Billboard Top Singles of 2012 (Year-End Chart) (Read 535 times)

[Zazie]

I'm going to post not only the list of top singles according to Billboard, but also the Mediabase top singles and my own list.

Billboard's top singles list is based on airplay, and it includes audience totals for all charts from the first December chart of 2011 through the last November chart of 2012 (the Billboard chart year).

I will post the songs ranked in order, but there are two possible causes of discrepancies between Billboard's actual list and what I am posting: first, I did round off each week's total to 2 decimal places, and Billboard's list won't be rounded that way. And also I made no adjustments for changes in the Billboard country radio station panel, which certainly could affect very close races.

I'll list the top 50 songs, which just happens to mean all the songs with mrre than 300 million impressions. I'll post songs 50 through 26 and then later songs 25 through 1.

[Zazie]

Here's the bottom half of the Billboard top 50, with artist, song title, and number of impressions (in millions):

50. David Nail, Let It Rain 505.55
49. Jason Aldean, Tattoos On This Town 308.07
48. Luke Bryan, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye 321.52
47. Toby Keith, Beers Ago 332.72
46. Montgomery Gentry, Where I Come From 339.84
45. Martina McBride, I’m Gonna Love You Through It 361.65
44. Eric Church, Drink In My Hand 364.75
43. Rascal Flatts, Come Wake Me Up 368.97
42. George Strait, Love’s Gonna Make It Alright 371.22
41. Little Big Town, Pontoon 371.32

40. Dierks Bentley, 5-1-5-0 372.2
39. Jake Owen, The One That Got Away 376.53
38. Zac Brown Band, Keep Me In Mind 380.86
37. Taylor Swift, Ours 392.47
36. Blake Shelton, Over 392.6
35. Kenny Chesney, Come Over 393.42
34. Keith Urban, For You 397.72
33. Rascal Flatts, Banjo 398.68
32. Jason Aldean, Take A Little Ride 410.71
31.Carrie Underwood, Blown Away 411.25

30. Band Perry, Postcard From Paris 416.17
29. Blake Shelton, Drink On It 422.11
28. Miranda Lambert, Fastest Girl In Town 422.37
27. Carrie Underwood, Good Girl 428.35
26. Jason Aldean, Fly Over States 431.8

Notice that Keep Me In Mind didn't do too well, because its chart weeks in the 2012 chart year were counted, but its chart weeks in the 2011 chart year were not. That's the way Billboard (and Mediabase) does it. But when you see my list, you'll see that song ranked much much higher because it was a very big hit, and I assign all of a song's value to one year; I don't split songs up.

Other songs that were big at the end of the year likewise were downgraded because some of their chart success will happen in the 2013 chart year (starting in Dec 2012). See #48, 39, 32.

Top 25 follows.

[Zazie]

25. Band Perry, All Your Life, 431.88
24. Zac Brown Band, No Hurry 434
23. Keith Urban, You Gonna Fly 434.5
22. Lee Brice, A Woman Like You 441.67
21. Love&Theft, Angel Eyes 443.74

20. Lady Antebellum, Dancin’ Away With My Heart 444.59
19. Hunter Hayes, Wanted 444.74
18. Lee Brice, Hard To Love 453.37
17. Luke Bryan, I Don’t Want This Night To End 453.65
16. Dierks Bentley, Home 454.65
15. Miranda Lambert, Over You 457.93
14. Jake Owen, Alone With You 461.39
13. Kenny Chesney, Reality 464.54
12. Kip Moore, Somethin’ ‘Bout A Truck 471.69
11. Chris Young, You 471.74

We tend to group songs by 10's, but you can see that this year there were 9 songs that really stood out, the only 9 songs to reach 500 million impressions (that's half a billion). And of those, newcomers and recent arrivals dominate. In fact, the top 9 contains no artists who've had more than 2 #1 songs except Tim McGraw. And 6 of the top 10, including the surprise #1 by Josh Turner, never hit #1 in any individual chart week. But they sure lasted a long time, and that's why they rank so high on the list.

10. Luke Bryan, Drunk On You 476.85
9. Eric Church, Springsteen 512.48
8 . Easton Corbin, Lovin’ You Is Fun 515.1
7 . Eli Young Band, Even If It Breaks Your Heart 526.77
6 . Tim McGraw, Better Than I Used To Be 534.57
5 . Gloriana, (Kissed You) Good Night 540.83
4 . Dustin Lynch, Cowboys And Angels 567.55
3 . Jana Kramer, Why Ya Wanna 578.27
2 . Brantley Gilbert, You Don’t Know Her Like I Do 585.93
1 . Josh Turner, Time Is Love 620.79

We'll see what the Mediabase list looks like. Its rules are a bit different.