Perhaps the weirdest thing about this list is the fact that despite being the biggest pop star on the planet in 2015 and still the reigning queen of the countdown, none of Taylor Swift’s four songs on this chart made the Year-End Top 10 (her highest is at #11). But all four of them did land in the Top 30 and three of those songs went #1, so don’t assume she wasn’t still a heavy presence over the year. She was joined as well by fellow countdown favorite pop princesses Ellie Goulding, Demi Lovato, and Kelly Clarkson. However, maybe it was time for newcomers to have the spotlight as Maddie & Tae, Alessia Cara, Echosmith, Fifth Harmony, Tove Lo, and Ella Henderson were also responsible for some of the biggest hits of the year. Dove Cameron and Sabrina Carpenter can also be thrown into that field as the then-stars of Liv & Maddie and Girl Meets World proved that the countdown was not quite out of the Disney Channel Era yet. Rock music once again had not diminished with In This Moment, Theory of a Deadman, Halestorm, Bring Me The Horizon, and even the legendary Slash alongside Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy all charting big. Country music had a pretty good year that included hits from Keith Urban, Little Big Town, Lauren Alaina, Blake Shelton, Kacey Musgraves, and the aforementioned Maddie & Tae. Things could have been stronger in the R&B and hip-hop worlds admittedly, but with Rihanna, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Jidenna, and even Janet Jackson, those genres were not completely absent. Also, the guys that made “Butterfly” in 2001 charted a song because Impact Wrestling started using it as their theme song. Yeah, that was weird in retrospect as well. The year-end Top 100 songs of 2015, based on an inverse point system employed to the Top 25 Music Countdown in which weeks spent on the chart and peak position greatly influence a song’s ranking. Basically, the more I listened to a song that year – be it through radio airplay, watching the music video, listening to it in my personal music collection, etc. – the higher it is on the year-end chart.
#1) “Fly”
Maddie & Tae
#2) “Bright”
Echosmith
#3) “Uptown Funk”
Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars)
#4) “We’ll Be The Stars”
Sabrina Carpenter
#5) “Bent To Fly”
Slash (feat. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators)
#6) “Here”
Alessia Cara
#7) “Big Bad Wolf”
In This Moment
#8) “Girl Crush”
Little Big Town
#9) “Worth It”
Fifth Harmony (feat. Kid Ink)
#10) “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16”
Keith Urban
#11) “Bad Blood”
Taylor Swift (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
#12) “Love 3X”
ZZ Ward
#13) “On My Mind”
Ellie Goulding
#14) “FourFiveSeconds”
Rihanna, Kanye West, & Paul McCartney
#15) “Angel”
Theory Of A Deadman
#16) “Cool For The Summer”
Demi Lovato
#17) “Invincible”
Kelly Clarkson
#18) “Lonely Tonight”
Blake Shelton (feat. Ashley Monroe)
#19) “Ghost”
Ella Henderson
#20) “Uma Thurman”
Fall Out Boy
#21) “Apocalyptic”
Halestorm
#22) “Next Boyfriend”
Lauren Alaina
#23) “Wildest Dreams”
Taylor Swift
#24) “Blank Space”
Taylor Swift
#26) “Smoke When I Drink”
Kelleigh Bannen
#27) “Can’t Feel My Face”
The Weeknd
#28) “I’m In Love With A Monster”
Fifth Harmony
#29) “Style”
Taylor Swift
#30) “Eyes Wide Open”
Sabrina Carpenter
#31) “Hello”
Adele
#32) “Throne”
Bring Me The Horizon
#33) “Time Machine”
Ingrid Michaelson
#34) “What A Girl Is”
Dove Cameron (feat. Christina Grimmie & Baby Kaely)
