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2026 has been a great year for pretending it’s some other year.

From the finale of Stranger Things, renewed interest in Bruno Mars’ and Justin Bieber’s heyday, the Michael Jackson biopic, and the whole #BringBack 2016 thing, we seemingly want to exist in any time that isn’t now.

Based on the songs Americans are streaming most on Spotify, which years are we musically longing for most? Are there particular forces affecting the era of songs we’re craving lately? Finally, which nostalgia fads have already faded?

To find out, I examined the Spotify 200 in the U.S. for the first 26 weeks of 2026:

Specifically, I tagged every song with a release date 2016 and earlier, counted up the total streams for those songs for the week ending January 1^st, 2026 through June 25^th, 2026, and tallied which years garnered the most streams. I ignored songs that were released during this time but ultimately became bigger hits contemporaneously, the quintessential example being “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” by Kate Bush.

Reliving the Recent Past

Spotify users have more interest in the recent past than the distant: 53 songs from the 2010s made the Spotify 200, while only 2 hits from the 1960s did. (The oldest being “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.) When examining total streams for songs from each decade, fans play 2010s songs in total twice as much as any other decade.

What one year are we most reliving on Spotify? Let’s count them down.

#7: 1997 (215 million streams)

In what was the last year before boy bands and teen pop ended the Grunge era, the biggest song on Spotify from 1997 was one of the last massive hits of the genre, “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters

Spotify users also played Sublime’s “Santeria” and Third Eye Blind “Semi-Charmed Life”. Radiohead’s “Let Down,” an album cut from OK Computer, also made the Spotify 200 for 12 weeks.

Finally, The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize” was the only 90s Hip Hop track making the Spotify 200 so far this year..

#6: 1992 (238 million streams)

In a year originally dominated by Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Boyz II Men and Sir Mix-A-Lot, Radiohead’s “Creep” has the most Spotify streams from 1992 and has consistently made the Spotify 200 so far this year—a fact that the band historically would have hated. Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” makes the list (as does “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for 1991). So did the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under The Bridge” for a few weeks. The Michael biopic brought “Remember The Time” to the Spotify 200 in April.

Finally, one of the very few Country classics that’s consistently on the Spotify 200 these days is 1992’s “Neon Moon” from Brooks & Dunn. (Keep in mind that Country is bigger on Amazon Music than on Spotify. Plus, 1992;s biggest Country star Garth Brooks is exclusively available on Amazon Music.)

#5: 2003 (245 million streams)

The perennial classic of Millennials “Mr. Brightside” from The Killers has for years been a permanent resident of the Spotify 200. It got 142 of the 245 million Spotify plays for 2003 songs. It’s not only the most streamed song over 10 years old, it’s also the overall #8 most streamed song on Spotify so far this year among ALL songs.

Evanescence - Bring Me To Life has also made the Spotify 200 every single week this year.. Linkin Park’s “Somewhere I Belong” and “Numb”, along with Outkast’s “Hey Ya!”, also contribute to 2003’s count.

#4: 2016 (270 million streams)

The year most famous for fans reliving is only the fourth most-relived year on Spotify. #BringBack2016 favorite “One Dance” from Drake, Wizkid, & Kyla has the most streams of any 2016 song and has made the Spotify 200 every week so far this year. Another song associated with the trend, “Closer” from The Chainsmokers & Halsey, only returned for two weeks, however. Rihanna’s “Love On The Brain” and “Kiss It Better” have also charted.

Justin Bieber’s Coachella brought “Let Me Love You” from DJ Snake and Bieber back to the Spotify 200.

The most recent 2016 bringback is Mac Miller featuring Ty Dolla $ign’s “Cinderella,” which has become a graduation season TikTok trend.

#3: 2007 (280 million streams)

Only four songs from 2007 made the Spotify 200 so far this year, but three of them have made the chart every single week: Arctic Monkeys’ “505” has taken up permanent residence on the Spotify 200, with over 100 million streams so far this year. Kanye West & Dwele’s “Flashing Lights” and Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music” have also never left the Spotify 200 this year. Rihanna’s “Breakin’ Dishes” only made it for 13 out of 26 weeks.

#2: 1983 (285 million plays)

You can almost single-handedly thank the Michael biopic (about which I wrote last time) for 1983 being the second-biggest year we’re reliving on Spotify: “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” Human Nature,” “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing),” and “Thriller” all began charting on the Spotify 200 with Michael’s appearance in theaters.

There’s one other 1983 classic that’s actually made the Spotify 200 every week so far this year: The Police, “Every Breath You Take”

#1: 2012 (335 million streams)

Bruno Mars’ resurgence brought “Locked out of Heaven” back to the Spotify 200 every week through the end of June (It dropped out of the Spotify 200 in July). Fans remembering Justin Bieber exists brought “Beauty And A Beat” with Nicki Minaj back for 11 weeks. (It’s the only Bieber throwback still in the Spotify 200 in July).

Gen Z favorite “Thinkin Bout You” from Frank Ocean and Disclosure & Sam Smith’s “Latch” also helped make 2012 the biggest year fans are reliving on Spotify.

Plus, the only other Country classic to make the Spotify 200 in the first half of 2026, Eric Church’s “Springsteen”, stems from 2012.

By far the biggest song from the biggest bring back year on Spotify is The Neighbourhood’s “Sweater Weather.” With over 100 million plays, it’s the 29^th most played song on Spotify in the U.S. so far this year. It’s been a permanent resident of the Spotify 200 since August 2020 and its streams have steadily grown ever since, comparable to the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.”

Here’s the streams for all years examined…

Nostalgic or Timeless?

Compare streaming for “Mr. Brightside” and “Sweater Weather” above with Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj’s “Beauty And A Beat,” a song revived by nostalgia for Bieber’s heyday after his Coachella performance:

“Beauty and a Beat” streams spiked quickly, then faded along with the nostalgia. In contrast, fans steadily play the Neighbourhood’s and the Killers’ defining classics week after week, year after year. In fact, their streams keep growing as these songs become more established.

They’re becoming timeless.

When a fan plays The Chainsmokers and Halsey’s “Closer,” she’s reliving 2016, a simpler time before pandemics, AI, political instability, and when the Cubs won the World Series.

When fans plays “Mr. Brightside,” they’re not reliving 2003; They’re simply enjoying a classic.

Here are the top 30 songs from 2017 and earlier that made the Spotify 200 alongside today’s biggest hits during the first half of 2026. Notice that all but three of the most-streamed classics made the Spotify 200 chart every (or almost every) week.

Consider Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” It started as a fad, thanks to that Tik Tok of a that guy riding his skateboard to the song. Its streams quickly rose and fell.

Then, something uncommon happened: Fans discovered they actually loved “Dreams,” not as a meme, not as a 70s flashback, but simply as a great song.

Perhaps we should stop considering every song from a previous decade that continues to enjoy popularity an act of nostalgia. Yes, sometimes we enjoy old songs to relive the past. But most of the time, the old songs we’re enjoying are simply timeless.

Subscribe to Graphs About Songs for more Timeless Classics turned into PowerPoint Charts:

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Data Source for this article:

Spotify Charts (weeks of 1/1/2026 through 6/25/2026 for the USA): https://charts.spotify.com/charts/overview/us

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Take a gander at Spotify’s chart of the 200 most-streamed songs in the U.S.A. Alongside the latest hits from Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, and Ella Langley for the week ending June 25^th, 2026 are numerous songs from Michael Jackson. Those songs cover five decades of Michael Jackson’s work, from the Jackson 5’s debut smash “I Want You Back”, to his largely forgotten “You Rock My World.”

On April 10^th, there were no Michael Jackson songs on the Spotify 200.

You already know the reason is Michael, the hugely popular biopic depicting Michael Jackson’s life from the boy wonder of Gary, Indiana through the late 1980s, back before things got really weird. Michael has already become the highest grossing biography of a musician, surpassing 2019’s Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

Three weeks after the film’s U.S. release, fans played Jackson’s songs almost 63 million times (and that’s just the songs reaching the Spotify 200.). Almost 9% of all streams on the Spotify 200 that peak week were for Jackson titles, For the entire month of April 2026, Michael Jackson was the second most-played artist on Spotify in the U.S. Only Noah Kahan and Drake, who both released new albums in April, eclipsed Jackson

Fans started streaming a wide variety of Jackson’s discography. Of course many are from Thriller (1982), as well as from Bad (1987) and Dangerous (1991). Fans also reached back to Off The Wal (1979) and the Jackson 5’s fist massive hit “I Want You Back” (1969). The song that might most surprise you is “Chicago,” a 1999 recording that remained unreleased until 2014. In total, 16 different songs have appeared on the Spotify 200 chart recently thanks to Michael.

