If I could sum up this year’s music downloads in one word, it would be: meh.

There were no real standouts this year. There were good songs, yes, but nothing that really, really took the top as far as my absolute favorites.

No Five-Stars, is what I’m saying.

But tradition is tradition, so let’s do it.

Here are my top five!

Sandstorm (Darude) performed by SYNTHONY

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: orchestral covers of pretty much anything are amazing, but orchestral covers of techno songs are on another level. The brass carries this one and there is SO MUCH ENERGY throughout the whole song.

Levels (Avicii) performed by SYNTHONY

That saxophone solo adds so much joy and life to this song, yo. I think Avicii would have loved this version of what is probably his most famous song.

Feelslikeimfallinginlove by Coldplay

Easily my favorite song from their newest album. This one has a good mix of “old” Coldplay and “new” Coldplay in my opinion. Also, it’s super fun to sing.

Stay by Hans Zimmer

Like many of Zimmer’s songs, this builds up to a beautiful, chaotic crescendo that destroys your soul in the best way (5:36). I like to crank this on my Sennheisers so I can feel it in my chest.

Jupiter (Holst) performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

I already had like three different versions of this song, so why is this one on here? Because of 1:53-2:00. I mentioned this in the blog post I did on this song a while ago, but I have never heard another performance of this song where you can hear those French horns play so clearly in that section, and I freaking love it.

Edit: where is the new Civ VII main theme, you ask? Well, I haven’t actually downloaded the song yet. It’s not available on iTunes because it hasn’t officially been released, but I’m sure it will be on next year’s top music list once I can get ahold of it.