Pop drum patterns.

1. 1960s

   1. 1963
      

      Landmark

      Be My Baby

      The Ronettes

      Hal Blaine's two-bar intro, snare only on beat 4 until the chorus, became one of the most copied drum phrases in pop
   2. 1965
      

      Ticket to Ride

      The Beatles

      Root: Ringo's stop-start, tom-heavy broken beat (Lennon credited the idea to McCartney) gave Beatles pop a heavier drive

2. 1970s

   1. 1978
      

      Heart of Glass

      Blondie

      Built around a Roland CR-78, one of its earliest pop uses: a rock band on a disco beat, with odd seven-beat interludes

3. 1980s

   1. 1980
      

      Intruder

      Peter Gabriel

      First record with the Padgham/Collins gated-reverb drum sound; Collins dropped cymbals and repeated one tom-snare figure
   2. 1981
      

      Landmark

      In the Air Tonight

      Phil Collins

      A CR-78 preset ticks for minutes, then the gated-reverb tom fill explodes: the best-known moment of the 80s drum sound
   3. 1981
      

      I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)

      Daryl Hall & John Oates

      Grew from a Roland CompuRhythm preset; Michael Jackson later told Hall the Billie Jean groove came from this record
   4. 1982
      

      Landmark

      Rosanna

      Toto

      Jeff Porcaro's half-time shuffle with ghost notes, mixing Purdie and Bonham shuffles; now a standard of drum repertoire
   5. 1982
      

      Landmark

      Billie Jean

      Michael Jackson

      Dry, tightly isolated kick, snare and hat (Swedien built a special drum riser): a groove recognisable from its first bar
   6. 1983
      

      Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

      Eurythmics

      Attic-studio hit run from a rare Movement Systems Drum Computer that also triggered the synth bass sequence
   7. 1984
      

      Landmark

      When Doves Cry

      Prince and the Revolution

      Linn LM-1 drums carry a No. 1 single with no bass line at all; drum-machine pop at its most stripped and bold
   8. 1986
      

      Nasty

      Janet Jackson

      Jam & Lewis's hard, sample-built machine funk at 100 BPM; Control-era programming that fed into new jack swing

4. 1990s

   1. 1990
      

      Freedom! '90

      George Michael

      Five-layer drum track built on James Brown's Funky Drummer break: sampled breakbeats arrive in mainstream pop
   2. 1998
      

      ...Baby One More Time

      Britney Spears

      Max Martin's heavy 93 BPM faux-funk beat, reworked from Cheiron's earlier productions; the late-90s teen-pop template

5. 2000s

   1. 2002
      

      Cry Me a River

      Justin Timberlake

      Timbaland's beatboxed percussion over a slow half-time pulse carries his R&B drum style into mainstream pop
   2. 2007
      

      Umbrella

      Rihanna

      Beat began with a pounding hi-hat from GarageBand's stock Vintage Funk Kit 03 loop: a No. 1 groove from consumer software
   3. 2008
      

      Just Dance

      Lady Gaga

      RedOne's clipped, marching electropop beat at 119 BPM set the template for Gaga's club-pop run

6. 2010s

   1. 2013
      

      Royals

      Lorde

      Little more than finger snaps, kick and bass at 85 BPM: a bare hip-hop beat that topped the Hot 100
   2. 2019
      

      bad guy

      Billie Eilish

      Minimal kick, amplified finger snaps and 808 bass: the sparse late-2010s pop drum style at its biggest
   3. 2019
      

      Blinding Lights

      The Weeknd

      Driving drum-machine new-wave beat whose opening critics likened to Beat It; led pop's 80s-revival drum sound

7. 2020s

   1. 2023
      

      Super Shy

      NewJeans

      Staccato Jersey-club kick pattern over liquid drum and bass: club rhythms move into mainstream K-pop

Press play to loop each record's busiest two bars. Patterns are machine-detected from the recordings, not verified transcriptions.