Top 10 Songs by Year: Your Guide to Chart-Topping Tunes
Hey music lovers! Ever wondered what ruled the airwaves in a specific year? Figuring out the top 10 songs by year can be a rabbit hole of conflicting charts and outdated information. So let's make it easy! Think of this as your go-to guide for discovering those top hits by year, those popular songs by year that defined each era. This is for you!
Most articles just link to Billboard, which, yes, is a great source, but can be overwhelming. It also makes use of information from one particular channel. And sometimes Billboard also lists Billboard itself! We will get to that.
Let's chat about those year end charts and uncover how things were before the age of streaming. That's what I am going to help you achieve, to discover exactly what was trending at a given point in time, those truly top ten songs of every year, and discover some fascinating differences!
Finding the Top Songs by Year: The Ultimate Guide
First things first: Where do we start? There’s actually a plethora of choices when researching about musical trends throughout the years! This includes checking information from Billboard, different music magazines across the different eras – but honestly those are rarely helpful, sometimes even completely unusable for obvious reasons!
You can’t expect these sources to actually match between each other perfectly, even if all reference that same channel, which makes it almost comical, especially because there’s several reasons! From changes made after reprints of those yearly lists (this happened more often in physical media like magazines, therefore makes many comparisons between such media far less valuable, but certainly enjoyable!), to simply the absence of completely objective or well detailed information due to how music publishing existed in those older periods!
So my biggest tip when looking at information related to "charts by year" and especially for obtaining "top 100 songs by year" results or data is to really focus your attention and analysis around certain key facts; for example: Do these lists mention only top sales and physical recordings? Did it factor out the frequency played in broadcasts or other information such as overall recognition – if that had a role on the way it lists these results it is important! Sometimes certain details or elements were simply absent, therefore finding that single piece that actually might inform others requires much effort! I recommend keeping a detailed document of references for each period
Beyond Billboard: Alternative Sources for Top Hits by Year
Here's where we get to dig a little deeper: Beyond official publishing and large companies like Billboard (who still might end up reporting Billboard!), several other additional and external resources should help generate an effective approach and those also should provide plenty of information – however it often implies extra time searching around various platforms!
- Music Magazines and Publications: Rolling Stone, Billboard, Melody Maker. Older ones are especially invaluable. Keep in mind: some lists and publications actually used different ranking methodology, so don't necessarily assume those always match. Moreover their lists might only involve specific countries or continents, and you would have to search across those individual sources separately to account for the country and era, before getting any useful info!
- Radio Archives and Playlists: That one I find really remarkable – various archives online and radio channels did archive music broadcasting in a fairly remarkable way. Those remain immensely important even though this method can become challenging if your search does not specify criteria; if you focus on your searching method too broadly this might require days and weeks checking multiple channels and using several different combinations in order to narrow and specify the criteria! You need the details!
- Fan-Made Compilations and Charts: The Internet has truly amazing communities, some dedicated precisely on gathering, classifying and presenting data related to music publishing – often involving ranking of those music hits and songs throughout history and across various criteria.
Putting It All Together: Creating Your Own Top Songs by Year Playlist
Now, with multiple options for obtaining those top songs by year results, I can offer you an additional insight. Having checked multiple listings in a wide array of lists, my own conclusion was: expect conflicting information. Those sources never match perfectly. Therefore obtaining this implies significant efforts! If not, consider creating a mix rather than relying solely on a singular list of that particular time – The diversity alone can provide better variety in your results!
I suggest comparing various results based on those criteria involved across several media (that was a massive work!), but after reviewing various media listings the best thing you could achieve – instead of sticking purely on single titles was to combine several choices and sources, and using these as an overall approach. Creating a detailed spreadsheet worked remarkably well, keeping all those sources organised!
Enjoy putting together your own chart of top ten songs of every year, exploring these different genres and trends and remember that the year end charts were far more diversified then we are often lead to believe, particularly nowadays, when only major titles become incredibly successful in achieving massive popularity – the whole process itself involves comparing these and selecting titles across all those.
So have fun building your top songs by year lists – and remember, the journey is as important as the destination!