At their peak, “Billie Jean” received over eight million plays a week, “Chicago” got over seven million weekly streams, while “Beat It” and “Human Nature” both got played over six million times each that week. That’s more streams for the biggest Michael Jackson titles than the big current hits from Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, and Olivia Dean received.

It’s not a given that a biopic will rejuvenate interest in a legend’s work enough to generate massive streaming of their hits. The 2020s saw biopics about Aretha Franklin (Respect), Whitney Houston (I Wanna Dance with Somebody), Elvis Presley (Elvis), and Amy Winehouse (Back to Black) and none of these artists saw any songs chart on the Spotify 200 as a result of their portrayals. Even A Complete Unknown, the highly popular film about Bob Dylan, failed to bring back his songs.

The only artist biopic from this decade that did so was 2024’s Bob Marley: One Love, which boosted Bob Marley & The Wailers’ “Could You Be Loved” onto the Spotify 200 for two weeks.

The only biopic comparable to Michael

The only biopic with a comparable impact on streaming is Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic of Freddie Mercury that was the biggest grossing musical biography until Michael. It pushed seven different Queen tracks onto the Spotify 200 in late 2018 and 2019.

At their peak in November 2018, however, the total weekly streams for those Queen songs were less than 15 million, a scant 2% of all streams in the Spotify 200 that week.

Queen’s streams received another boost when Bohemian Rhapsody swept the Oscars and remaining members of Queen along with Adam Lambert performed “We Will Rock You” / “We Are the Champions”. That boost ultimately kept the title track on the lower rungs of the Spotify 200 all the way until the 2019 holiday season.

How did Michael Jackson’s biopic spawn such strong streaming, when other icons from Whitney Houston to Bob Dylan didn’t?

1) An Artist with multi-generational appeal

Thriller made him an icon with Generation X, but Michael Jackson’s appeal spans four generations: Boomers embraced the Jackson 5 from the start, sending their first four hits to #1 on the Hot 100. Millennials and Generation Z have also embraced Jackson’s music as timeless.

Queen, the only other artist whose biopic generated significant streaming, also enjoys multi-generational appeal, but Michael has another advantage over Queen.

In contrast, I hate to bear the news, Boomers, but most Generation Xers think Bob Dylan is overrated. Millennials and Generation Z don’t even know why he’s a legend.

2) A long and deep library

From The Jackson 5’s 1969 chart debut to 1995’s HIStory, Michael Jackson was a consistent hitmaker for over a quarter of a century. He’s also scored 30 Top 10 hits and 13 #1 hits on the Hot 100 as a solo artist. That’s on top of the Jackson 5’s eight Top 10 and four #1 hits.

Jackson is also a holiday staple, with the Jackson 5’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” a part of the Christmas cannon and “Thriller” now a defining Halloween song.

In contrast, Queen was only crafting hits for less than a decade. Furthermore, their catalog lacks the depth of Jackson’s: Despite being a Classic Rock radio mainstay, Queen only reached the Hot 100’s Top 10 four times during Freddie Mercury’s lifetime. (”Bohemian Rhapsody” returned Queen to prominence and made them a Generation X favorite thanks to Wayne’s World in 1992.)

3) A culture primed for nostalgia

Between the lackluster state of current hit music and a culture seeking refuge from fearful times, the timing is perfect for people to latch on to a classic.

Mass appeal still matters

As soon as Napster made music on the internet a thing, pundits assured us the monoculture was dead: With infinite choices and endless personalization, no one would ever settle for the same choices as everyone else ever again. A quarter century later, Michael Jackson’s Spotify takeover demonstrates that appealing to a wide variety of passionate fans is still a winning formula, even when the goal is amassing streaming plays.

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Date sources for this article:

• Spotify Charts (weeks of 11/1/2018 through 6/25/2026 for the USA): https://charts.spotify.com/charts/overview/us

• The Billboard Hot 100: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

• Wikipedia’s Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_top-ten_singles

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

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Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

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Quick—name every Drake #1 song you can name off the top of your head.

Perhaps you recalled “God’s Plan”, “Nice for What”, or “In My Feelings.” Combined, these three songs spent 29 weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 in 2018.

If you’re reliving 2016, you might remember, “One Dance”, Drake’s hit featuring WizKid and Kyla, or Rihanna’s “Work” featuring Drake. Those two songs owned #1 for 19 weeks.

How many #1 songs do you think Drake has had this decade? How many can you name?*

In his Slate column “Why Is This Song No, 1,” Chart expert and music critic Chris Molanphy observes this curiosity about Canada’s biggest Hip Hop export: Drake has had eight songs reach #1 on the Hot 100 from 2020 through 2023, including his recent response to the Kendrick Lamar feud, “Janice STFU”.

However, of Drake’s seven other #1 songs from this decade, all seven spent only 1 week atop the chart.

The Emergence of The Irrelevant #1

Back when Casey Kasem announced the week’s #1 song, that song had penetrated the awareness of anyone even vaguely paying attention to popular music. Some #1s remain iconic classics. Others received widespread derision even when they were #1. If you were alive and not residing at the Pines of Mar Gables, you knew the #1 song.

That’s because #1 song used to remain omnipresent for months.

My rule of thumb for a song to be relatively well known in its time, it needs to be a Top 10 hit for at least four weeks. We generally don’t get to know a song from casually hearing it once. We need to hear it over and over again for a period of time for our brains to store the song in long-term memory—whether we want it there or not.

Historically, since Billboard implemented electronic monitoring of song sales and radio airplay to compile the Hot 100, the #1 song remained in the Top 10 for an average of 16 weeks.

Before 2019. Only three #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 stayed in the chart’s top 10 for less than four weeks:

• One was John Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Through The Night,” a largely forgotten hit from 1974 that only lasted three weeks in the Top 10.

• The other two were songs from American Idol contestants Fantasia (2004) and Taylor Hicks (2006). Their TV performances spawned throngs of fans to immediately buy their winning song on iTunes, but those sales dried up as soon as the show was no longer hot news.

In short, if your song reached #1 on the Hot 100, you were guaranteed enough time in the Top 10 for your song to become well-known.

That changed in 2019.

Since streaming on services such as Spotify usurped paid digital downloads on iTunes, there have been 23 different songs reaching #1 on the Hot 100, only to fall out of the Top 10 entirely after fewer than four weeks. Somehow, these songs were the #1 most-consumed songs in America, only to be forgotten as soon as the following week.

That includes every #1 song so far this decade from Drake.

The King of the Irrelevant Hit

The chart below ranks the 24 artists with the most Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from the week ending January 5, 2019 through June 13, 2026., segmented by how many of each artist’s Top 10 hits:

• Stayed in the Top 10 for four or more weeks

• Remained in the Top 10 for two or three weeks

• Only were Top 10 for one week

No one during this timeframe has had more Top 10 hits than Drake, with 48, However, only seven of Drake’s songs stayed in the Top 10 for four or more weeks, compared to 25 songs that were only Top 10 for one week.

That makes Drake the artist with more irrelevant Top 10 hits than any other artist during the streaming era.

Taylor Swift is second with 47 total Top 10 hits from 2019 through 2026. She, too, has had 25 Top 10 songs fall out of the Top 10 after only one week. However, eight of her Top 10 hits have remained in the Top 10 for four or more weeks. Unlike Drake, Swift’s biggest hits have been massive, with “Cruel Summer” remaining in the Top 10 for 33 weeks and “Anti-Hero” for 28 weeks.

In contrast, the best Drake could muster since 2019 is keeping “Toosie Slide,” in the Top 10 for 10 weeks.

This chart shows those same artists’ percentage of Top 10 hits that stayed in the Top 10 for four or more weeks. Other than Juice WRLD or J. Cole (who both had significantly fewer Top hits overall), only 15% of Drake’s Top 10 hits since 2019 are “real” hits, based on my benchmark of four or more weeks in the Top 10.

