#billboard poll

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #74: 2023

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Morgan Wallen, Miley Cyrus, SZA, Taylor Swift, Metro Boomin and 21 Savage, Rema and Selena Gomez, The Weeknd and Ariana Grande, Luke Combs, SZA, David Guetta and Bebe Rexha. End description]

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Before getting into the ramble, I'm just going to get ahead of the responses and clarify that when I name a song on these polls, I use the official name of the song as it's listed on the Billboard charts (obviously unless the official title includes an uncensored slur or the song was credited to an artist's deadname, which I haven't had to deal with as of now.) Luke Comb's cover of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car is simply listed as "Fast Car - Luke Combs" on Billboard. Not "Luke Comb's cover of Fast Car" or "Fast Car by Tracy Chapman (Luke Combs version)."

Now that I got that out of the way. Hi. Good to see you all again. Welcome to the end of 2023. We made it.

This is going to be an interesting entry on this blog for me. Because not only is this the first time I posted a poll from the current chart, this is also the first time since 2009 when I have not been closely monitoring the charts all year. So right now, I feel like I'm trying to look back to figure out what happened.

So. What happened?

Ever since the streaming era began, it's been clear that pop success matters less and less, but that feeling was especially strong this year. I'm not saying any of these songs are bad (that's not the point of this blog). But streaming splintered people's listening habits so much that everyone is able to listen to their own thing. Before I got big into chart watching, I was not an avid pop listener. But I was still knew which songs were popular because they were so much harder to avoid.

As I'm writing this, I've been listening to various Top 40/100 stations on the radio. Even ignoring the number of Christmas songs, I have yet to hear a song that came out in 2023. It makes sense to hear songs from 2022, since songs often take a while to build momentum (such as the tracks from SZA's SOS), but I've heard songs from 2014, 2013, 2006, 1995, etc.

And that's not even touching the year-end chart itself which includes 1. songs from 2022 (Kill Bill, Anti-Hero, Snooze, Calm Down), 2. a remix of a song from 2016 (Die for You), 3. a cover/remake of a song from 1996 (Creepin), 4. a cover of a song from 1988 (Fast Car), and 5. a song with an interpolation of a song from 1998 (I'm Good (Blue)). There are only 2 songs on the top 10 that are from 2023.

This year's tendency to look back is emphasized further by the genre which had the largest presence: country music. Not just because country music tends to be more traditional, but country music hasn't had a presence this big on the top 100 since the 90s. The biggest song of the year is a country-pop track by Morgan Wallen, whose 36 track album debuted at number one on the Billboard album chart. Not the country album chart. The Billboard 200. Beyond that, we have Luke Combs, whose cover of Fast Car reached the top 10, but two other singles from his album Growin' Up reached the Billboard Year End 100 without relying on the usual techniques country songs often need to cross over to the pop charts. Additionally, each year as of late tends to have it's pick of "think-piecey songs," whether it's Blurred Lines in 2013, WAP in 2020, or [insert any Taylor Swift song here]. The two most controversial songs of the year also happened to be country, with Oliver Anthony's Rich Men North of Richmond and Jason Aldean's Try That in a Small Town.

Why was country so big this year? One of my theories is that with streaming splintering people's listening habits so much, chart metrics will tend to favor physical media. I don't think it's a coincidence that Taylor Swift tends to dominate the charts while also being one of the top-selling artists on vinyl. If people are willing to pay actual money for your music instead of letting it stream in the background, the charts are going to calculate that differently. Not only are country fans more likely to buy physical music, but the two previously mentioned controversial country songs were also helped by right-leaning listeners boosting their sales, resulting in the two songs receiving a 78 and a 66 position on the year-end chart respectively.

As I'm writing this, I'm worrying that I'm not giving country music its proper credit. "Why was country music so big?" is a question that doesn't need to have a deeper answer. "A lot of people liked it so it had a larger presence" is also a sufficient answer. Country music doesn't have to cheat to reach the charts. The reason I'm delving into this is not the mere fact that country was popular, but the fact that country was so popular and seemed to shape the pop landscape as a whole, while not having the usual staples of a country-pop crossover. Unlike previous crossovers, none of the songs I mentioned needed a pop star or a rap verse to break onto the pop charts.

But speaking of a genre requiring a pop star to find a mainstream chart presence, 2023 marks the year of the first afrobeats song to reach a billion streams on Spotify, with Rema and Selena Gomez's Calm Down. But even without the pop feature, afrobeats also had an explosive year in 2023, and it's possible we'll only see the genre grow more popularity, similar to how reggaeton took over the pop landscape after Despacito crossed over to the mainstream American charts in 2017. If you, like me, aren't that familiar with the history of this genre and you would like to learn more, please know that afrobeat and afrobeats are two distinct genres. This article also does a good rundown of the differences and their respective histories. Also, while the song itself isn't afrobeats, Unavailable by Davido came out this year and it's incredible. The full album is amazing too. It's dreamy and atmospheric with energetic drums and I need to find a slot for it in my favorite releases of the year.

For a year where pop music was widely considered to have a down year, I sure had a lot to talk about. I haven't even touched on the "decline of rap music" (especially sad since it's the 50th anniversary of the genre), Taylor Swift's dominance (I mentioned her twice though; she'll live), or delved deeper into the presence of older songs on the charts. It certainly was an interesting year in music to talk about. But listening to it? Well, I'll let you decide that.

