weeks, considering it was so catchy that I couldn’t get it out of my mind, but eventually got tired of it. Looking back though, it’s a decent song, but not a great one. Finally, it was awesome that JT was able to get another globally successful song this year & I look forward to his album due to be released in early 2017. :)

Massive congratulations to Drake on getting the biggest song of 2016 with One Dance! Love it or hate it, it deserves to be up there as it was THE song of the summer by far. I personally am not disappointed that it is so high up also!
I knew 7 Years was going to be number 2 but didnt know Cheap Thrills would be so close behind!
Very surprised to see Closer chart so high, thought it would scrape into the top 20 not be comfortable in the top 10! Very happy CSTF was able to sneak into the top 10 also! I am very happy with the top 10 and love every song in it.
Brief look at some other singles outside the top 10, interesting to see Cold Water chart so highly but not complaining! Work from home charted fairly highly also along with Too good. Surprised to see Light It Up scrape into the top 20 and very surprising to see Pillowtalk so low as it was a number 1 and released so early into the year! Glad LMLY is in the top 25 and its good to see twenty one pilots so high with stressed out, the only song on this list that didn't hit the top 10! And finally, happy that starboy and Rockabye were able to sneak into the top 40. A very high selling year overall with some great songs!
Thanks for reading, and have a happy new year!

What are the sales for Work, Can't Stop the Feeling!, Stitches and Fast Car?