Roddy Ricch reigned over the Apple Music charts in 2020, as revealed in the streaming service’s latest year-end roundup.
Ricch’s breakout single “The Box,” which spent eleven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this year, has been named Apple Music’s most-streamed song of 2020 around the world, while the rapper’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial was the most-streamed album.
“The Box” was truly a global phenomenon. According to Apple Music’s internal metrics, the track (released Jan. 10) garnered 13.7 million plays on the platform in its debut week, thanks in part to placement on the service’s influential Rap Life playlist. By the second week of January, it was topping 30 million weekly plays across the globe. By the end of that month, the song had hit No. 1 on the Apple Music Top 100 charts in 34 countries; by mid-February, it had topped the charts in 37 territories as well as the Top 100 Global chart.
As the year’s top album on Apple Music, Ricch’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial additionally spawned three more tracks that earned placement on the service’s top songs of 2020 chart: “High Fashion”, “Start Wit Me” and “Bacc Seat.” Ricch was additionally featured on the fourth most-streamed song of 2020, DaBaby’s “ROCKSTAR.”
The year’s second most-streamed song on Apple Music, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd, had an even broader reach than “The Box” worldwide, charting in the top 5 on Apple Music’s Top 100 songs charts in 92 countries and reaching No. 1 in 62 of them. While “Blinding Lights” had fewer streams than “The Box,” it racked up the most listeners overall.
One notable facet of Apple Music’s end-of-year charts this year is the inclusion of two new tallies: the most Shazamed songs of the year as well as most-read song lyrics on the platform. To provide the genesis point of a song’s virality, Apple Music is additionally sharing the first Shazamed locations of the year’s top 25 songs.
On both the Shazam and lyrics metrics, “The Box” (first Shazamed in Minnesota and having racked up over 6.7 million Shazams worldwide to date) also did well, finishing in the top 100 most-Shazamed tracks of the year and at No. 4 on the most-read lyrics chart. “Blinding Lights,” meanwhile, was the third most-Shazamed track of the year (it was first Shazamed in Paris and has since garnered 17.5 million Shazams globally) and finished at No. 6 on the lyrics tally.
The year’s most-Shazamed song, Tones And I’s viral hit “Dance Monkey,” is also an all-time record-breaker on the app, having become the most Shazamed song ever with 24.6 million Shazams to date (the first being in Dusseldorf, Germany). First released way back in May 2019, “Dance Monkey” is also the third most-streamed song of the year on Apple Music, having first taken hold on the service in Sept. 2019. A year later, it remained in the top 40 on the Global Daily Top 100 chart.
Rounding out the top 5 on the songs chart is Future’s “Life is Good” feat. Drake, which additionally made a top 20 finish on the lyrics chart. Speaking of lyrics, the prize for most-read lyrics of the year went (perhaps unsurprisingly) to Cardi B’s Ben Shapiro-dissected “WAP” feat. Megan Thee Stallion.
On top albums, Lil Baby’s My Turn was the second most-streamed of the year, with six of its tracks – “Whoa” (No. 9), “Sum 2 Prove,” “We Paid,” “Emotionally Scarred,” “Grace” and “Commercial” – finishing in the top 100 songs. Lil Baby also scored five tracks on the most-read lyrics chart, including the non-My Turn cut “The Bigger Picture.”
The third most-streamed album of the year, Pop Smoke’s Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon, also had three tracks place in the Top 100 songs: “For the Night,” “Mood Swings” and “Dior,” with the former two also reaching the top 100 on the lyrics chart.
The albums chart top 5 is rounded out by Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake – LUV vs. the World 2 (No. 4) and Summer Walker’s Over It (No. 5). The latter album also charted two tracks in the top 100 songs: “Playing Games” and “I’ll Kill You.”
Apple Music’s year-end insights also include some interesting tidbits pointing to the global nature of the music industry in 2020. For example, the first Shazams for U.S. pop idol Billie Eilish’s tracks “everything I wanted,” “bad guy” and “when the party’s over” were in Moscow, Shenzen (China) and Guanajuato (Mexico), respectively. Likewise, the four Drake songs that landed in the top 100 were first Shazamed in the Dominican Republic, Israel, France and the U.S., while Post Malone’s four top 100 entries were first Shazamed in Croatia, Italy, the U.S. and Mexico.
Japan – the world’s second-biggest music market and fastest-growing top market for Apple Music – also made an impact on the service’s year-end charts. “Yoru Ni Kakeru” by YOASOBI was the biggest hit to come out of the country this year, finishing at No. 69 on the top songs global chart and at No. 3 on the most-read lyrics chart. In its home country, the track was also the second most-Shazamed of the year after “Dance Monkey.”
You can check out the entirety of Apple Music’s end-of-year song, Shazam and lyrics lists (in playlist form) at the links below.
