As 2020 comes to an end, many people have been relistening to their most listened to and favorite songs of the year. For Spotify listeners, “Spotify Wrapped” is the current hit; a playlist in which listeners can dive into their most memorable listening moments of the year. Providing you with your most streamed songs of the year and other cool features like how many minutes you have spent on Spotify in the past year, and the genre you have listened to the most, “Spotify Wrapped” is a crowd-puller. It also engages listeners in viewing their favorite songs and memories of the 2020 year. This feature has been a major sensation amongst Seminole High School students and other teens as well. For Apple music listeners, there is a feature called Apple Replay, which is similar to Spotify Wrapped in the sense that it provides you with your most played songs, artists, and albums, creating a playlist of your top songs of the year. However, Apple Replay differs from the Spotify feature because you can access it throughout the year rather than just the end. 

According to Billboard music, the most played song of 2020 was “Blinding Lights” by the Weekend. “Blinding Lights” has had a jaw-dropping 4.5 billion global streams. This song has an opening from the famed Micheal Jackson’s hit single “Beat It”, which could be a contributing factor to the song’s popularity. The second most popular song of 2020 was “Savage (Remix)” by Megan the Stallion, featuring Beyonce. This duo worked together to crown Megan as the premier female rapper in hip-hop. With Beyonce by her side, Megan the Stallion’s song was pushed to number 2 on the Billboard Charts.

“Adore You” by Harry Styles came in as the third most popular song of 2020. Harry Styles is an artist who was originally part of the band “One Direction”, but he explored other options and started writing his own songs, becoming a big hit amongst many teen girls and boys. He also has many other popular songs like “Watermelon Sugar” and “Treat People with Kindness”. However, his song “Adore You” won Harry No.1 on Billboard’s Pop Songs radio airplay chart. 

Seminole High School Sophomore Raya Bhuiyan says “Adore You” by Harry Styles was one of her favorite songs of 2020. 

“Harry Styles always seems to put out music for a wide variety of audiences that everyone enjoys,” she further explains.

Other students were left unsatisfied by the 2020 list of top songs. They felt it should have displayed a wider variety of music since most of the top-ranking songs were from pop artists. Some students wanted to see more Indie Pop and K-Pop songs while others wanted to see more R&B and Country songs. Although the songs also have rankings for their own genre, students wanted to see these songs in the list of top songs of 2020. 

IB student Sameen Chowdhury states “My favorite songs from 2020 definitely had to be “Clouded” by Brent Faiyaz or “Like I Want You” by Giveon. These songs fall into the Hip-Hop and R&B genres, many of songs of which did not make the most popular/streamed charts of 2020.” 

However, according to Spotify under the hip-hop genre “Holiday” by Lil Nas X was the top Hip-Hop hit of 2020. This song was newly released on November 13, 2020, and it is already blowing away the hip-hop charts. Nas’s song already currently has 60,710,451 views on his official music video under his personal YouTube platform. This song has gained a lot of attention for only being released a short amount of time.