Kendrick Lamar tops Apple Music’s 2024 song charts and women make history

By MARIA SHERMAN

NEW YORK (AP) — “Not Like Us,” but people sure like it: Kendrick Lamar’s hit topped Apple Music’s global song charts in 2024 as the giant music streamer released year-end lists on Tuesday and provided listeners with data about their own most listened to songs – to melodies.

“Not Like Us” is Lamar’s first-ever No. 1 on the year-end global song charts.

He’s followed by Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” in second place. In third place is “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, in fourth place is Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and in fifth place is Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer”.

“Cruel Summer” is, of course, a cut from Swift’s seventh studio album “Lover,” released in 2019. It experienced a resurgence in the summer of 2023.

Of the 100 songs included on the list, 39 are by female-identifying artists, a record for the first time in the global chart’s seven-year history.

And this might come as a surprise: Japanese hip-hop band Creepy Nuts’ breakthrough song “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” topped Apple’s most-read lyrics of 2024. Creepy Nuts is followed by “Not Like Us” and “Espresso”. and Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather.”

“Bling-Bang-Band-Born” also landed at the top of Apple Music’s Singing Charts, where users can see which songs fans sang along to the most. Apparently, Japanese music is growing in popularity internationally: In 2023, another Japanese group, YOASOBI, topped the singing charts in its first year with “アイドル (Idol)”. This year, “Idol” continues to dominate, reaching No. 2.

New to the 2024 year-end chart series is the inclusion of a Shazam Global Radio Spins chart, which uses Shazam to reveal which songs are being played on radio stations around the world. Leading the way is Dua Lipa’s “Houdini,” followed by Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” and Tate McRae’s “Greedy.”