In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Apple Music slowly unveiled the 500 most-streamed songs of all time on the platform last week. Beginning on Tuesday, July 1st, and wrapping up on Saturday, July 5th, Apple revealed 100 songs per day before the grand finale over the weekend, which crowned Ed Sheeran’s 2017 smash hit, “Shape of You,” the #1 song of all time on the streaming platform.
Given that Apple has famously never displayed streaming numbers for songs in any form like Spotify, it’s been a fairly big deal for music fans and critics alike. With names like Drake, Taylor Swift, Post Malone, Lil Baby, Bruno Mars and more dominating the list as a whole, there’s been plenty of discourse surrounding the long-awaited reveal, especially in the rap and pop community.
As for country, 30 separate songs cracked the Top 500 with Luke Combs’ “Beautiful Crazy” taking the top spot at #61 overall. Rounding out the top five country songs are Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” and “Chasin’ You,” Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” and Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”
It should come as no surprise that both Wallen and Combs absolutely dominate this list with 11 and seven entries, respectively. Wallen’s 11 entries tie the likes of Ed Sheeran and Future for the ninth-most placements on the list and puts him above superstars such as The Weeknd, Billie Eilish and global phenom, Bad Bunny.
Some other notable entries include Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” at #23 (378 overall), Jason Aldean’s “You Make It Easy” at #16 (289 overall) and Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” at #22 (375 overall).
The 30 most-streamed country songs (with their overall placement on Apple’s Top 500 list) are as follows:
- “Beautiful Crazy” – Luke Combs (61)
- “Last Night” – Morgan Wallen (67)
- “Chasin’ You” – Morgan Wallen (68)
- “Tennessee Whiskey” – Chris Stapleton (71)
- “Love Story” – Taylor Swift (125)
- “Wasted On You” – Morgan Wallen (141)
- “Meant To Be” – Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line (148)
- “Whiskey Glasses” – Morgan Wallen (152)
- “When It Rains It Pours” – Luke Combs (169)
- “Hurricane” – Luke Combs (189)
- “She Got the Best of Me” – Luke Combs (195)
- “You Belong With Me” – Taylor Swift (200)
- “You Proof” – Morgan Wallen (226)
- “More Than My Hometown” – Morgan Wallen (229)
- “Forever After All” – Luke Combs (269)
- “You Make It Easy” – Jason Aldean (289)
- “Cover Me Up” – Morgan Wallen (302)
- “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” – Shaboozey (312)
- “Heaven” – Kane Brown (316)
- “7 Summers” – Morgan Wallen (323)
- “Body Like A Back Road” – Sam Hunt (368)
- “I Had Some Help” – Post Malone & Morgan Wallen (375)
- “Something in the Orange” – Zach Bryan (378)
- “Thinkin’ Bout Me” – Morgan Wallen (381)
- “Heartless” – Diplo & Morgan Wallen (423)
- “10,000 Hours” – Dan + Shay (429)
- “Fast Car” – Luke Combs (443)
- “Tequila” – Dan + Shay (461)
- “Beer Never Broke My Heart” – Luke Combs (482)
- “Speechless” – Dan + Shay (488)
Following the full reveal, we took to Instagram to post the list above, and fans were not pleased. Though there were plenty of pleased Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs fans celebrating their domination, many were quick to point out how pop-influenced many of the top songs were.
Some of the top comments are as follows:
“Not a single country song made the list smh”
“This list proves the average listener is a brain dead simpleton who can’t comprehend good music, lyrics that mean anything and instrumental genius or beauty. Every artist on this list is pure dog Doodoo.”
“Okay now do country”
“Is that even a country list?”
“I thought this was the most streamed COUNTRY songs of all time?”
“90% of this list ain’t country. Like Taylor Swift, Kane Brown, and Morgan Wallen”
“This is the most disgusting horrific thing i have ever seen”
“Some of y’all be streaming some absolute dogsh*t lmao”
“90% of those songs are trash”
Look, I get the frustration from country purists, but you have to keep a few things in mind. For starters, this is an unbias list that is purely data driven. This isn’t a ranking based on quality; it’s simply based on numbers. Finally, this list inherently leans incredibly pop and rap heavy as a whole with Drake owning 38 spots alone.