How Streaming Created Irrelevant Hits

Streaming has made it easier than ever for an artist’s biggest fans to check out their latest music.

• Thirty years ago, you had to go to the mall and spend $34 in 2026 money for an entire CD to check out your favorite artist’s new release, a commitment only the most avid fans would make sound unheard.

• Fifteen years ago, you could buy that album on your laptop or your new smartphone, but you still had to pay up to $22 in 2026 money for the whole album. Perhaps you only bought the big track you’ve heard on the radio at that price, not the entire album.

Today, you can effortlessly listen to every single track on an artist’s latest project without spending anything beyond the streaming subscription you already have.

More fundamentally, we now don’t simply measure the moment you buy the CD or download the iTune: We measure every single time you play a song.

Drake Can’t Keep It Up

In this chart, you’ll see each artist’s Spotify performance in the U.S. from 2019 through 2026, including songs featuring other contributing artists.

• On the left is the aggregate streams for each artist during the debut week for their songs.

• On the right is the total streams for their songs for all weeks.

In other words, the chart on the left shows who turns out their fans the week they drop a new album. The chart on the right shows who attracts fans who keeps streaming a song week after week.

When it comes to debuting big and staying big, Taylor Swift is #1 on both charts.

The artist in second place for most debut week streams is Drake. But look where Drake is on the right—he’s only 11^th place for total streams week after week.

In contrast, look at Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter: They rank 8^th and 9^th, respectively, in most streams the week a song debuts. For total Spotify streams week after week, however, they rank #3 and #4, behind only Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen. Or SZA, who isn’t even among the top 20 in Spotify debuts but is 7^th in total streams.

Despite Kendrick Lamar’s efforts, Drake still has an ardent fan base who binges his latest releases. So does Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, and Bad Bunny.

The difference is those artists also attract a far bigger—albeit far less ardent—audience of causal fans in the weeks after their songs debut. That broader audience registers in radio research and keeps those songs on the radio for months. That broader audience also keeps playing their songs for months on their streaming service of choice.

The Hot 100 Never Measured Popularity

The Hot 100 is not a chart measuring how many people know and love a song. It is—and always was—a chart measuring consumption of each song. Back when the chart measured how many people bought a 45 and heard a song on Top 40 radio, the most consumed songs were also the most widely appealing songs.

Although radio exposure and song sales do still count, today, the Hot 100 is chiefly measuring how many times a song gets played on streaming. Because we’re now measuring plays—not people—streaming has broken the link between consumption and popularity. That’s because songs from established artists typically get the most streams the week they debut—but those streams are from a handful of passionate fans binging the song repeatedly.

The chart below compares the Spotify streams for a typical hit song from a major Pop artist with the percentage of Pop music fans who would typically be familiar with that song, as measured by radio audience research.

• During the debut week, when the artist’s Stans seemingly can’t get enough of the new song on Spotify, the majority of Pop fans have never heard the song.

• Fast forward eight weeks. Now, the vast majority of Pop fans know the song (and a lot of those Pop fans love it), but on Spotify, the song is garnering less than half the weekly streams it did the week it debuted.

As causal fans of the song discovered it, they, too, started playing it on Spotify. But unlike the artist Stans who binged it as soon as it dropped, those casual fans slowly ramped up how often they played the song as they got to know it over several weeks. Furthermore, those causal fans never played the song over and over again the way the artist Stans did its debut week.

Streaming services don’t tell us how many different people play a song in the course of a week. Furthermore, fandom is a spectrum, not a binary. For conceptual understanding, however, the chart below estimates which streams from that typical hit song come from artist stands verses casual fans each week.

Since the Hot 100 tracks how many times streaming users play a song this week—not how many different people played it---the Hot 100 no longer inherently reflects how many individuals know and love a song.

The thing is, the chart was never supposed to measure popularity.

Consider THE SCOTTS, by THE SCOTTS (Travis Scott and Kid Cudi). It was the #1 song on the Hot 100 for the week ending May 9^th, 2020. Then, it fell out of the Top 10 entirely. Examining its week-by-week Spotify streams shows how “THE SCOTTS” quickly faded compared to a mass-appeal hit:

“THE SCOTTS” was indeed the most heavily consumed song in the U.S. in early May of 2020. However, it was not—and never became—the most “popular” song in the U.S.

Billboard has always intended its charts to be tools for industry professionals to gauge music consumption. The fact is, the Hot 100 now does that job far better than it did in the past. It’s using census level data from every streaming service to track every single time someone plays a song.

• Even when we tracked every iTunes download, the chart had no idea how often you played that song after you bought it.

• Even when we tracked CD sales electronically via SoundScan, we had no idea what you did with that CD once you left Circuit City.

• During the heyday of Casey counting them down, the Hot 100 relied on a sample of self-reported rank lists from record stores and radio stations about what they were selling and playing the most. (No room for chart tampering there, right?)

Streaming “Slop”

That brings us back to Drake.

He has the dubious distinction of crafting more songs that his fan base will binge, but that never become “real” hits, than any other artist this decade.

The Switched on Pop podcast dubbed the 2020’s Drake’s “slop era.” Will fans simply listen to anything their favorite artist puts out?

For worse or for better, savvy artists including Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, and Drake have figured out that maximizing new release binging from fans is a lucrative business model. When you’re paid per stream, quantify beats quality.

Based on streaming of his latest track, “Janice STFU,” Kendrick Lamar didn’t kill Drake’s career. If anything does, it will be eroding the anticipation of his fans who are expecting another “God’s Plan” and instead get “What’s Next.”

* For the record…

Those eight #1 hits for Drake in the 2020s are:

1. “Toosie Slide” (2020)

2. “What’s Next” (2021)

3. “Way 2 Sexy” featuring Future and Young Thug (2021 )

4. “Wait for U” Future featuring Drake and Tems (2022)

5. “Jimmy Cooks” featuring 21 Savage (2022)

6. “Slime You Out” featuring SZA (2023)

7. “First Person Shooter” featuring J. Cole (2023)

8. “Janice STFU”(2026)

Want to know which hits are really hits?

• If you’re a fellow chart nerd: Choose the “FREE” option to get Graphs About Songs’ directly in your inbox.

• If you program a CHR station: “The Hit Momentum Newsletter” analyzes the Spotify 200 to find the songs that could be huge hits on your station. It’s yours every Monday for a $22 a month subscription below.

Subscribe now

Data sources for this article:

• The Billboard Hot 100: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

• Wikipedia’s Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_top-ten_singles

• Spotify Charts (weeks of 1/3/2019 through 6/4/2026 for the USA): https://charts.spotify.com/charts/overview/us

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

Read more

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

Read more

Here on Graphs About Songs, you’ll often find me analyzing the Top 10 songs in the Billboard Hot 100. Why do I focus on the 10 songs at the pinnacle of America’s popular music chart, however? It comes down to scope.

• #1 songs are too narrow. There simply aren’t enough #1 songs to accurately spot trends. Plus, one fluke song can throw off an entire trend line.

• Looking at the Top 40 or the entire Hot 100, however, includes way too many songs that never became mass appeal hits. You’ve likely never heard the typical song that peak at #38, much less recall it years later.

Those songs that reach the Top 10 and stay there for at least a few weeks tend to be those songs that lots of people know. Personally, you might not love all of them, but at least you’re aware of them.

A good year has at least one new Top 10 hit each week

In a typical year, 58 songs (not counting Christmas classics) become Top 10 hits on the Hot 100. That’s about 1 new song reaching the Top 10 each week. That 58 songs number has been consistent since cassettes were common in 1992. (Before 1992, when Billboard tracked self-reported paper lists of song sales and radio airplay rankings, songs cycled through the Top 10 faster and, therefore, more songs reached the Top 10 each year.)

The number of Top 10 hits each year fell a bit during the iTunes from 2006-2017, likely due to radio stations holding on to older songs longer. 2015 saw a record low 44 new songs become Top 10 hits that year.

Top 10 hits have rebounded during the streaming era starting in 2018, largely thanks to multiple tracks from new albums from major artists debuting in the Top 10 simultaneously. In 2023, 77 different songs reached the Hot 100’s Top 10, the highest number of Top 10 hits since the paper reporting era ended in 1991.

