It's the Year-end Countdowns

It is that time of year again, the time for many people to come up with their "best of" lists for the end of the year.  I don't always fall into this sort of thing, with one exception.  I have been following the Billboard charts for decades.  Normally, it is just the weekly top-ten, but the year-end lists have been a great favorite of mine.  I even try to calculate the top songs of the year based on my own interpretations on what I have seen in the weekly lists.  This year, there is only one thing I am absolutely certain of, the "Meant to Be" by Bebe Rexha and Florida-Georgia Line will be the number one country song of the year.  Literally, it was the number one song for almost the entire year on the country chart.  About fifty weeks!  I have never seen such dominance.  As for the regular Hot 100 chart, things are not as surefire.  I can guarantee that Drake will have at least two songs in the top ten, but beyond that I cannot be sure.  There is a really good chance that one of his three number ones from this year will end up as the top song of the year, but it is not a lock.  See, it all is based on how the chart is tabulated.  When I was younger, the charts were determined solely on two components--physical sales and radio airplay.  Now, there are a some digital components as well, including downloads, streams, shares, and video airplay.  While are can skew the tabulations, the last one can really mess things up.  A song can preview an official video and have it played thousands of times before it even gets into heavy rotation on radio stations.  Add sharing and multiple downloads, and a song can debut at number one and stay there a month before radio airplay catches up.  That happened with Drake's songs this year.  They debuted high and stayed there, but I barely heard them on my regular top 40 radio stations.  Then, the songs slowly dropped.  For year-end charts, weekly totals are added up, with points given to a song for each week that they stay at a position, with more points given to higher charting songs.  This means that a song that takes longer to hit its peak and then stays there for awhile, could out-perform a higher charting song that debuted there, but quickly fell once it left.  This means a song like "Girls Like You" by Maroon 5 with Cardi B, could take the year-end number one, or even a lower charting song like "Meant to Be."  I won't be calculating my totals until next week, but if I turn out to be right, you heard it here first.