Top Songs of the 2010s REAL POINTS

[mikerivera]

Billboard uses an inverse system for the decade end list, which produces contradictory results from their year end lists. In my opinion, using the real points a song earned is a better way to determine which songs were the biggest. Figuring this out was a bit challenging, however, due to the lack of year end projections before 2013, which forced me to go back and calculate the points from that era as accurately as possible. I also decided to add multipliers to songs from before 2013, as there were massive formula changes in 2012 (addition of on demand streaming) and 2013 (addition of YouTube). I’ll get more specific about those later, but first, the top 100 songs by real points

Rank	Song	Artist	Peak	Top 10	Hot 100	Points
1	Uptown Funk!	Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars	#1 (14 weeks)	31	56	1,929,170
2	Shape of You	Ed Sheeran	#1 (12 weeks)	33	58	1,894,570
3	Old Town Road	Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus	#1 (19 weeks)	26	45	1,812,090
4	Party Rock Anthem	LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock	#1 (6 weeks)	29	68	1,732,770
5	Despacito	Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee ft. Justin Bieber	#1 (16 weeks)	25	52	1,694,950
6	Rolling in the Deep	Adele	#1 (7 weeks)	20	65	1,649,240
7	Somebody That I Used to Know	Gotye ft. Kimbra	#1 (8 weeks)	24	59	1,614,660
8	Closer	The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey	#1 (12 weeks)	32	52	1,591,270
9	Perfect	Ed Sheeran	#1 (6 weeks)	27	57	1,509,140
10	Call Me Maybe	Carly Rae Jepsen	#1 (9 weeks)	23	50	1,496,740
11	Circles	Post Malone	#1 (3 weeks)	39	61	1,486,690
12	Blurred Lines	Robin Thicke ft. T.I. & Pharrell Williams	#1 (12 weeks)	21	48	1,439,320
13	Radioactive	Imagine Dragons	#3	20	87	1,433,210
14	See You Again	Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth	#1 (12 weeks)	19	52	1,416,580
15	That’s What I Like	Bruno Mars	#1	28	52	1,404,670
16	Happy	Pharrell Williams	#1 (10 weeks)	22	47	1,396,830
17	Dark Horse	Katy Perry ft. Juicy J	#1 (4 weeks)	22	57	1,396,050
18	God’s Plan	Drake	#1 (11 weeks)	26	36	1,386,720
19	Thrift Shop	Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz	#1 (6 weeks)	21	49	1,363,570
20	Moves Like Jagger	Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera	#1 (4 weeks)	21	49	1,358,810
21	Shake it Off!	Taylor Swift	#1 (4 weeks)	24	50	1,353,980
22	All of Me	John Legend	#1 (3 weeks)	23	59	1,346,520
23	Girls Like You	Maroon 5 ft. Cardi B	#1 (7 weeks)	33	52	1,337,100
24	Sunflower	Post Malone & Swae Lee	#1	33	53	1,335,910
25	All About That Bass	Meghan Trainor	#1 (8 weeks)	25	47	1,334,750
26	Just the Way You Are	Bruno Mars	#1 (4 weeks)	22	48	1,322,220
27	TiK ToK	Ke$ha	#1 (9 weeks)	20	38	1,309,940
28	Thinking Out Loud	Ed Sheeran	#2	24	58	1,302,700
29	Hello	Adele	#1 (10 weeks)	18	26	1,296,040
30	We Are Young	fun.	#1 (6 weeks)	22	42	1,288,360
31	Need You Now	Lady Antebellum	#2	16	60	1,287,640
32	Dynamite	Taio Cruz	#2	18	47	1,281,840
33	Without Me	Halsey	#1 (2 weeks)	29	52	1,269,840
34	Royals	Lorde	#1 (9 weeks)	23	44	1,260,630
35	We Found Love	Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris	#1 (10 weeks)	23	41	1,259,230
36	Rockstar	Post Malone ft. 21 Savage	#1 (8 weeks)	25	41	1,253,640
37	Counting Stars	OneRepublic	#2	25	68	1,252,160
38	The Hills	The Weeknd	#1 (6 weeks)	21	48	1,247,220
39	Trap Queen	Fetty Wap	#2	25	52	1,237,390
40	Give Me Everything	Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo & Nayer	#1	17	45	1,221,310
41	Bad Guy	Billie Eilish	#1	30	49	1,210,400
42	SICKO MODE	Travis Scott	#1	32	52	1,189,640
43	Someone You Loved	Lewis Capaldi	#1 (3 weeks)	27	54	1,185,430