But if you look past the top 10 (or even the top 100), this was an incredible year for music. I haven't had the time to listen to every new release (thanks law school), but I still listened to enough that I came out of this year with some of my favorite musical projects of all time. I plan on sharing my favorite songs/albums of the year in a later post.

Thank you for spending this year in music with me.

[sgt-celestial]

[wouldyourecognizethisperson-poll]

[poll-position]

Putting these in alphabetical instead of Top 12 order so not to skew the results.

[suffersinfandom]

Seeing people (LotR fans and people who just hate OFMD for whatever reason) act like such assholes in the shipping poll pitting Blackbonnet against SamFrodo reminded me of what dicks fans in "good" fandoms can be.

I was a high school freshman. Two Towers was out, my family had just gotten a Home Computer, and I, a Lord of the Rings fan since my mom first read the series to me as a small child, almost immediately found my way to some active LotR groups on LiveJournal. At some point, I posted that I don't ship Sam and Frodo romantically because I like them as close friends.

I am murdered. I'm enemy number one. Everyone hates me. I never interact with LotR fandom again until Tumblr (and I'm forever a lurker when it comes to LotR Tumblr).

All fandoms can suck and we all have shitty experiences with fans if we stick around long enough. I guarantee that almost every fandom has at least a few loud assholes, and the bigger ones have many. Like, was I hoping that LotR fans would be kinder than the Black Sails and MCU folks? Of course, but I'm not surprised that they were dicks too. As far as I've seen, there are no perfectly good and harmonious fandoms.

LotR? Fans bullied me out of the community when I was a kid.

Star Trek? A guy at the comic book store told me that I "can't like it" (I was a preteen girl). A group of people who were allegedly my friends shunned me for saying that I don't buy Kelvin Timeline Spirk as a romantic couple.

Star Wars? Someone rolled up to call me a Nazi because I posted a Kylo Ren meme. (And then there was all of the other drama. The doxxing was insane at one point, but I stayed well away from that.) A friend I had from that season in my life blocked me for saying that I like OFMD.

OFMD fandom can be a mess too, but I don't see crew out there being dicks on the poll, and I really appreciate that.

[ingravinoveritas]

Revisiting a poll that I conducted last year to see what everyone's thoughts are now that we have David's take on his and Michael's kiss in GO 2...

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[wren-of-the-woods]

[nikonladyz4]

Jimin’s ‘Muse’ Wins Favorite 2024 K-Pop Album in Fan-Voted Poll

Three of Jimin's BTS bandmates reached the top five.

By Billboard Staff - 01/2/2025

Jimin - Courtesy of BIGHIT MUSIC

It was a landmark 2024 for Jimin, and the star snagged yet another win in Billboard’s recent fan-voted poll for best K-pop album of 2024.

With 41% of the votes, the singer’s Muse took the victory. However, four of the top five was claimed by Jimin’s BTS bandmates, with Jin’s Happy coming in second, RM’s Right Place, Wrong Person in third and J-Hope’s Hope on the Street, Vol. 1 in fourth. Stray Kids’ ATE rounded out the top five.

Muse marked Jimin’s second solo project following his 2023 Face EP, and the highly anticipated album arrived in July. The effort marked his second straight album to enter at the runner-up position on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, while the set’s single “Who” bows at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Global 200 — his first solo leader on the latter chart.

RELATED

Jimin rounded out the year with an immersive exhibit a the Ace Missions Studios in Los Angeles titled “The Truth Untold,” which gave fans a look into his creative process, as well as a peek into his personal diaries, lyric notebooks and other behind-the-scenes materials.

For 2025, Jimin is set to reunite with his BTS bandmates after the group members all complete their mandatory South Korean military service.

See the full list of results for the 2024 K-pop album poll below.

Which 2024 K-pop album is your favorite? (Poll Closed)

Jimin, 'Muse'  41.18% 

Jin, 'Happy'  28.51%  RM, 'Right Place, Wrong Person'  10.47%  J-Hope, 'Hope On the Street, Vol. 1'  8.93%  Stray Kids, 'ATE'  6.11%  ROSÉ, 'rosie'  1.11%  TOMORROW X TOGETHER, 'The Star Chapter: Sanctuary'  1.09%  Other:  0.99%  ENHYPEN, 'ROMANCE : UNTOLD -daydream-'  0.72%  SEVENTEEN, '12th Mini Album ‘Spill the Feels’'  0.4%  NCT DREAM, 'DREAM()SCAPE'  0.13%  TWICE, 'With YOU-th'  0.13%  LE SSERAFIM, 'Easy'  0.09%  ITZY, 'GOLD'  0.08%  NCT 127, 'Walk: The 6th Album'  0.06% 

[clairelutra]

when i get push polled and every subsequent question makes it more clear that they're a fucking liar. lov having reading comprehension and critical thinking abilities ✨

[puthyflapps]

This shit is about to piss me off!!! Vote for clexa cuz I refuse to have the most iconic and influential wlw ship lose to some lines and colors goddammit 😤😤😤😤😤

https://x.com/dykejedis/status/1777151865349632269?s=46&t=qQfDN6w57AhyTovxMAeXzQ

[girlelle]

[shakira-fan-page]

Vote for Shakira in Woman In Music 2024 (Fan Polls). She competes in the category: Biggest Chart Achievement.

[bragganhyl]

there are a bunch of things I want to draw but I can't decided what