00:00 2023 is coming to a close and what better way to celebrate the year than with Billboard's
00:05 year-end charts.
00:06 But what are the year-end charts?
00:08 When did they start?
00:09 And how are they created?
00:11 This is Billboard Explains the Year-End Charts.
00:14 Billboard first launched the annual year-end charts back in the 1940s and they have been
00:18 published every year since.
00:20 What exactly are these charts?
00:22 They represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label, and music contributor
00:27 on the weekly charts dated November 19, 2022 through October 21, 2023.
00:33 That's a complicated way of saying if you look at our charts and add them all together,
00:37 at the end of the year we spit out who the top artists, songs, and albums are.
00:40 The charts have evolved in different ways throughout the decades thanks to technological
00:44 advancements including how the year-end charts are determined.
00:48 Billboard's managing director of charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield, explains.
00:52 The simple answer as best as I can tell you is you take all of the combined performance
00:59 for all of the songs, artists, albums on a particular chart throughout that chart year,
01:05 add them all together, and then you get a bunch of numbers.
01:08 And that, generally speaking, is what the year-end version of that chart would look
01:13 like.
01:14 It can take months for the Billboard team to determine the nearly 500 year-end charts
01:19 including top 100 songs, Billboard 200 albums, and top artists, just to name a few.
01:24 We actually start running preliminary charts many, many weeks in advance before the public
01:30 actually sees our final year-end charts because we have so many checks and balances to run.
01:34 You may have a good idea of who will top the charts if you keep an eye on the Billboard
01:38 charts on a weekly basis, but surprises do happen.
01:45 One example is Dua Lipa's 2021 hit "Levitating," which became the year-end number one on the
01:50 Hot 100 chart.
01:51 But why was that surprising?
01:53 Because it never actually hit number one on the weekly Hot 100 chart.
01:56 So how does a song like that that never hit number one on the Hot 100 become the top song
02:01 of the year?
02:02 If you were on the chart every single week of the chart year and maybe never went to
02:05 number one, you'll have more, you know, let's call them points than another song or album
02:11 or artist would have had if they were only on the chart for one week.
02:14 Even if they were at reached a higher position.
02:17 So it's not always about where you peaked at on the chart during the chart year.
02:21 It's your continued performance throughout the entire year that ultimately tells the
02:25 story of where you end up on the year-end chart.
02:28 Did you know that a song or album could land on different chart years?
02:32 It's true.
02:33 It all depends on its release date or its success.
02:36 Take Morgan Wallen, for example, whose album "Dangerous," the double album, was in the
02:40 year-end top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart for three years in a row.
02:48 That hasn't happened where an album has been in the year-end top 10 in three years, consecutive
02:53 or not, since the 1960s when the "Sound of Music" soundtrack did the same thing.
02:58 That shows you just how popular Morgan Wallen is.
03:01 And it's no surprise that Taylor Swift topped this year's top artist chart.
03:05 But did you know she's claimed that crown in each of the last three decades?
03:12 Only one other artist has ever been our top artist of the year three times, and that is
03:16 Adele.
03:17 The year-end charts are a time capsule of the year in music, and we can't wait to see
03:21 who tops them next year.
03:22 (upbeat music)
03:25 (upbeat music)
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