Hit Songs Deconstructed Tracks 2020’s Hot 100 Top 10 Musical Trends

If you are a songwriter looking to break into the charts, it pays to stay on top of what type of music the public is listening to and the compositional aspects of the most popular songs. What are the trends in the Hot 100 Top 10 songs this year? Hit Songs Deconstructed has all the data, broken down in a comprehensive report, with report highlights offered as a free download for American Songwriter readers.

A sampling of some of some of the data is pretty revealing and, for some chart watchers, may confirm what they already knew. We’re talking the Top 10 in the Hot 100 songs, so hip-hop and pop are the leading trendsetters.

The top performing song was Roddy Ricch’s “The Box,” which spent 25 weeks in the Top 10, and 11 weeks at #1, the most of any song during the time period. Juice WRLD was the top primary performing artist with six Top 10 hits. Ariana Grande also led the pack with the most #1 hits, “Rain On Me” and “Stuck With U.”

As expected, co-writing continues to lead the path to the top. Of the 220 credited songwriters that charted in the Top 10 during the first three quarters of 2020, 39 scored more than one Top 10 hit (18%). Whether that’s attributed to dwindling royalties forcing artists to pool together to continue to make a living, or artists needing the musical expertise of specific writers for specific tasks (top line, production, etc) is a hotly debated topic.

When it comes to producers, 44% of the songs are produced by one person, and 32% have two. There were 98 credited producers creating songs in the Top 10, and 17 of them scored more than one. Finneas, Oz and Aaron Dessner topped the producer’s list.

Looking to stay on top of trends for your creative process? The Hit Songs Deconstructed data download also gives key insights into the compositional aspects of certain songs, beyond genre and length of song. Tempo, Key signature, instrumentation, first chorus appearance time stamp, themes and more are outlined.

A free download with highlights of the Hit Songs Deconstructed report is available here.