Hit Songs: The Rise and Fall of “Featuring”, 1959–2025
Topic: Culture & Entertainment
In this chart: The year's top 20 hits, Second Layer
About this chart
The rose line is the share of the year's 20 biggest US songs with a featured artist, averaged over three years; the faint dots are single years. The readout gives the year, the three-year share and that year's own count; the peak is marked. Point at any year, or tap it, to read its numbers. The animation draws the years from 1959 to 2025 over fifty-six seconds, holds on the last year for three seconds, and loops. The scrubber under the chart marks each year and pauses on any of them.
Method
The songs are the top 20 of Billboard's year-end Hot 100 for every year from 1959 to 2025, 1,340 songs, as the chart is reproduced on Wikipedia's “Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles” pages; a year-end chart covers Billboard's chart year, which does not match the calendar year exactly. The details of each song were compiled for DataSlapper from Wikipedia's song and artist pages, SongBPM and other song pages, with a cited page for every value, and checked by DataSlapper: every year's top 20 against Wikipedia's page, and a random sample of 112 songs against the pages cited. A value no source gave is left out, not guessed; a double-sided single that holds one chart position counts as one song.
A song has a featured artist when the chart credits a guest after its lead act, as in “featuring” or “feat.”; two lead acts credited together are not a feature and are not counted here. Each point pools a year's 20 songs with the two years before it, so that one or two songs do not swing the line; 1959 stands alone and 1960 pools two years. The dots are single years.
Data sources
- Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles, 1959–2025, the top 20 of each year, as reproduced by Wikipedia
- Featured artists: Wikipedia's song and artist pages, compiled for DataSlapper
Data table
Each year's 20 biggest US songs from 1959 to 2025: how many credit a featured artist, and the three-year share the chart draws. Compiled by DataSlapper.
Show all 67 rows
| Year | Songs | With a featured artist | Share | Three-year share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1960 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1961 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1962 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1963 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1964 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1965 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1966 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1967 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1968 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1969 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1970 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1971 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1972 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1973 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1974 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1975 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1976 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1977 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1978 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1979 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1980 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1981 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1982 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1983 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1984 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1985 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1986 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1987 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1988 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1989 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 1990 | 20 | 1 | 5.0% | 1.7% |
| 1991 | 20 | 1 | 5.0% | 3.3% |
| 1992 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 3.3% |
| 1993 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 1.7% |
| 1994 | 20 | 2 | 10.0% | 3.3% |
| 1995 | 20 | 1 | 5.0% | 5.0% |
| 1996 | 20 | 2 | 10.0% | 8.3% |
| 1997 | 20 | 5 | 25.0% | 13.3% |
| 1998 | 20 | 1 | 5.0% | 13.3% |
| 1999 | 20 | 2 | 10.0% | 13.3% |
| 2000 | 20 | 2 | 10.0% | 8.3% |
| 2001 | 20 | 7 | 35.0% | 18.3% |
| 2002 | 20 | 7 | 35.0% | 26.7% |
| 2003 | 20 | 10 | 50.0% | 40.0% |
| 2004 | 20 | 8 | 40.0% | 41.7% |
| 2005 | 20 | 6 | 30.0% | 40.0% |
| 2006 | 20 | 9 | 45.0% | 38.3% |
| 2007 | 20 | 8 | 40.0% | 38.3% |
| 2008 | 20 | 5 | 25.0% | 36.7% |
| 2009 | 20 | 7 | 35.0% | 33.3% |
| 2010 | 20 | 9 | 45.0% | 35.0% |
| 2011 | 20 | 7 | 35.0% | 38.3% |
| 2012 | 20 | 6 | 30.0% | 36.7% |
| 2013 | 20 | 8 | 40.0% | 35.0% |
| 2014 | 20 | 6 | 30.0% | 33.3% |
| 2015 | 20 | 5 | 25.0% | 31.7% |
| 2016 | 20 | 7 | 35.0% | 30.0% |
| 2017 | 20 | 9 | 45.0% | 35.0% |
| 2018 | 20 | 6 | 30.0% | 36.7% |
| 2019 | 20 | 2 | 10.0% | 28.3% |
| 2020 | 20 | 6 | 30.0% | 23.3% |
| 2021 | 20 | 3 | 15.0% | 18.3% |
| 2022 | 20 | 1 | 5.0% | 16.7% |
| 2023 | 20 | 0 | 0.0% | 6.7% |
| 2024 | 20 | 2 | 10.0% | 5.0% |
| 2025 | 20 | 2 | 10.0% | 6.7% |
Updated 2025
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