Electropop roundup
The Best Electropop Songs Right Now
A guide to the best electropop songs across five decades, from the 1980s British scene through the 2000s revival to today's streaming playlists.
The best electropop songs span five decades, but the tradition remains active — contemporary artists continue to add tracks to the genre's canon regularly. This guide covers the songs that define what the sound looks like, drawn from both its historical foundations and its current output.
Classic Tracks That Define the Genre
The following songs established what electropop is and remain definitive examples of the form:
- "Don't You Want Me" — The Human League (1981): The song that brought the genre to mass audiences in the UK. Its dual-vocal arrangement, synth bass, and mechanical drum machine are as clear a statement of the style as exists.
- "Just Can't Get Enough" — Depeche Mode (1981): An early Depeche Mode track that captures the joyful, direct side of the genre before the band moved into darker territory. Immediately recognisable to most UK listeners.
- "Blue Monday" — New Order (1983): One of the best-selling 12-inch singles of all time. Its production — a sequencer bass line, gated drums, and a vocal buried in the mix — influenced the sound for a generation.
- "West End Girls" — Pet Shop Boys (1984): Lush production, a spoken-word vocal, and a film-noir atmosphere. One of the defining singles of the decade within the genre.
- "Personal Jesus" — Depeche Mode (1989): Later-period Depeche Mode at its most powerful. The combination of guitar sample and electronic production is an unusual choice that works definitively.
2000s Revival Tracks
These songs brought electropop back to serious attention in the 2000s and 2010s:
- "Dancing On My Own" — Robyn (2010): Widely considered one of the best tracks in the genre ever recorded. Combines euphoric production with a lyric about loneliness in a way that has made it a standard reference point.
- "Run the World (Girls)" — Ladytron (2005): Representative of the indie revival — colder in tone than the Swedish school, closer to the original 1980s British aesthetic.
- "Run Away with Me" — Carly Rae Jepsen (2015): The opening track of "Emotion". Its saxophone hook, synth bass, and effortless momentum represent contemporary electropop at its most exhilarating.
Where to Find the Genre Today
Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music all maintain editorial playlists. Pitchfork and The Quietus cover new releases critically. The community is active on Reddit (r/popheads for new releases, r/vinyl for physical media). Bandcamp is the best source for independent and emerging artists in the field.
For the essential albums these songs come from, see the electropop albums guide. For a listening path into the genre, see electropop for newcomers.
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