Mathematically, you’d expect a third of the year’s Top 10 hits to reach the Top 10 from January through April (4 months / 12 months = 33%).

That’s pretty much what’s happened—although the number has dipped slightly to 29% of all Top 10 hits each year reaching the Top 10 by the end of April.

2026’s Terrible Start

Which brings us to 2026. In a healthy year with 58 Top 10 hits, you’d expect 19 songs to reach the Top 10 between January and April. For the chart week ending April 26, 2026, only 11 new songs reached the Top 10. That’s the lowest number of hits during the first third of the year since a dozen years ago.

As we examine those 11 songs below, you’ll notice some have had more impact than have others…

1. “Choosin’ Texas” by Ella Langley: #1 peak,. Top 10 for 21 weeks and counting Released in October 2525, this song has made Langley a Country streaming staple on par with Morgan Wallen. “Choosin’ Texas” has stayed in the Top 10 thanks to continued streaming momentum, Country radio airplay, and Pop crossover radio airplay.

2. “End of Beginning” by Djo: #6 peak, Top 10 for 3 weeks: This 2022 song returned to relevance thanks to the Stranger Things finale. Although the song was not played on the show, the fact that Djo is also Stranger Things actor Joe Keery linked his hit to the show.

3. “I Just Might” by Bruno Mars: #1 peak, Top 10 for 18 weeks and counting: Mars is on a roll, with nostalgia boosting streaming of his previous decade’s hits and the huge success of his duet with Lady Gaga. Radio almost immediately started playing “I Just Might” and it has remained strong on streaming.

4. “Aperture” by Harry Styles #1 peak, Top 10 for 2 weeks: The highly anticipated but highly weird track quickly tanked on streaming.

5. “The Great Divide” by Noah Kahan: #6 peak, Top 10 for 1 week: Noah Kahan’s loyal Gen Z fan base apparently finds this one “meh”. Streaming has been ok, but not stellar.

6. “Risk It All” by Bruno Mars: #4 peak. Top 10 for 2 weeks: With streaming Momentum weaker for this song and radio still focusing on “I Just Might,” “Risk It All” only remained in the Top 10 for a couple of weeks.

7. “Stateside” by PinkPantheress with Zara Larsson: #6 peak, Top 10 for 7 weeks While radio was playing Zara Larsson’s “Midnight Sun”, streaming users made her duet with PinkPantheress the real hit. Radio has since embraced “Stateside,” as well.

8. “American Girls” by Harry Styles: #4 peak, Top 10 for 2 weeks: Radio felt more comfortable embracing this Styles song, with it rapidly being among most played songs on Top 40 radio. Fans, however, aren’t impressed. After a strong debut, streaming for “American Girls” has tanked.

9. “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” by Olivia Dean: #5 peak, Top 10 for 9 weeks: Released in September 2025, “So Easy” has seen increased radio airplay after “Man I Need” ran its course on radio, while streaming has remained very strong.

10. “Swim” by BTS: #1, Top 10 for 4 weeks: Contrary to popular belief, the BTS Army does not love everything the group generates and cannot simply will themselves another hit. “Swim’s” week-to-week streaming has been lackluster.

11. “Be Her” by Ella Langley: #2 peak, Top 10 for 6 weeks and counting: Her latest affirms her place as a Country streaming juggernaut on par with Morgan Wallen. “Ne Her” hasn’t yet crossed over to Top 40 radio, but it’s already big on Country.

To summarize, of the 11 songs reaching the Top 10 during the first four months of 2026, only five (5) songs are sustained hits, spending 4 or more weeks in the Top 10.

Based on those 11 hits from January through April, 2026 is on track to only have 38 Top 10 hits—that would be the fewest Top 10s in the history of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

Fortunately, fate has already intervened.

2026’s May Revival

In May alone, 13 different songs reached the Hot 100’s Top 10. In addition to nine (9) tracks from Drake’s three-album dump, four additional individual releases have made the Hot 100’s Top 10 in May—and three of them actually could be hits:

1. “Drop Dead” by Olivia Rodrigo: #14 peak, 4 weeks in Top 10 so far: While the verdict is still out on the song’s streaming sustainability, radio immediately embraced it.

2. “I Can’t Love You Anymore” by Ella Langley and Morgan Wallen #7 peak, 2 weeks in Top 10 so far.

3. “Doors” by Noah Kahan: #9 peak, 1 week in Top 10: While fans were excited enough for new Noah Kahan to give “Doors” a week in the Top 10, streaming quickly faded.

4. “Dracula” by Tame Impala and Jennie: #10 peak, 2 weeks in Top 10 so far. The Jennie remix of Tame Impala’s October 2025 single has bolstered interest in this song on both streaming and radio.

That’s the strongest May since 2024, when legendary radio personality and music guru Gene “Bean Baxter declared:

“This is the best US Billboard Top 10 in ages and by that I mean it’s filled with actual hit songs, not just big artist debuts. Fight me.”

As you can see below, however, 2024 was also the year where those hits dried up from June through December (as i examined in Where Did 2024’s Great New Hits Go?)

Let’s assume 2026 isn’t 2024, however. If January through May’s Top 10s are predictive of the remainder of the year, 2026 is on track to have 57 top 10 hits. While not a banner year for hit songs, it’s also not an unprecedented dearth thereof.

In future posts, we’ll examine why the streaming era has made some months significantly bigger for hit music than others, as well as why only half of the Top 10 hits are real hits thanks to streaming. Subscribe to the FREE option below to get those Graphs About Songs articles in your inbox as soon as I concoct them.

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Sources for this post:

• The Billboard Hot 100: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

• Wikipedia’s Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_top-ten_singles

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

Read more

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

Read more

Last month, 97.7 WOXY officially changed its call letters to WKRP-FM. It’s the first time the WKRP call letters are on a real-life radio station in Cincinnati. WKRP-FM plays a variety of classic hits from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, which the station was already playing before buying the WKRP callsign.

We’re not here to discuss that station’s music. (Sean Ross did a great job here already.)

We’re here to analyze the tunes on the “real” WKRP in Cincinnati—the fictional radio station of the TV series on CBS from 1978 to 1982

A key feature of the show was that it featured real songs by real recording artists. The show recorded on video tape instead of film to take advantage of a music licensing loophole that allowed them to play The Beatles on a network TV show affordably.

Today, we’re going to analyze the music on WKRP in Cincinnati, not like Norris breeze did, but as my former radio research and consulting colleagues and I would do. We’ll…

• Analyze how many contemporary songs verses golden oldies WKRP played.

• Examine the various sub-genres WKRP played.

• Parse how many proven hits verses obscure titles WKRP featured.

We’ll ultimately decide exactly what format WKRP in Cincinnati aired—and if the station would realistically rise from #16 to #6 in the Cincinnati radio ratings during its run.

Thanks to several superfans of the show, we have detailed information about the 295 songs that ever appeared on WKRP in Cincinnati, including the context of how the show used each song. I’m using the outstandingly detailed listing Mike Hernandez compiled and shared as a Google Sheets document here.

Thanks to Mike’s detailed notes on how the show used each song—as well as my own recollections—I’m excluding songs not actually played in full on WKRP. That means I’m not including:

• Songs played in other scenes, such as

  • Johnny Mathis’ “Chances Are” (played at Les Nessman’s Apartment in “Les’ Groupie”

  • Sly & The Family Stone’s “The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)” playing on WREQ during Venus’ job interview in “Venus Rising.”

  

  • Any of the Disco songs played by Johnny Fever’s alter ego Rip Tide on his TV show Gotta Dance.

• The six songs whose clips created the montage for “The Contest Nobody Could Win.” (sorry, Wayne Newton and Francis Scott Key)

  

• “Wanted” by Perry Como, playing on WKRP in 1954 during the Christmas past flashback scene in “Bah Humbug”.

• Any songs sung by characters

• Finally, I’m skipping the three Christmas songs WKRP plays, which unfortunately means Jingle Bells by Barking Dogs isn’t included.

With those deletions, we’re left with 202 songs that actually aired on WKRP in Cincinnati. Let’s analyze them.

