The Hideaway 20: The 50 Most-Listened To Songs from May 2026

In May 2026, as part of an overall effort to be more deliberate with my time, I made it a point to listen to music each day, averaging about 84 songs over 6 hours. Any song that grabs my attention is eligible for The Hideaway House Blend (which accounts for the overwhelming majority of my listening), and last month, 107 tracks were added to the playlist. Most recently, I added songs by Sweet (somehow I'd left "Love Is Like Oxygen" out when I added a dozen other Sweet favorites more than two years ago), The Motels (several tracks from their first two albums, Motels and Careful as my obsession with the voice of Martha Davis continues), and Kacey Musgraves (a couple of tracks from her newest album, Middle Of Nowhere). The month ended with 5563 songs in The Hideaway House Blend. I managed to listen to 2132 of them – about 38%. For May, those 2132 unique songs were scrobbled 2629 times. Seven songs tied for the most scrobbles* last month, while another forty-three songs were in a tie for second most scrobbles, so what we have here is The Hideaway 50, the fifty most scrobbled songs, aka the fifty songs I listened to the most last month. I had a minimum of 3 scrobbles on May 9th and a maximum of 172 scrobbles on May 22nd. The oldest track on the list is Del Shannon's "Runaway" from 1961, while the newest is Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" from 2025. One artist has two tracks on this month's countdown: Billy Ocean with "Love Really Hurts Without You" (#1) and "Loverboy" (#21). No songs repeat from the previous four 2026 countdowns, but five songs do repeat from the 2025 countdowns. The average release year for songs on The Hideaway 40 is 1987.

We had two unexpected, first-of-their-kind coincidences while playing The  Hideaway House Blend on shuffle this month: One Wednesday afternoon, while waiting to pick the kids up from school and listening to the playlist on shuffle via the Vox app on iPhone, the 8:00 Murder Mix of Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" played. When that mix ended, the single 3:16 edit version of the same song began playing. I have loaded several dozen musical "twins" (single edits/album versions and their respective remixes) in the playlist, but this was the first time a set of those twins played back-to-back. Then, on the last Friday afternoon of the month, while listening via the Sonos Music Library, "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young" from the Streets of Fire soundtrack played only to be followed by "Blue Shadows" by The Blasters from the same album.

	May 2026 — Top 50 Most Listened-To Songs
rank	title	artist	year
50	Runaway	Del Shannon	1961
49	Aerials	System of a Down	2002
48	Space Truckin'	Deep Purple	1972
47	Annie's Song	John Denver	1974
46	Midnight City	M83	2011
45	Battle Without Honor Or Humanity	Tomoyasu Hotei	2004
44	I Know A Heartache When I See One	Jennifer Warnes	1979
43	Misunderstanding	Genesis	1980
42	Hand Me Down World	Guess Who	1970
41	Kandi	One eskimO	2009
40	Steppin' Out	Joe Jackson	1982
39	Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)	Soul II Soul	1989
38	Deliver Me	Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers	1982
37	Say What You Will	Fastway	1983
36	Crystal	New Order	2001
35	Shame, Shame, Shame	Shirley & Company	1974
34	Mama Tried	Merle Haggard	1968
33	Killin' Time	Clint Black	1989
32	All By Myself	Eric Carmen	1975
31	Let's Go All The Way (Multi-Mix)	Sly Fox	1985
30	November Rain	Guns N' Roses	1992
29	Unstoppable [Au5 Remix]	Revolvr & Genisis feat. Splitbreed	2014
28	Dirty Laundry	Don Henley	1982
27	Fun, Fun, Fun	Beach Boys	1964
26	Yeah!	Usher	2004
25	Choosin' Texas	Ella Langley	2025
24	Shadows In The Moonlight	Anne Murray	1979
23	Feel It Still	Portugal. The Man	2017
22	Hold On Tight	Electric Light Orchestra	1981
21	Loverboy	Billy Ocean	1984
20	Budapest	George Ezra	2013
19	Tell Her About It	Billy Joel	1983
18	What You Won't Do For Love	Bobby Caldwell	1978
17	Queen of Hearts	Juice Newton	1981
16	When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best Of What's Still Around	The Police	1980
15	Yo-Yo	The Osmonds	1972
14	I'm Still Standing	Elton John	1983
13	Watching the Detectives	Elvis Costello	1977
12	Hey Baby!	No Doubt	2001
11	Could It Be Magic	Donna Summer	1976
10	Back Together Again	Hall & Oates	1976
09	Just To See Her	Smokey Robinson	1987
08	Young Americans	David Bowie	1975
07	Hang Fire	The Rolling Stones	1982
06	Play The Guitar	B.o.B feat. Andre 3000	2011
05	Pompeii	Bastille	2013
04	Kid Charlemagne	Steely Dan	1976
03	On The Loose / Wind Him Up	Saga	1981
02	Breakaway	Kelly Clarkson	2004
01	Love Really Hurts Without You	Billy Ocean	1976

🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧

This month's flashback returns us to May 2016, for The Hideaway 26. As evidenced by the abundance of 1979 songs on the list, I was deep into researching, ranking, and writing up the 1979 Hideaway 100 in May 2016. Another noticeable trend in my listening back then was the six extended or remixed tracks throughout the countdown. The two newest songs are from 2016, while the six oldest tracks are from 1978. If you need a track to blow the dust off and out of your car stereo system, I'd recommend pulling up the boomy glitch-hop of "Unstoppable" by Revolvr & Genisis feat. Splitbreed (#24) or "Sail (Unlimited Gravity Remix)" by AWOLNATION (#1).

	May 2016 — Top 26 Most Listened-To Songs
rank	title	artist	year
26	Prime Time	The Tubes	1979
25	Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy	Bad Company	1979
24	Unstoppable	Revolvr & Genisis feat. Splitbreed	2014
23	Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)	Robert Palmer	1979
22	Let's Go Crazy [Extended Version]	Prince	1984
21	Take Me Home [12" Version]	Cher	1979
20	Ring My Bell	Anita Ward	1979
19	Wait For Me	Hall & Oates	1979
18	Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now	McFadden & Whitehead	1979
17	Oh Well	The Rockets	1978
16	The Second Time Around [12" Mix]	Shalamar	1979
15	I Had a Good Time	Boston	2002
14	One of Those Days	Little Big Town	2016
13	Ain't Love A Bitch	Rod Stewart	1978
12	Suspicions	Eddie Rabbitt	1979
11	Dirty White Boy	Foreigner	1979
10	Blow Away	George Harrison	1979
9	Shake It	Ian Matthews	1978
8	Family Tradition	Hank Williams Jr.	1979
7	Now That We've Found Love	Third World	1978
6	Georgy Porgy [Disco Version]	Toto feat. Cheryl Lynn	1978
5	Tragedy	Bee Gees	1979
4	Born To Be Alive [12 Inch Mix]	Patrick Hernandez	1978
3	The Fighter	Keith Urban feat. Carrie Underwood	2016
2	You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else	The Jones Girls	1979
1	Sail [Unlimited Gravity Remix]	AWOLNATION	2012

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

Last.fm is independent once again!

Initially founded as a digital radio service in 2002, Last.fm has become independent again for the first time in almost 20 years, after spinning off from Paramount Skydance in May 2026. Paramount acquired the company when it purchased CBS Interactive, which had paid $280M for Last.fm in 2007. The company promised nothing would change with the scrobbling service and that everything would work "exactly as it did yesterday". We shall see. I signed up for an account in December 2006, though I wouldn't begin consistently scrobbling until I connected Spotify, Media Monkey, YouTube, and iTunes to my Last.fm account in 2013. Last.fm is where our scrobbles* are stored. If they go down, The Hideaway 20 goes down with it.

*When you play a track on a streaming service you've connected to Last.fm, it "scrobbles" that song and logs it to your profile for tracking. Every play is one scrobble.