African Music reaches new heights in Apple Music’s latest Replay Experience and Year-End Charts

It’s that time of the year again! Apple Music subscribers can discover, listen to and share their top songs, artists, albums, genres, and more with Apple Music Replay 2023.

Apple Music also revealed its 2023 Year-End charts, spotlighting the biggest songs of the year across Apple Music and Shazam and, for the first time, the songs music fans sang along to the most using Apple Music Sing.

Replay your personal soundtrack to 2023 
Apple Music’s Replay 2023 year-end experience offers subscribers worldwide access to expanded listening insights and a completely personalized highlight reel. Once logged in, users can check out their top songs, top albums, top artists, top genres, and more. Superfans can even discover whether they are in the top 100 listeners of their favorite artist or genre or listen to their personal top 100 songs chart from each year they’ve qualified with the Replay yearly playlists. Apple Music Replay is available throughout the year so music lovers can keep listening, exploring and sharing all year long.

To get started visit replay.music.apple.com and log in with the same Apple ID used for Apple Music. All insights* on Replay are optimized for sharing with family and friends, on their social channels, or on any messaging platform.

Apple Music’s 2023 Year-End Charts
Just one look at Apple Music’s 2023 Year-End Charts, and it’s clear: it was a massive year in music, one in which history was made time and again on the Apple Music charts, and listeners opened their ears to more diverse and global sounds than ever before.

In 2023, we saw a parade of songs smash long-held chart records, and we saw genres like Música Mexicana and Afrobeats embraced by more listeners worldwide than ever. So looking across the Year-End Charts, there’s no shortage of entries that, in any other year, would be unbelievable. Read on for a roundup of some of the highlights.

African Music Reaches New Heights
On the Top 100 2023: Shazam chart, Nigerian breakout star Rema rules with his Afrobeats “Calm Down,” exemplifying the growing global popularity of music from the African continent on Shazam. “Rush” by Ayra Starr and “People” by Libianca also end the year among the world’s top Shazamed songs. The remix to “Calm Down” featuring Selena Gomez finishes the year at No. 12 on the global songs chart — the highest entry ever for an African song.

Taylor Swift is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2023
After a remarkable, record-breaking 2023, Taylor Swift is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year. Across the charts, streams, and concert stadiums filled with screaming, bracelet-wearing super fans, Swift undeniably reached a new realm of superstardom this year. In the first 10 months of 2023, she saw 65 songs reach Apple Music’s Global Daily Top 100 — more than any other artist. All told, more Apple Music subscribers listened to Taylor Swift in 2023 than to any other artist in the world, and this set a new all-time record for the most listeners for any artist in a single year on Apple Music.

Country Returns to No. 1
Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” takes No. 1 on the Top Songs of 2023: Global, with more songs on Apple Music worldwide than any other song this year. It marks the first country song since “Old Town Road” (2019) to top the chart. In 2023, “Last Night” smashed the record for the country song with the most days at No. 1 on the Global Daily Top 100. All told, 11 country songs reach the Top Songs of 2023: Global chart, up from four last year. Wallen also scored the No. 1 album of the year with One Thing at a Time. 

J-Pop Rises Up 
On our inaugural Top 100 2023: Sing chart, which counts down the top songs of the year by plays using the Apple Music Sing feature, J-Pop duo YOASOBI rule with “アイドル (Idol).” That song lands also at No. 7 on the year-end top songs chart, marking the highest entry so far for a J-Pop song. It is one of two J-Pop songs making the top 10 of the global songs chart, a new record for the genre. OFFICIAL HIGE DANDISM’s “Subtitle” lands at No. 10.

A Big Dose of R&B 
R&B also makes a particularly strong showing on the Year-End Charts, as SZA’s SOS was the second biggest album of the year on Apple Music worldwide. “Kill Bill” rules the Top 100 2023: Most-Read Lyrics chart, and also finishes at No. 3 on the global songs chart. R&B songs account for more of the top 10 on the chart than any other genre this year, with three. All told, 14 R&B songs make the chart — up from 11 last year.

Música Mexicana Makes a Grand Entrance
Before this year, no Música Mexicana song had managed to reach the year-end global songs chart. This year, there are a staggering four Música Mexicana songs. Cracking the top 20 is Peso Pluma and Eslabon Armado’s history-making “Ella Baila Sola” (No. 18), which became the first Música Mexicana track ever to reach the top three of the Global Daily Top 100. Elsewhere, Grupo Frontera and Bad Bunny’s “un x100to” lands at No. 70, followed by Peso Pluma and Natanael Cano’s “PRC” (No. 88) and Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera’s “Bebe Dame” (No. 99).

There’s plenty more to discover on Apple Music’s Year-End Charts, like the Top Fitness Songs Chart, where British dance duo Punctual lead with “Do It All Again (feat. Jordan Shaw),” and the Top Songwriters Chart, where Drake pulls in more streams than any other songwriter.

Check out and listen to the full suite of Year-End Charts on Apple Music.