As a central part of our lives, music provides a daily soundtrack as it motivates, inspires, comforts, and gives us a voice at times when we need the world to listen. In 2020, we turned to music in record levels, listening to and discovering more music than ever before.
Today, Apple Music reveals the biggest songs and albums of the year with its annual Apple Music Top 100 charts. For the first time, Apple Music will share the Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics chart, and the first Shazamed locations of the Top 25 Songs. These global charts highlight and celebrate another incredible year in music, and together they provide a truly unique and global perspective on the year’s biggest music.
Charts highlights and Top 25 Songs (including first Shazamed locations), Albums, Lyrics and Shazamed Songs of 2020 below.
Full Top 100 charts-playlists are available on Apple Music:
Top 100 Songs of 2020: Global – apple.co/WW2020
Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics – apple.co/Lyrics2020
Top 100 2020: Shazam – apple.co/Shazam2020
Top Charts
– Top Song of 2020: The Box – Roddy Ricch
– Top Album: Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial – Roddy Ricch
– Top Lyrics: WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion) – Cardi B
– Top Shazamed Song: Dance Monkey – Tones And I
Top 25 Songs of 2020
The Box – Roddy Ricch, Song was first Shazamed in St. Cloud, MN, USA
Blinding Lights – The Weeknd, Paris, France
Dance Monkey – Tones And I, Düsseldorf, Germany
ROCKSTAR (feat. Roddy Ricch) – DaBaby, Cleveland, OH, USA
Life Is Good (feat. Drake) – Future, Houston, TX, USA
Don’t Start Now – Dua Lipa, Adana, Turkey
Circles – Post Malone, Sisak, Croatia
everything I wanted – Billie Eilish, Moscow, Russia
Woah – Lil Baby, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Ballin’ – Roddy Ricch & Mustard, Houston, TX, USA
ROXANNE – Arizona Zervas, Lubbock, TX, USA
HIGHEST IN THE ROOM – Travis Scott, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
High Fashion (feat. Mustard) – Roddy Ricch, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Roses (Imanbek Remix) – SAINt JHN, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Someone You Loved – Lewis Capaldi, Chicago, IL, USA
bad guy – Billie Eilish, Shenzhen, China
Toosie Slide – Drake, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
BOP – DaBaby, St. Louis, MO, USA
Watermelon Sugar – Harry Styles, New York, NY, USA
WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion) – Cardi B, Cascavel, Brazil
Bandit – Juice WRLD & YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Helsinki, Finland
Memories – Maroon 5, Paris, France
Intentions (feat. Quavo) – Justin Bieber, Mexico City, Mexico
Adore You – Harry Styles, San Francisco, CA, USA
Lose You to Love Me – Selena Gomez, Goteborg, Sweden
Top 25 Albums of 2020
Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial – Roddy Ricch
My Turn – Lil Baby
Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon – Pop Smoke
Eternal Atake – LUV vs. The World 2 – Lil Uzi Vert
Over It – Summer Walker
Hollywood’s Bleeding – Post Malone
AI YoungBoy 2 – YoungBoy Never Broke Again
WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? – Billie Eilish
KIRK – DaBaby
YHLQMDLG – Bad Bunny
Fine Line – Harry Styles
BLAME IT ON BABY – DaBaby
Legends Never Die – Juice WRLD
After Hours – The Weeknd
Pray 4 Love – Rod Wave
Dark Lane Demo Tapes – Drake
ASTROWORLD – Travis Scott
Scorpion – Drake
WUNNA – Gunna
Ghetto Gospel – Rod Wave
Artist 2.0 – A Boogie wit da Hoodie
Chilombo – Jhené Aiko
Changes – Justin Bieber
A Love Letter to You 4 – Trippie Redd
What You See Is What You Get – Luke Combs
Top 25 Lyrics of 2020
WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion) – Cardi B
Dance Monkey – Tones And I
夜に駆ける – YOASOBI
The Box – Roddy Ricch
Pretender – Official HIGE DANdism