A Top 40 Station? Nope.

The most common misstatement is that WKRP was a “Top 40” Rock ‘n’ Roll station. It was not. Despite receptionist Jennifer Marlowe answering the phones, “home of the hits, where your advertising dollar goes further,” WKRP was not a hit music station.

First, only six out of ten songs WKRP played were contemporary songs from the current or previous year. The remaining four out of ten songs were gold titles from previous years.

That alone wouldn’t disqualify WKRP—Top 40 stations have always mixed on songs that were hits from a few years ago. What does differ, however, is just how old most of those Gold titles are: WKRP played songs all the way back to the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll in 1955.

More fundamentally, the majority of songs WKRP in Cincinnati played—both the current songs and the oldies—were never Top 40 hits. Fewer than 30% of the songs WKRP in Cincinnati played were Top 10 hits.

Drilling down to the Current songs, WKRP in Cincinnati played even fewer big hits. The show featured nine #1 current hits, including “The Long Run” by The Eagles, Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration,” and Blonde’s “Heart of Glass.” However, fewer than a quarter of the current songs on the station were Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

When a Top 40 station airs older songs, they’re generally songs that were once massive hits. While about 38% of WKRP’s Oldies were Top 10 hits, over half never even reached the Top 40:

When examining which types of songs WKRP in Cincinnati aired, a scant 3% were the kind of Current Pop songs that were the backbone of Top 40 radio from 1978 to 1982:

So rare was it that WKRP in Cincinnati actually played massive current hits that Andy Travis got excited when Johnny played one.

Beyond playing Chic’s “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah),” in the pilot episode, WKRP in Cincinnati was also notoriously anti-disco, No Top 40 station could have ignored disco in the late 1970s,

There was a popular format where hating disco was de rigor: Rock radio.

An Album Rock Station? Note quite.

When WKRP in Cincinnati program director Andy Travis announced the station’s new format to morning host Johnny Caravella, he said it was “Rock ‘n’ Roll” while unveiling a poster of Kiss The first song Johnny played was Ted Nugent’s 1975 album cut “Queen of the Forest.” That song wasn’t a Top 40 hit, but was a well-known cut on Nugent’s self-titled debut album in 1975.

19% of the station’s overall airplay was Current Album Rock—exactly the songs you’d hear on the era’s FM Album Rock stations. An additional 10% were the Pop-friendly Pop Rock tracks.

Album Oriented Rock (AOR) emerged in the 1970s as a highly popular radio format particularly among male teens and young adults who had no interest in hearing their Rock mixed with The Osmonds. Majny of the genres most enduring songs famously never appeared on a 45-rpm single and therefore because of—rules—never were hits on the Hot 100 chart. To hear them, you had to buy the entire album—hence “album rock”.

WKRP in Cincinnati played a lot of Album Cuts as currents…

But what about these other genres, such as those obscure non-hits that weren’t well-known album rock hits? To understand WKRP in Cincinnati, you have to understand what was happening on FM radio ten years before the show debuted…

From Free Form Rock to Album-Oriented Rock

In the late 1960s, radio realized there was an audience segment that wanted to hear The Beatles and the Roling Stones, along with The Byrds and Bob Dylan, who didn’t want to hear Herb Alpert or Petula Clark. They also embraced the laid-back Hippie aesthetic that was in direct opposition to the hyper-kinetic Top 40 DJ style.

Tom Donehue, one of the earliest purveyors of the Free Form Progressive Rock format at KMPX and KSAN San Fancisco, envisioned the station being everything Top 40 AM radio wasn’t. As Johnny Fever himself Howard Hessman explained in The FM Radio Revolution in San Francisco,

[Tom] wanted a radio station that sounded like you were in the living room of a friend who had the most amazing stereo system imaginable and a tremendous collection of records and impeccable tastes.

The DJ might play the same song by Janis Joplin, Big Mama Thorton, and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Here’s an example of how Free Form Rock sounded on KMPX San Francisco in 1967:

A young radio programmer Lee Abrams realized that while Rock fans rejected the Pop titles that hit music stations played, they still wanted to hear the songs they knew and loved most.

Abrahms hypothesized that the “hits” were the artists themselves and their best-selling albums: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. The Rolling Stones, The Eagles. Kiss, The Who, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath and Lynard Skynyrd. The difference is that the Rock listener who loved “Black Dog” would also be down for hearing “Over The Hills and Far Away.”

He envisioned a Rock station that had the vibe of Free Form Rock, but with the researched programming and on-air discipline of Top 40 AM radio.

When he was only 19, Abrams put his ideas to the test in 1972 when 94.7 WQDR Raleigh, North Carolina became the first consulting client for his “Superstars of Rock.” They went from nowhere to #1 among 18- to 34-year-old men almost overnight.

The guy on the air still had that laid-back, stoner vibe, but he would no longer say or play what he wanted: He’d keep his banter short and relevant—artist, title, the station name, and promotional announcements. He’d also not pick the music. Abrams surveyed record store album sales and called listeners to ask which album cuts they were digging. That research determined every song that aired.

Compare how Raleigh’s WQDR sounded in 1978 (click here for recording) compared to KMPX a decade earlier…

Notice anything else missing?

Black artists.

With the exception of Jimi Hendrix, the new Album Oriented Rock (AOR) format was completely white. Artists including Sly and the Family Stone, Ritchie Havens, Steve Wonder, and numerous Blues artists, simply didn’t show enough promise in research for Superstars.

WKRP in Cincinnati was clearly not a client of Lee Abrams.

They had far more in common with those Free Form Rock stations of the late 1960s than with the research-driven focused Rock stations that were its contemporaries. Consider the relatively obscure 70s Album Rock tracks WKRP in Cincinnato played:

Then there was Johnny Fever’s true musical passion

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The Soul of Solid Gold

As Johnny Fever’s character developed, he became an ardent supporter of a specific breed of Rock’ ‘n’ Roll oldies that played an increasing role on his morning show: From the 60s, Johnny preferred R&B artists---but not the polished sound of Motown or Philly Soul. Instead, Johnny played soul artists such as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, artists from the rural south maintaining the raw rock energy that made Rock ‘n’ Roll popular in the 1950s. 60s Soul comprised 5% of WKRP in Cincinnati’s airplay:

That’s almost as much as the pure Rock titles from the 1960s:

Johnny Fever even went back to the 1950s, preferring the original Black artists such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard over the white grifters. 50s Rockin’ Soul comprised 5% of WKRP in Cincinnati’s overall airplay:

When the station did play white Rock ‘n’ Roll artists, Johnny stuck to the ones who understood the assignment: Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, not Bobby Darin or Fabian:

Finaly, Johnny even mixed in enough Blues to make it 2% of the station’s playlist:

Honoring these heritage artists was unheard of at Album Oriented Rock (AOR) radio in the late 1970s—but it was very common at Free Form Rock radio of the late 1960s

Rock’s cutting edge

Defining WKRP in Cincinnati as a throwback to Rock ‘n’ Roll’s roots has one major wrinkle; They played a lot of cutting-edge Rock. At the time, they called it New Wave. Now, we call it Classic Alternative. WKRP in Cincinnati played Missing Persons’ very first single. They played Talking Heads when they weren’t well known beyond CBGBs. Famously, they may have helped Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass” reach #1.

With respect for Rock ‘n’ Roll’s heritage, a willingness to play obscure album cuts, and its embrace pf the cutting-edge artists now considered alternative classics, WKRP in Cincinnati is a throwback to the Free Form Rock stations from the previous decade, right?

Before we label it a Rock station, we have to examine Venis Flytrap’s contributions:

Jazz on a Rock ‘n’ Roll station?

A big reason we can’t simply label WKRP in Cincinnati a Rock station is the significant share of music from Black artists in rotation. Largely thanks to Venus Flytrap’s show, 13% of the station’s playlist was contemporary R&B hits. Some, such as Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” were massive Pop hits. Others, such as Luither Vandross’ “Never Too Much,” were huge hits on Black radio but largely invisible to Top 40 listeners.

What truly defined Venus Flytrap’s evening show—beyond the gong—was his prominent exposure of contemporary Jazz.

