What were some of the most notable trends on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs chart in 2023?
Hit Songs Deconstructed, which provides compositional breakdowns of the top 10 hits, has released its year-end 2023 State of the Hot 10 Top 10 report.
Here are three takeaways from Hit Songs Deconstructed's latest in-depth investigation.
Pop on Top, Country Climbs
Pop dominates as the most common underlying genre in the Hot 100's top 10 throughout 2023, contributing 29% of all top 10 hits. Taylor Swift has the most top 10s (11) among all acts between January and December, as well as the most No. 1 (three).
In the past five years, pop has previously led in 2021 and 2019, albeit with larger performances of 39% and 47% respectively in those years.
Hip-hop/rap ranked second among mainstream genres for 2023 with a 23% acceptance of the Hot 100 top 10. Similar to pop, hip-hop/rap falls from the top spot at 38% in 2022 and 41 % in 2020.
Cutting pop and hip-hop/rap shares, country rose to a 15% claim to the Hot 100 top 10 in 2023 among mainstream genres. “Country songs nearly quadrupled in prominence from 2022 to 2023,” notes the Hit Songs Deconstructed report. “That was largely thanks to Morgan Wallen, who represented almost half of the country's representation.” Wallen posted five top 10s in 2023, including “Last Night,” the Hot 100's year-end No. 1 song.
Country as a major genre accounted for 4% of all Hot 100 top 10s in both 2022 and 2021, followed by a total of 5% in 2020 and 2% in 2019.
Female and Vocal Vault Top 10
Swift also helped spark the rise of female vocals into the top 10 of the Hot 100 in 2023.
“Songs by men accounted for a slight majority of the top 10 hits at just over half – 52%,” says the Hit Songs Deconstructed report. “However, female-led songs have increased, rising to 38% of songs in 2023, their highest level since 2014. This is largely due to Swift.”
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Meanwhile, alongside hip-hop/rap's smaller share of the Hot 100 top 10 among core genres in 2023 than in previous years, hits “with all-sung deliveries took the lead in 2023 for the first time since in 2019, with 53% of songs,” notes Hit Songs Deconstructed. Top 10 songs/raps followed with 42%, while entries “with exclusively rap traditions continued to be few and far between, accounting for just 4% of songs.”
Different drums
Looking at trends among instruments in the Hot 100 top 10s, acoustic drums made a significant gain in 2023.
“While still in the minority, the use of primarily acoustic drums/percussion increased significantly from 2022 to 2023, rising from just 8% to 21%” of the Hot 100 top 10s, summarizes Hit Songs Deconstructed. The year-end report notes acoustic-based hits that “spanned a range of genres,” including country, thanks to songs like Zach Bryan's “I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves. Latin (Eslabón Armado and Peso Pluma 'Ella Baila Sola'); R&B/soul (SZA's “Kill Bill”); and rock (“Bad Idea Right?” by Olivia Rodrigo).
At the same time, “the use of primarily electronic drums/percussion declined significantly between 2022 and 2023, falling from 64% [Hot 100 top 10s] in just 45%, [their] the lowest level in the last decade”.