Blinding Lights – The Weeknd
Savage Remix (feat. Beyoncé) – Megan Thee Stallion
everything I wanted – Billie Eilish
香水 – 瑛人
Someone You Loved – Lewis Capaldi
Godzilla (feat. Juice WRLD) – Eminem
bad guy – Billie Eilish
I LOVE… – Official HIGE DANdism
白日 – King Gnu
Say So – Doja Cat
Life Is Good (feat. Drake) – Future
Don’t Start Now – Dua Lipa
Before You Go – Lewis Capaldi
ROCKSTAR (feat. Roddy Ricch) – DaBaby
Circles – Post Malone
Memories – Maroon 5
Lose You to Love Me – Selena Gomez
紅蓮華 – LiSA
Toosie Slide – Drake
Intentions (feat. Quavo) – Justin Bieber
Top 25 Shazamed Songs
Dance Monkey – Tones And I
Roses (Imanbek Remix) – SAINt JHN
Blinding Lights – The Weeknd
Breaking Me – Topic & A7S
Ride It – Regard
Don’t Start Now – Dua Lipa
Memories – Maroon 5
Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat) – Jawsh 685 & Jason Derulo
Falling – Trevor Daniel
Someone You Loved – Lewis Capaldi
RITMO (Bad Boys For Life) – The Black Eyed Peas & J Balvin
death bed (feat. beabadoobee) [coffee for your head] – Powfu
Before You Go – Lewis Capaldi
Say So – Doja Cat
Jerusalema – Master KG Feat. Nomcebo Zikode
Circles – Post Malone
The Box – Roddy Ricch
everything I wanted – Billie Eilish
Lose Control – Meduza, Becky Hill & Goodboys
ily (i love you baby [feat. Emilee]) – Surf Mesa
Tusa – KAROL G & Nicki Minaj
Supalonely – BENEE Feat. Gus Dapperton
ROCKSTAR – DaBaby Feat. Roddy Ricch
MAMACITA – Black Eyed Peas, Ozuna & J. Rey Soul
Banana (DJ FLe – Minisiren Remix) – Conkarah Feat. Shaggy
Biggest Songs of 2020
It was clear from the day that Roddy Ricch’s debut studio album Please Excuse Me For Being Anti-Social was released, that “The Box” would be the standout track. Garnering 13.7 million plays worldwide in its debut week, “The Box” was an immediate standout on Apple Music’s Rap Life playlist as well as the Apple Music Top 100 charts. By the second week of January, the song was surpassing 30 million weekly plays globally in addition to being Shazamed 1 million times in the first six weeks. By the end of January, the song had already reached #1 on the Apple Music Top 100 charts in 34 countries, eventually peaking at the top in 37 territories by mid-February, in addition to topping the Apple Music Top 100 Global chart. From its very first Shazam in Minnesota, the song has now been Shazamed over 6.7 million times globally, and has the 4th most time spent with a song’s lyrics on Apple Music, showing an even deeper level of engagement.
While “Blinding Lights” had the second most streams this year, it actually had the most listeners, which is a testament to its global appeal. Having reached the top 5 on the Apple Music Top 100 charts in 92 countries, including #1 in 62 countries, the song was one of the world’s most listened to tracks of the year. Also, from its very first Shazam in Paris, France it went on to be Shazamed 17.5 million times worldwide, the third highest total for any song this year. And listeners were engaged with the lyrics as well, which are the 6th highest on our year-end Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics chart.
When we consider artists and songs that came out of nowhere to become global breakout hits, our first thought this year would be Tones And I with the song “Dance Monkey”. The song was the third most streamed song in 2020. The very first time the song was Shazamed in Dusseldorf, Germany was just the beginning of music fans asking “what is that song?” – a question that was asked of Shazam an incredible 24.6 million times over the year. Rewriting Shazam’s record books, the song is the most Shazamed track not only this year, but also of all time. The song started to emerge in September 2019, and remained in the top 40 on the Apple Music Global Daily Top 100 chart a full year later, currently reigning as the second longest consecutive weeks streak on the chart.