In 1967, Down Beat Magazine quoted guitarist Gabor Szabo out of context saying, “Jazz as we’ve known it is dead.” It wasn’t, but its cultural relevance was. Rock had usurped Jazz as the music defining youth culture in 1955.

Soon thereafter, a new school of artists began fusing Rock elements into Jazz, including Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Pat Metheny. By the mid-1970s, Jazz Fusion had a huge following amongst sophisticated adults. If Steely Dan was a bit too pedestrian for your tastes, jazz fusion was for you.

By the late 1970s, another group of artists emerged who created a more melodic, less experimental version of jazz fusion accessible to Pop fans. George Benson and Chuck Mangione even had Top 40 hits. Venus played a lot of this music, which not only made his show uniquely sophisticated, it made it multicultural.

So what format is WKRP in Cincinnati?

Putting it all together, here are all the different genres of music WKRP In Cincinnati played during the show’s four years:

Clearly, it’s not a Top 40 hit music station, with only 5% of the music at the heart of Pop radio during the late 70s and early 80s:

Furthermore, the station played a lot more Oldies than Top 40 Pop.

The majority of the station’s music was from the styles of Rock music you’d hear on the era’s popular FM Album Oriented Rock stations

… but WKRP in Cincinnati played music from Black artists that—by the late 1970s—no AOR station would touch.

Real life radio consultants operate honestly and above board—and have long been too old for cocaine—but the “radio doctor” Norris Breeze accurately represents what any consultant would tell Andy Traivs about WKRP when he concluded, “You’ve got problems here. […] Your format is all over the road.”

For a show that radio veterans describe as a frighteningly accurate portrayal of the folks you’ll meet in radio, the most unrealistic aspect of WKRP in Cincinnati is the programming itself.

Competing against 700 WLW, Q102, or 102.7 WEBN in 1978, WKRP in Cincinnati would have been a woefully unsuccessful station

Which is exactly why its music is so damn interesting.

Experience WKRP in Cincinnati yourself

You can find just about every song WKRP in Cincinnati played on this Spotify playlist.

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More on this topic:

• Did WKRP In Cincinnati boost a song’s chart position just by being featured on the show? This slideshow tackles that question: WKRP In Cincinnati: Charting each song’s performance

• A Real life Rock station played New Age Jazz at night—-and got its highest ratings doing it! Here’s the story of how 94Q (WQXI-FM) Atlanta launched a new age jazz show at night that ultimately became the station’s most popular show. (94Q’s General Manager, Gerry Blum, was Hugh Wilson’s inspiration for Arthor Carlson.) From Friends of Georgia Radio: The Story of WQXI-FM/94Q’s “Jazz Flavours” With Don Benson, Fleetwood Gruver, and Russ Davis f

Data sources for this article:

• Mike Hernandez, “WKRP Song List”, Document shared on Google Drive, retrieved May 15, 2026: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/14x1AnN8KV1MH3RYlnKR6FgOFuZ_-Qm-OUvuZo8G38kE/htmlview?pli=1#gid=546540654

• Billboard Hot 100 charts: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

Read more

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

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Comparing a group with only two #1 hits to the greatest band of all time might cause some of you to get the vapors.

And yet, I’m here to argue that the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” launched for 80s kids what The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Wand” did for American teens in 1964.

During the July 4^th holiday of 1982, “Don’t You Want Me” was the #1 song in the U.S.A. It kicked off a run of 23 different Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from synthesizer-based acts—most from the United Kingdom—during the next 18 months.

Rolling Stone magazine called this chart phenomenon “The Second British Invasion,” a term referencing the first British invasion when The Beatles legendarily opened the American charts to fellow British acts from The Rolling Stones and The Kinks to the Dave Clark Five and Herman’s Hermits.

At the time, it was even bigger than the first, with Rolling Stone noting:

[O]n July 16th, 1983, upon which date no fewer than 18 singles of British origin charted in the American Top Forty, topping the previous high of fourteen, set on June 18th, 1965. There are now more British records on the U.S. charts than at any other time in pop history.

They added…

Leading the charge has been that strange animal variously called “New Wave.”

Today, Graphs About Songs explores the explosion and disappearance of the genre that defines Eighties music, gave Generation X its own genre, and ultimately helped launch Alternative the following decade. While the press coining it “The Second British Invasion” stems superficially from the genre’s biggest acts’ U.K. citizenship, the comparison with the original British invasion runs deeper than you’d expect.

“Don’t Call It Punk”

No generation has been more flagrantly and unrestrictedly the target of marketing than Generation X. That’s true for the first music genre we alone embraced.

Sire Records’ Seymour Stein had brought punk to America with The Ramones. However, he was increasing frustrated with every act he repped that played CBGBs being called “punk.” He found the term personally derogatory, poor for marketing, and not a far description for innovative acts such as The Talking Heads, Blonde, and The Pretenders. These bands weren’t The Sex Pistols and there was no reason they shouldn’t be on the radio.

So in 1977, Stein launched the “Don’t Call It Punk” campaign to encourage use of the term “New Wave” for several of his artists. He copped the term from the French Nouvelle Vague (“New Wave”) film genre, which broke conventions of storytelling and cinematic editing. Stein felt his acts were similarly groundbreaking for music.

While Talking Heads were Stain’s idea of New Wave, the term Stein coined ultimately defined a subgenre of songs that was more Pop than Rock, more mainstream than experimental, and way more British than American.

The First New Wave Hits

Two titles became Top 10 hits before The Human League officially launched the New Wave Revolution.

1. In 1979, Robin Scott created a pseudonym for his synthesizer-based project. As “M”, he became a true U.S. one-hit wonder with the song “Pop Music.” It reached #1 on the Hot 100 in November 1979, foreshadowing the next decade’s Pop music

2. Gary Numan already had hits in the U.K. His group Tubeway Army reached #1 with “Are Friends Electric?” They weren’t acoustic. As a solo artist, he intentionally sought to make his former band’s sound more poppy and accessible, which he did with his first release “Cars,” which reached #1 in the homeland and #9 in the States in 1980.

(And for everyone astutely shouting, “where’s Devo’s 1980 inspirational manifesto ‘Whip It,’” that one peaked at #14.)

You’ll notice these songs peaked before August 1^st, 1981.

MTV fills the AM/FM radio void

The Buggles “Video Killed The Radio Star” famously launched the new cable channel playing music videos around the clock, although MTV wasn’t nearly as focused on new wave acts as we remember it. At first, they’d play anything with a video.

And there were a lot of British new have acts already making music videos.

Among younger viewers, MTV replaced radio as the place to discover new music. At that time, the glory days of the AM Top 40 stations that dominated the 60s and 70s were over, while many of the legendary FM hit music stations of the 80s hadn’t established themselves.

A prime example is New York: Muiscradio 77 WABC segued from Top 40 to an adult-oriented approach in 1980 before switching to Talk in May 1982—which radio fanatics call “The Day The Music Died.” Z100 wouldn’t launch as the new FM hit music station until August of 1983—famously taking the station “from worst to first” in 74 days.

During that gap, 14 new wave hits were Top 10 during that time—and the #1 place to discover them was MTV.

If you had a hit music station in the early 80s, they were catering to adults, not you and your fellow teens. A post-disco hangover left “hit” music stations playing Air Supply, Chriostopher Cross, and lots of Country crossover. Along with arena rock acts including REO Speedwagon and Journey.

By the time Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) resurged on FM, it was thanks to the music MTV made popular. MTV was now calling the shots on new music. Radio was a follower.

The New Wave Explosion

On March 1, 1982, MTV launched its “I Want My MTV!” campaign. The phrase became so burned into the cultural zeitgeist I fully expect Xers at memory care facilities in the 2040s to randomly demand their MTV.

It wasn’t merely a clever slogan. It was a call to action for cable subscribers to contact their local cable TV provider and demand it add MTV to the lineup.

By that metric, it worked: MTV’s subscriber base grew from 3 million to 9 million Americans during 1982. That viewership growth caused another important change: In mid-1982, Record labels, seeing that MTV exposure boosted record sales, began producing music videos specifically to promote actively to MTV.

In the middle of “I Want My MTV” came a song with a video produced by Steve Barron, the producer Quincy Jones would soon recruit to create Michael Jackson’s video for “Beat It.” Barron would later create other genre-defining videos, including for A-Ha’s “Take On Me” and Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing.”

