Fifty years ago, I made my first appeared on the Earth. In celebration, we are going to take a look at the year-end Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for each year of my life and see what songs resonated with me at the time and if they continue to do so to this day.
We conclude our look back at the music of my lifetime with 2023, the 50th incarnation of the chart during my lifetime. Being an old, I have little knowledge of nearly all of the songs, as I am not really the target demographic, of pop music today, with only Taylor Swift and the handful of Christmas classics which have made the list breaking through. Only 17 of the Hot 100 are familiar to me now, with only seven of them appearing in my collection in one way or another.
#84: Wham! – Last Christmas
iTunes stats: N/A
Originally released in the UK in 1984, the duo’s Christmas classic was finally released in the US in 2014 and has charted regularly every December since.
#71: Burl Ives – A Holly Jolly Christmas
iTunes stats: 0 plays
The holiday classic, featured in the 1964 Rankin-Bass special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, makes the year end chart for the second consecutive year.
#68: Bobby Helms – Jingle Bell Rock
iTunes stats: 0 plays
Arguably the best-known version of the song, it has now charted in twelve different years since 1958
#60: Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
iTunes stats: 0 plays
The song was first recorded by Lee when she was 13 years old.
#55: Mariah Carey – All I Want for Christmas Is You
iTunes stats: 0 plays
One of the few modern additions to the holiday canon, it has placed on the year-end chart for five years running.
#32: Taylor Swift – Lavendar Haze
iTunes stats: 4 plays
The second single from Swift’s tenth studio album, it debuted and peaked at #2, giving Swift sole possession of the top ten
#27: Taylor Swift – Karma
iTunes stats: 2 plays
It reached #2 on the Hot 100 and became Swift’s record-tying 10th and 11th number-one singles on the Adult Top 40 and Pop Airplay charts, respectively.
#18: Taylor Swift – Cruel Summer
iTunes stats: 6 plays
Despite being from Swift’s seventh studio album, released in 2019, it was first released as a single in 2023 after going viral in conjunction with the Era’s Tour. It spent four non-consecutive weeks at #1, becoming her tenth chart-topping single.
#4: Taylor Swift – Anti-Hero
iTunes stats: 14 plays
Spending eight weeks at the top of the Hot 100, it helped push Swift past Madonna for the most top ten hits by a female artist.
#2: Miley Cyrus – Flowers
iTunes stats: N/A
The second #1 hit for Cyrus, it spent eight non-consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100.