Rounding out the top 5 most streamed songs of the year, we find a couple of songs that were first Shazamed in the United States. DaBaby’s “ROCKSTAR”, featuring Roddy Ricch, the fourth most streamed song of the year, was also Shazamed 5 million times, starting with its first Shazam in Cleveland, Ohio. “Life is Good” by Future featuring Drake, this year’s fifth most streamed song, was first Shazamed in Houston, Texas, and was Shazamed over 3 million times globally. Both songs were also in the top 20 of our Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics chart.
Biggest Albums of 2020
Led by the year’s biggest song, Roddy Ricch’s album Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial is the most streamed album of the year. While “The Box” was the most streamed song, fans were exploring all of the album’s hits, with “High Fashion”, “Start Wit Me” and “Bacc Seat” all appearing on our Top 100 Songs of 2020: Global chart. “The Box” and “High Fashion” also appear on the Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics chart as fans engage with Roddy’s message.
Lil Baby’s album My Turn was the second most streamed album this year, with six of the albums songs reaching the year-end top 100, led by “Whoa” at #9. Other standout tracks include “Sum 2 Prove”, “We Paid”, “Emotionally Scarred”, “Grace” and “Commercial”, showing the tremendous depth of the album, as well as the engagement of his fans. Lil Baby also placed 5 songs on the Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics chart, including 4 from My Turn, as well as the socially important hit “The Bigger Picture”.
Pop Smoke’s album Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon comes in at #3 on the year-end album chart, placing three songs in the year-end top 100, led by “For the Night” at #29. “Dior” and “Mood Swings” also reached the year-end song chart. Both “Mood Swings” and “For the Night” reached the Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics chart as well.
Rounding out the top 5 albums are Lil Uzi Vert, who’s album Eternal Atake – LUV vs. the World 2, comes in at #4, and Summer Walker, with her album Over It, led by top 100 songs “Playing Games” and “I’ll Kill You”, landing at #5.
Music Discovery Goes Global
Thinking about global music discovery, our thoughts jump to the music scenes in major markets. Places like Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, London, New York, and Los Angeles are all where cutting edge music is being discovered. But based on this year’s biggest hits, we should also be thinking about Cleveland, Ohio, Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Adana, Turkey. These not-so-major music markets are the location of the earliest Shazams for some of this year’s most streamed songs.
Discovery of new music in 2020 has truly gone global. The 20 most streamed songs of the year were first Shazamed in 19 different cities and in 11 different countries. In all, the top 100 songs were first tagged in 70 different markets worldwide, representing 29 different countries.
Even when looking at artists with multiple hits, their first Shazams are coming from all over the world. The first Shazam for Billie Eilish’s “everything I wanted” came from Moscow, but her song “bad guy”, was first Shazamed in Shenzhen, China, and “when the party’s over” was first tagged in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. Drake had four songs in the year-end top 100, with his first Shazams coming from the Dominican Republic, Israel, France and the United States. Post Malone also had four of the 100 most streamed songs in 2020, with first Shazam discovery happening in Croatia, Italy, the US, and Mexico.
We can’t forget the world’s second largest music market, Japan. As Apple Music’s fastest growing territory among our top markets, Japan is seeing remarkable growth of music within its borders and music fans in Tokyo were first to Shazam “I LOVE…” by Official HIGE DANdism and “夜に駆ける” (Yoru Ni Kakeru) by YOASOBI. In fact, “夜に駆ける” (Yoru Ni Kakeru) was the second most Shazamed song in Japan this year, trailing only “Dance Monkey”. The song has been streamed over 100 million times on Apple Music and comes in as the #69 most streamed song on our year-end chart. But, most impressively, is the engagement that YOASOBI’s fans have with the song’s lyrics, making it #3 on the Top 100 2020: Most-Read Lyrics chart.
Let’s not at all diminish the importance of some of the world’s major music markets. London was the first to Shazam “Say So” by Doja Cat. Paris was first on five of the songs in the top 100, including songs by The Weeknd, Maroon 5, Diplo, Don Toliver, and Drake. New York also led the way for five songs, first Shazaming hits by Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Camilia Cabello and Shawn Mendes, Pop Smoke, and Young Thug & Chris Brown. But for every major music market, we find small markets with engaged music fans that are Shazaming songs before anyone else, proving that music discovery can come from anywhere.