As Stereogum senior editor Tom Breihan writes in his book The Number Ones:

The “Don’t You Want Me” Video had a sense of mystery, and that helped it stand out. MTV started playing the video before The Human League even had an American record deal. […] Other songs had capitalized on MTV success, [such as] Olivia Newton John’s frisky Dance Pop single “Physical.” […] But Newton-John was an established star. […] “Don’t You Want Me,” on the other hand, was pure MTV.”

After “Don’t You Want Me,” four New Wave songs topped the U.S. Hot 100 chart through 1983.

• Australia’s Men at Work scored two #1 hits with “Who Can It Be Now” and “Down Under,”

• Eurythmics had “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This),

• The Irish band Dexys Midnight Runners topped the Hot 100 with “Come On Eileen.

Another 10 New wave hits reached the Top 5 from July 1982 through 1983, including three from Duran Duran. Some remain radio staples today, such as Spandau Ballet’s “True.” Others such as Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy?” You just had to be there.

Even the Americans were getting in on the second British invasion: Talking Heads, the CBGBs band Seymour Stein invented “New Wave” to describe, had their first Pop hit with a song true to what the genre became with “Burning Down The House.”

The German Invasion

While the U.S. was newly obsessed with New Wave, Germans were embracing a new wave of their own: Neue Deutsche Welle (“New German Wave”) was a highly popular subgenre of songs that were often quirky, sometimes dark, and always auf Deutsch. Young Germans had predominantly embraced English-language Rock and Pop music since The Beatles. Neue Deutsche Welle was arguably the first mass-appeal youth genre of the Rock era that was both uniquely German and actually in German.

The Spider Murphy Gang’s “Skandal Im Sperrbezirk” sounds like catchy synth-Pop song, but the lyrics of “Scandal In The Red Light District” explore a Munich prostitute.

So strong was America’s New Wave obsession at its peak that we even imported German New Wave. Some of them even in German: Nena’s 1984 cold war classic “99 Luftballons” was a bigger hit than the English version. Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” first became a hit in German before a bastardized spoken word English version emerged.

Falco’s “Der Kommissar” became an English language hit thanks to a faithful reproduction by the U.K.’s After The Fire. Germany’s Taco made the 1920s Erving Berlin standard “Puttin’ On The Ritz” a New Wave hit.

(And for the astute asking about Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom (Coming Home),” that he recorded in both German and English… That one—like Whip It—peaked at #14).

New Wave declines—along with “Music” Television

After the 1985 New Wave crest, the wave quickly broke. The Pet Shop Boys had most of the last New Wave hits, with 1988’s remake of Willie Nelson’s “Always On My Mind” appropriately being the last.

The American Rock revenge—think Bon Jovi, Guns and Rosaes, and late 80s hair metal—quickly took over both MTV and hit music radio. (More on that below). Beyond the charts’ tops, however, The Smiths, The Cure, and New Order, helped create a growing youth subculture that ultimately made Alternative mainstream in the early 1990s.

In 1987, MTV launched the game show “Remote Control,” the first long form show on the network. Club MTV soon followed, which ditched the VJs for a more traditional approach to presenting music on TV akin to American Bandstand.

In 1992—the same year Alternative went mainstream—MTV launched The Real World. While it was revolutionary in creating the modern reality TV genre, it marked the end of MTV’s mission to be a Rock radio station on TV and instead be an adolescent entertainment network.

Five ways the British Invasion and the Second British Invasion are similar.

On February 9, 2027, you’ll likely see a blurb on socials from the news media commemorating the 63^rd anniversary of The Beatles’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan show—an event 40% of America watched live. There will be no celebrations of the first MTV airing of “Don’t You Want me.” And yet, both British Invasions are comparable in five key ways:

1) Both seemingly happened suddenly:

When the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” became a hit, the impact was so sudden Capitol Records wasn’t even ready to promote it. Before the Beatles, only two British artists had #1 hits in the U.S. during the Rock era.

Ultimately The Beatles unprecedentedly owned the entire Top 5 of the Hot 100 by April 1964. In their wake, the labels sent America every British band they had. The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Zombies, The Dave Clark Five, Peter and Gordon, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Manfred Mann, Chad & Jeremy, and The Searchers had major hits in 1964 alone.

This pattern eerily matches the New Wave genre. Only two New Wave songs had been Top 10 hits before 1982. Then—suddenly—New Wave dominated hit music.

2) Both burned bright and ended rapidly:

On April 23, 1966, for the first time since 1964, no British act appeared in the Hot 100’s Top 10. It was the beginning of the end for the British, invasion, largely considered dead by 1967. Likewise, The New Wave explosion waned dramatically in 1986 as music tastes changed. At its height, however, there were more British acts on the U.S. charts during the Second British Invasion than there were during the first.

3) Both were replaced by harder rocking American sounds:

Starting in 1967, American hit music tastes shifted back towards the homeland, with The Monkees, The Association, Tommy James and the Shondells and Aretha Franklin dominating the year’s biggest Pop hits. Meanwhile, Rock was becoming harder, with The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience becoming popular during the Summer of Love.

Likewise, the quirky mass appeal Pop sounds of New Wave gave way to American artists with harder edges, such as Bon Jovi and Guns ‘n’ Roses, British bands Def Leppard and Whitesnake copied the American style that defined the second half of the 1980s.

4) Both fundamentally changed the course of Pop music long after fading:

The Beatles ultimately spawned those 1970s Rock legends we now collectively call Classic Rock. Likewise, New Wave’s synthesizer-based experimentation and lyrical quirkiness opened a lane for artists such as The Smiths, The Cure, and The B-52s, as well as more underground artists such as The Sundays, Camper Van Beethoven, The Replacements, and They Might Be Giants. These artists helped create a growing youth subculture that ultimately made Alternative mainstream by the early 1990s.

5) Both marked when a new generation took control of picking the hits:

When The Beatles landed at JFK, the Boomers officially seized control of picking the hits from their older siblings the Silent Generation. That’s the generation too young to be World War II heroes and too old to be hippies. First, the Silents replaced Big Bands with intimate jazz combos and romantic crooners in the late 1940s, much like Gen Z has replaced EDM with Bedroom Pop in the 2020s. Next, they made Rock ‘n’ Roll America’s dominant youth music seemingly overnight when “Rock Around The Clock” hit #1 in 1955. In 1964, however, it was the Boomers’ turn to pick the hits—and they gave Elvis’ crown to the British.

For New Wave, it was Generation X taking over from the Boomers. Tired of The Eagles and the Arena Rock that dominated Album Rock radio, their new cable music video channel gave young Xers a new genre they embraced as their own.

At the peak of the New Wave evolution in 1983, a third of he Top 10 hits in a typical week were either New Wave, from Michael Jackson’s Thriller, or from Prince.

When will the next “New Wave” arrive?

Radio programming legend Guy Zapoleon has long observed a repeated pattern in Pop music: His famous music cycle theorem notes that after a “rebirth”, where Pop music is fun and broadly, music enters an “extreme” phase, in which Rock and R&B diverge into harder and less mass-appeal styles. Pop music then enters “the doldrums,” where boring, adult-oriented Pop and Country dominate until another rebirth.

(That’s happening right now, as I noted in When the Adults Pick the Hits.)

Both the 60s British Invasion and the 80s New Wave were “rebirth” periods. The emergence of Acid Rock in the late 1960s and Hair Metal in the late 1980s were “extreme” periods.

Zapoleon notes that we’re currently in the longest “doldrums” period since Top 40 radio emerged in the 1950s.

My own Generational Music Theorem observes that Pop music experiences a mass appeal renaissance around the time the oldest members of a new generation turn 21, becoming the majority of new music consumers and, thereby, picking a new style of hits that suit their generation’s tastes. Boomers did it with the Beatles. Xers did it with New Wave. We are overdue. for Generation Z to launch their own New Wave.

