First, I’m talking specially about the pop genre, and not just popular music that gets air play.
Usually pop songs are happy tunes about love or sex. But lately I’ve been wondering about dark pop songs. For example, New Order’s “True Faith” is about drug dependency*, Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” being about isolation and rejection for being gay, and Suzanne Vega’s song “Luka” being about abuse.
So, what dark pop songs can you think of? And if you don’t mind, state why they are dark.
A very popular song by The Buoys-Timothy, was about cannibalism.
Blue Öyster Cult’s The Reaper deals with the inevitability of death.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds did a whole album of Murder Ballads (love it!) and a handful of other artists had very popular murder ballads:
Tom Jones - Delilah
Kingston Trio - Tom Dooley
Bob Dylane - Hurricane
and Stagger Lee which has been covered by everyone from Duke Ellington to the Grateful Dead.
Then there are all those songs from the 50s about death and suicide; the guy who went back into the car on the railroad tracks for the school ring, Billy, Don’t Be a Hero about going off to war and dying, and one of the first school massacres became I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats.
All pretty grim and dark, I’d say…
In a river, the color of lead, immerse the baby’s head. Wrap her up in the News of the World, leave her on a doorstep girl.
Dark enough for you?
Getting there. 
Run For Your Life, by the Beatles. The tone is set in the first two lines:
Well I’d rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
[He Hit Me (and it felt like a kiss)](http:// - YouTube) performed by The Crystals and written by Carole King.
Alone Again (Naturally) by Gilbert O’Sullivan. Contemplating suicide in the first verse, getting left at the altar, being deserted by God, parents dying. And a nice peppy beat!
Disturbia by Rihanna about going insane.
Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” An upbeat, poppy song that everyone was singing along with in the 90s-- actually a song about a guy’s descent into meth addiction and freaky sex.
The Beatles’ “Help.” An actual cry-for-help by Lennon, sung in a radio-friendly up-tempo fashion.
Veronica by Elvis Costello.
“Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)”,Billy Joel. An uptempo description of the destruction of New York City.
Kiss with a Fist Florence and the Machine
I was going to say Tori Amos’ ‘Me and a Gun’, but I don’t know if it ever made it to the ‘pop’ stage.
I love, love LOVE Kiss with a Fist, but when co-workers realize what the words are they act horrified. 
It’s such a great song, though!
Since the focus is Pop music, I think the King of Pop deserves some attention.
Billy Jean is about being accused of being the father of an illegitimate child.
Dirty Diana is a tale if infidelity.
Thriller was deliberately morbid, even if a bit kitschy.
Man in the Mirror was about pretty much every horror in the world and how we should all feel responsible for them.
Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
“Every Breath You Take” by The Police is about stalking. “Roxanne” is about a hooker.
The subject matter in Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy is pretty dark.
Not sure if it qualifies as pop, though.
This is probably the perfect example. I’ll counteroffer the Bee Gees’ “Tragedy,” partly because it’s another song with grim lyrics behind a high-energy beat, and partly because for much of my life I mistakenly thought “Alone Again, Naturally” was a Bee Gees song.
She could have been a poet or she could have been a fool.
I think we’ll probably run into some controversy in the definition of “pop.” Britain has a much different pop scene than the U.S.
I Love the Way You Lie by Eminem and Rhianna
Hey, Man Nice Shot by Filter
Possum Kingdom by The Toadies
Freshman by The Verve Pipe