#35) “Gravity”
Papa Roach (feat. Maria Brink)
#36) “Talking Body”
Tove Lo
#37) “All Hands On Deck”
Tinashe
#38) “Stitches”
Shawn Mendes
#39) “My Song 5 (Remix)”
HAIM (feat. A$AP Ferg)
#40) “Something In The Water”
Carrie Underwood
#41) “Love Me Like You Do”
Ellie Goulding
#42) “When Love Hurts”
JoJo
#43) “Megatron”
Crazy Town (feat. Boondock)
#44) “Hotline Bling”
Drake
#45) “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart”
Chris Cornell
#46) “Let Me Know”
Tamar Braxton (feat. Future)
#47) “Thinking Out Loud”
Ed Sheeran
#48) “Where Are Ü Now”
Skrillex & Diplo (feat. Justin Bieber)
#49) “Do You Wanna Start A War”
Fozzy
#50) “No Sleeep”
Janet Jackson (feat. J. Cole)
#51) “King Kunta”
Kendrick Lamar
#52) “If Only”
Dove Cameron
#53) “OctaHate”
Ryn Weaver
#54) “Classic Man”
Jidenna (feat. Roman GianArthur)
#55) “Take It Back”
The Temperance Movement
#56) “Drop Dead Cynical”
Amaranthe
#57) “Ship To Wreck”
Florence + The Machine
#58) “Don’t”
Ed Sheeran
#59) “Nobody Praying For Me”
Seether
#60) “Written In The Stars”
The Girl and The Dreamcatcher
#61) “Feeling Myself”
Nicki Minaj (feat. Beyoncé)
#62) “Thank You”
Sevendust
#63) “Pretend”
Tinashe (feat. A$AP Rocky)
#64) “Love Me Like You Mean It”
Kelsea Ballerini
#65) “Little Red Wagon”
Miranda Lambert
#66) “1,000 X’s and O’s”
Prince
#67) “The Middle of Starting Over”
Sabrina Carpenter
#68) “I Am The Fire”
Halestorm
#69) “i”
Kendrick Lamar
#70) “Girl In A Country Song”
Maddie & Tae
#71) “Footsteps (Go Higher)“
Pop Evil
#72) “The Hanging Tree”
James Newton Howard (feat. Jennifer Lawrence)
#73) “1991”
Kat Graham
#74) “She Knows”
Ne-Yo (feat. Juicy J)
#75) “Same Old Love”
Selena Gomez
#76) “Friend Zone”
Danielle Bradbery
#77) “Could’ve Been Me”
The Struts
#78) “7/11”
Beyoncé
#79) “I Am Invincible”
Cassadee Pope
#80) “Should’ve Been Us”
Tori Kelly
#81) “Love Myself”
Hailee Steinfeld
#82) “Amen”
Halestorm
#83) “Finally Free”
Stitched Up Heart
#84) “Sorry”
Justin Bieber
#85) “Heartbeat Song”
Kelly Clarkson
#86) “Turn it Up (Bayley)
CFO$
#87) “My Demons”
Starset
#88) “Break Up In A Small Town”
Sam Hunt
#89) “Don’t Kill The Fun”
Sevyn Streeter (feat. Chris Brown)
#90) “Black Magic”
Little Mix
#91) “Follow Me Down”
The Pretty Reckless
#92) “Mr. Misunderstood”
Eric Church
#93) “Pray To God”
Calvin Harris (feat. HAIM)
#94) “Shut Up and Dance”
WALK THE MOON
#95) “Nobody”
Kem
#96) “What Kind Of Man”
Florence + The Machine
#97) “Done”
Jessica Meuse
#98) “Gotta Be Me”
Teen Beach 2 Cast
#99) “Doing It”
Charli XCX (feat. Rita Ora)
YEAR-END AWARDS:
Top Solo Artist Song Of The Year: “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars)
Top Group Song Of The Year: “Fly” by Maddie & Tae
Top Collaboration Of The Year: “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars)
Top Pop Song Of The Year: “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars)
Top Hip-Hop Song Of The Year: “King Kunta” by Kendrick Lamar
Top Alternative Song Of The Year: “Bright” by Echosmith
Top Hard Rock Song Of The Year: “Bent To Fly” by Slash (feat. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators)
Top R&B Song Of The Year: “Here” by Alessia Cara
Top Country Song Of The Year: “Fly” by Maddie & Tae
Top First-Timer Song Of The Year: “Bright” by Echosmith
Top Returning Year-End Song: “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars) [#87 for 2014, #3 for 2015]
Year-End Top 100 MVP: Taylor Swift [4 Appearances On The Year-End List]
FearlessRiOT Top 40 Music Countdown 