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Further Reading:

• The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music by Tom Breihan, 2022: (Amazon link)

• Stereogum: “The Number Ones: The Human League's ‘Don't You Want Me’” by Tom Breihan: https://stereogum.com/2086575/the-number-ones-the-human-leagues-dont-you-want-me/columns/the-number-ones

• Stereogum: “The Number Ones: The Beatles' ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’” by Tom Breihan: https://stereogum.com/2000395/the-number-ones-the-beatles-i-want-to-hold-your-hand/columns/the-number-ones

Data sources for this article:

• The Billboard Hot 100: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

• Wikipedia’s Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_top-ten_singles

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

Before diving in to today’s hits, the debut of Michael, the biopic about Michael Jackson, has brought several Jackson classics to the Spotify 200 for the first time:

Read more

Here are resources to get you ready to use The Hit Momentum Newsletter:

• Quick Use Guide: You just want to know how to read and implement the report ASAP

• Complete Guide: Here, you’ll learn in detail what the report shows you and why behind our recommendations on how to use it.

Justin Bieber Lovefest continues

Before diving into Today’s Hit Music, the Bieber lovefest launched by his Coachella performance continues for a second week. These Biebs Bring Backs are on the Spotify 200 this week:

With over 10 million plays this week, “Beauty And A Beat” is #3 most played song on Spotify in the U.S. this week.

Read more

Sam Hunt’s “Body Like A Back Road” set many records on the Billboard Country charts, but its most significant milestone is entirely ignored: Hunt’s megahit was the first Country song to be huge on streaming. In 2017, music fans in general stopped buying their favorite songs on iTunes and began streaming them on Spotify and similar services instead, as I detailed in this article

However, most Country fans weren’t quite ready to ditch downloads, country radio, or even the CD aisle at Walmart.

“Body Like a Back Road” was the only Country song among Billboard’s chart of the most-streamed songs of 2017. Back then, Hip Hop—fueled by younger music fans early to adopt streaming—dominated streaming. Only one other Country song would be among the year’s most streamed songs for the rest of the decade.

It wasn’t until 2023 that Country titles lagged on streaming compared to the overall biggest songs of the year by less than 10 percentage points.

The following year (2024). Country fans were finally fully on board with streaming.

Unlike other contemporary genres such as Hip Hop or Pop, however, the artists Country fans stream is quite different than the artists Country fans hear on their local Country station.

Country Radio vs. Country Streaming:

This chart shows the County artists who landed on the Billboard year-end radio airplay chart during 2023-2025, showing the percentage of songs each artist had:

Forty-nine (49) different artists had at least one song among the 75 most-played songs on the radio during this three-year period, ranging from newcomers Jelly Roll and Bailey Zimmerman to longtime Country stalwarts such as Cole Swindell, Jason Aldean, and Thomas Rhett. Naturally, Morgan Wallen leads with 11% of all year-end hits from 2023 to 2025.

Things look very different when examining the Country songs fans stream most.

Just like on the radio, Morgan Wallen is the artist with the most titles among the 75 most-streamed songs of the year for the past three years. Unlike radio, where Wallen merely leads, on streaming, Wallen dominates: Almost four out of ten of the most-streamed Country songs are by Morgan Wallen.

In second place with 15% of all Country songs reaching the Billboard year-end streaming songs chart in 2023-2025 is an artist with no songs at all on the year-end radio airplay chart—Zach Bryan.

Combined, Morgan Wallen and Zach Byran account for the majority of the most-streamed Country songs each year.

Add in Luke Combs (11%) and Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” (among the most-streamed Country titles multiple years) and Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, and Luke Combs account for two-thirds of the Country songs that were among the 75 most-streamed songs of the year.

Given that Country is now on par with other genres on streaming, why have only 17 artists made Billboard’s top streaming songs of the year chart during the last three years, while 49 artists made the year-end radio airplay chart? Why are some artists big on streaming, but not on the radio, and vice versa?

There are three primary reasons.

1) Younger Country listeners are more likely to use streaming

Unlike Hip Hop and even mainstream Pop, Country appeals to the widest age range of any contemporary music genre: Your local Country station’s loyal listeners are just as likely to be 71 years old as 21 years old. Few septuagenarians are listening to today’s Hip Hop unless their grandchildren are picking the tunes.

Since the age of the genre’s fans aligns well with the age of the heaviest streaming users, Hip Hop and Pop songs that are massive on streaming accurately represent the biggest songs among Hip Hop and Pop fans. When a Pop song is huge on streaming, but MIA on your local Top 40 station, it’s because your town’s Kiss-FM is ignoring a hit. (I outlined this issue in The Hits Radio Ignored in 2025 and the Stiffs they Played Instead)

Country works differently.

The artists and songs younger listeners (18- to 34-year-olds) prefer dominate what’s most played on streaming platforms. That’s why Sam Hunt was the first artist with a major Country hit on streaming back in 2017.

Today, this phenomenon hugely benefits Morgan Wlallen.

Meanwhile, established artists such as Cole Swindell, Jason Aldean, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton, and Dierks Bentley still have plenty of fans who want to hear their songs on the radio but aren’t setting records on streaming. With their fans now largely adults 35 and older, there’s still plenty of appetite to hear them on the radio, but not as much demand to hear them among heavy streaming users.

2) Streaming provides a place for the misfits

Radio wasn’t sure what to do with Zach Bryan. His breakthrough hit “Something In The Orange” didn’t sound like a typical Country hit. Furthermore, Byran became a star outside of the traditional Nashville Industrial Complex, where Music Row executives work closely with America’s Country radio stations to determine which songs will become hits and which artists will become stars. (In exchange for radio’s cooperation, Country artists go out of their way to be accessible to Country radio listeners.)

Instead, Bryan signed with a non-Nashville label imprint, communicates directly with fans, eschews awards shows, and—most importantly—relies on high volume streaming instead of exposure on Country radio.

Will streaming’s direct to consumer model finally bring down the infamously closed Nashville system? Time will tell. At the very least, streaming provides a platform for Country partisans seeking alternatives to Music Row’s chosen.

3) The biggest fans use streaming like a record player

An artist’s biggest fans don’t simply listen to the one song radio is playing right now. They listen to all the songs on the latest release from their favorite artists when that new album drops. Morgan Wallen was the first major Country artist to use this fact to his advantage when releasing his 2021 album Dangerous: The Double Album with an unprecedented 30 tracks. His fans binged all of them.

Other songs benefit from long lifespans. Zach Bryan Featuring Kacey Musgraves

“I Remember Everything” from Zach Bryan Featuring Kacey Musgraves has been among the most-streamed songs of the year for the past three years. (It was the most-streamed song in the U.S. of any genre in 2024). When you love a song, you’ll play it for years.

That’s especially true for Country.

Unlike Pop or Hip Hop, where fans care about what’s “in” at the moment, Country fans connect with the song’s storyline and how it makes them feel. Country songs can stay relevant for years, not months. Nevertheless, radio is rightly concerned with playing a song too often once it’s old enough that at least some of their listeners are tired of hearing it.

Country is biggest on Amazon Music

I usually cite the Spotify 200 chart for streaming consumption here on Graphs About Songs. It’s the leading music streaming service in the U.S. and its user base is most representative of contemporary music fans across the nation.

If your day job involves picking Country hits, however, Amazon Music should be your reference of choice:

Just like Spotify, you’ll find plenty of Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Zach Bryan, and Ella Langley material among the most streamed songs on Amazon. However, you’ll also find Riley Green, Russell Dickerson, Cody Johnson, Eric Church, and Jelly Roll.

Why are a wider roster of Country stars popular on Amazon Music?

First, Amazon Music attracts an older user base, primarily because it’s the default music service on Alexa and is the path of least resistance for Prime members. Amazon Music has the highest percentage of subscribers aged 55 and older than any major streaming provider.

Secondly, Amazon Music has more aggressively pursued Country fans than other streaming services, including promotional partnerships with core artists. Most notably, Amazon is the only service where you can stream Garth Brooks.

(For the most complete information about any genre, it’s best to analyze aggregated data for all streaming music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube music, and Amazon Music, as I do at my day job…)

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Data sources for this article:

• Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts: Hot 100 Songs: https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2025/hot-100-songs/

• Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts: Streaming Songs (Top 75): https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2025/streaming-songs/

• Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts: Radio Songs (Top 75): https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2025/radio-songs/

• (Data from previous years’ Billboard Year End charts archived)

• Amazon Music Top Songs (Retrieved 4-21-2026): https://music.amazon.com/popular/songs