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Apple Music Shares 2025 Year-End Charts

fenderbass146 said:
Like I said, hard to believe no Taylor Swift on it.
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To be honest, it's not.
Taylor Swift is dominating charts (mostly Billboard) because she's obsessed with them and because she releases "hundreds" of different variants of her songs and albums in digital and physical forms. Her fans are so obsessed with her, as she is with charts, that they buy every variant, multiple times just to help her block other artists for months.

The Apple Music charts are for streaming (and more). Yes, Taylor still has hundreds of millions streams but the songs mentioned above had "wider" reachability than any Taylor song this year. It's also mentioned in the article:
Apple said the annual charts reflect a broader set of data collected throughout 2025 from global Apple Music streams, Shazam searches, time-synced lyric engagement, radio, Apple Music Sing usage, and more.
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Taylor nowadays is charting because of numbers, not engagement and enjoyment of her music.
 
I always find it amusing how the number 1 Shazam'ed song is also the number 1 most listened to. It's the most popular song of the year, but more people didn't know what it was than any other song.
 
Sorry I have to do a review of the top songs of 2025! Keep in mind I am a musician and a snob.

1 - ROSÉ & Bruno Mars, “APT." - I liked the beat! The opening phrase was ok, but then she repeated it verbatim, lazy and annoying! I fast-forwarded to the middle and the chorus was written by a child a most predictable and boring melody and chords, I then went back and heard some decent RAPPING in an earlier part. I am frowning.

2 - Kendrick Lamar & SZA, “luther" - cool intro! And then… WHY IS EVERYTHING A NURSERY RHYME phrasing with modern pop, yuk! You know what I mean ( school playground “Na-na-na Na-na!! (Stick your tongue out). FF to the chorus WHY IS THE MELODY REPEATED OVER AND OVER AND OVER with the same notes , it’s so unmusical and offensive to my ears. Change a frickin’ note at least one!

3 - Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars, "Die With A Smile” - At least they are changing some notes of the phrases but if this is the top 5 that is really sad. If this was put out in the 70’s it would have been forgotten by the next year. VERY average , wow. Top 100 maybe. At least it’s not terrible. ( I take that back, I felt great relief when I switched songs)

4 - Kendrick Lamar, "Not Like Us”, so far this is LISTENABLE! I actually SMILED at the 1min mark! The hiphop production under the vocal is bit lazy and repetitive. Halfway through and still listening! WOW!! I googled the lyrics; Useless garbage! I understand life is rough in those neighborhoods, but this is average hiphop. But to his credit the annoying phrase near the end was only repeated 2x instead of 4x or more like most ! Best song yet ( and that is sad)

5 - Billie Eilish, "BIRDS OF A FEATHER” - I was expecting much better from them! I have liked some of her stuff in the past (even loved!) and I like almost zero modern music. But this song is way below her and very repetitive, maybe the worst song I’ve heard from her.

Sorry kids and young adults I feel really bad for you I am truly sorry that this is the world we have let you inherit.
 
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To say there’s no good music being made today is lazy thinking. More accurate to say pop music isn’t what it used to be. You have to dig for the good stuff now, but the good news is that it’s more accessible than ever.

Shazam songs in restaurants, watching films/TV, be curious and do the work of finding the good stuff.
 
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segfaultdotorg said:
iMusic is Apple's music streaming subscription service so you can pay $20 per month to listen to music you've already purchased.
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It’s Apple Music. There is no iMusic (except in Denmark). I suppose you think there’s also an iWatch?

Where did you get $20 from? I’m a part of Apple One, but if I only wanted Apple Music I’d pay $16.99 a month for the entire family.
 
cigz said:
To be honest, it's not.
Taylor Swift is dominating charts (mostly Billboard) because she's obsessed with them and because she releases "hundreds" of different variants of her songs and albums in digital and physical forms. Her fans are so obsessed with her, as she is with charts, that they buy every variant, multiple times just to help her block other artists for months.

The Apple Music charts are for streaming (and more). Yes, Taylor still has hundreds of millions streams but the songs mentioned above had "wider" reachability than any Taylor song this year. It's also mentioned in the article:

Taylor nowadays is charting because of numbers, not engagement and enjoyment of her music.
Click to expand...
While I agree with you about Taylor Swift's sales tactics and her overly devoted fanbase buying everything in sight, I would point to a more straightforward explanation for why she's not on the year-end chart: her current album didn't come out until October. Most of the songs on these charts were released in late 2024 and remained extremely popular throughout 2025, so they've had much more time to rack up the streams. (Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" was actually on Apple's year-end 2024 list and saw a renewed spike in popularity following his Super Bowl performance).
 
fenderbass146 said:
I have literally heard of one of these songs and know like 4 of these artist...I'm old and yes....this generations music is awful.

Shocked Taylor Swift isn't on here anywhere.

(The ones I know Bruno, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, the ones I've heard of but don't remotely know...Kendrik Lamar and Sza. And wtf is this "ROSÉ &amp'". Is that a band name?
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That's one more than me.

And I listen to new music.

Just not that crap.

----

Currently listening to

 
Nice to see the complete list. Will definitely check out some of these songs. Happy with my Apple Music subscription.
 
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So was curious, looked at my top 10 performers;

10. Babymetal (kinda surprised they're this low)
9. Vitamin String Quartet
8. Fame On Fire
7. Ghost
6. HUNTR/X
5. Nine Inch Nails
4. Bad Omens
3. Electric Callboy
2. BBNO$
1. Tool
 
The "Top Songs of 2025: Global" list only "APT" is what I like. The rest and lately most songs these days sound like whiny, nasal and have intros like they are monotone mini rapping or talking emotionally annoying depressed kind of feeling people.
 
fenderbass146 said:
I have literally heard of one of these songs and know like 4 of these artist...I'm old and yes....this generations music is awful.

Shocked Taylor Swift isn't on here anywhere.
Click to expand...
Swift's new album The Life of a Showgirl only came out in October, and its popularity is only for a few months.
 
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