44	Havana	Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug	#1	23	45	1,176,270
45	Sorry	Justin Bieber	#1 (3 weeks)	20	42	1,174,470
46	Sexy & I Know It	LMFAO	#1 (2 weeks)	21	42	1,160,240
47	Firework	Katy Perry	#1 (4 weeks)	18	39	1,144,000
48	Wake Me Up!	Avicii	#4	21	54	1,129,490
49	I Like It	Cardi B ft. Bad Bunny  & J Balvin	#1	21	51	1,122,470
50	Happier	Marshmello & Bastille	#2	27	52	1,120,200
51	Can’t Stop the Feeling!	Justin Timberlake	#1	15	52	1,113,860
52	Roar	Katy Perry	#1 (2 weeks)	17	35	1,097,580
53	Some Nights	fun.	#3	19	56	1,096,110
54	F*ck You!	Cee Lo Green	#2	12	48	1,095,730
55	Hey, Soul Sister	Train	#3	19	54	1,077,330
56	Stay With Me	Sam Smith	#2	21	54	1,076,340
57	Ho Hey!	The Lumineers	#3	13	62	1,069,390
58	Meant to Be	Bebe Rexha ft. Florida Georgia Line	#2	19	52	1,066,960
59	Blank Space	Taylor Swift	#1 (9 weeks)	19	36	1,061,350
60	Can’t Feel My Face	The Weeknd	#1 (3 weeks)	19	41	1,060,170
61	Better Now	Post Malone	#3	18	52	1,058,310
62	E.T.	Katy Perry ft. Kanye West	#1 (5 weeks)	20	30	1,056,000
63	One More Night	Maroon 5	#1 (9 weeks)	21	42	1,055,870
64	Lucid Dreams	Juice WRLD	#2	26	48	1,051,820
65	Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)	Silentó	#3	18	51	1,048,490
66	Locked Out of Heaven	Bruno Mars	#1 (6 weeks)	20	36	1,039,770
67	Love Yourself	Justin Bieber	#1 (2 weeks)	24	41	1,038,710
68	Fancy	Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX	#1 (7 weeks)	17	39	1,036,890
69	One Dance	Drake ft. Wizkid & Nyla	#1 (10 weeks)	20	36	1,033,920
70	Payphone	Maroon 5 ft. Wiz Khalifa	#2	19	31	1,030,180
71	Grenade	Bruno Mars	#1 (4 weeks)	17	36	1,022,960
72	Someone Like You	Adele	#1 (5 weeks)	20	39	1,016,370
73	Don’t Let Me Down	The Chainsmokers ft. Daya	#3	23	52	1,004,890
74	Harlem Shake	Baauer	#1 (5 weeks)	8	20	1,002,530
75	Truth Hurts	Lizzo	#1 (7 weeks)	22	42	995,340
76	Love the Way You Lie	Eminem ft. Rihanna	#1 (7 weeks)	16	29	992,540
77	Lights	Ellie Goulding	#2	14	57	990,710
78	Sugar	Maroon 5	#2	21	42	990,680
79	Believer	Imagine Dragons	#4	14	52	987,680
80	Wrecking Ball	Miley Cyrus	#1 (3 weeks)	16	32	981,950
81	Señorita	Camila Cabello  & Shawn Mendes	#1	23	37	981,110
82	California Gurls	Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg	#1 (6 weeks)	17	27	975,030
83	Shut Up & Dance!	Walk the Moon	#4	18	53	972,810
84	Super Bass	Nicki Minaj	#3	15	39	967,110
85	Bad Romance	Lady Gaga	#2	17	35	959,680
86	High Hopes	Panic! At the Disco	#4	15	52	959,060
87	Cruise	Florida Georgia Line	#4	14	54	957,300
88	Rude	Magic!	#1 (6 weeks)	16	41	947,730
89	Sucker	Jonas Brothers	#1	22	47	950,730
90	Talk	Khalid	#3	19	46	947,730
91	Take Me to Church	Hozier	#2	20	41	943,990
92	Psycho	Post Malone ft. Ty Dolla $ign	#1	21	39	942,990
93	OMG	Usher ft. Will.i.am	#1 (4 weeks)	17	30	942,230
94	Hotline Bling	Drake	#2	19	36	941,670
95	No Guidance	Chris Brown ft. Drake	#5	23	46	940,600
96	Stressed Out	twenty one pilots	#2	14	52	940,080
97	Cheap Thrills	Sia ft. Sean Paul	#1 (4 weeks)	18	52	927,330
98	Work	Rihanna ft. Drake	#1 (9 weeks)	18	36	919,790
99	Stitches	Shawn Mendes	#4	18	52	919,380
100	Wow.	Post Malone	#2	24	44	917,280

[mikerivera]

And in case anyone is interested in knowing the multipliers I used, here’s how it worked

From 2010-3/17/2012, I took all the points from a song’s entire chart run, and used a descending multiplier. It started with x1.8 for 1 million points, and decreased by .005 for every 10k point decrease. It keeps decreasing until it gets to 400k total points, at which point the multiplier is x1.5 and remains that way for every song thereafter. The reason I don’t use a constant multiplier is because the point spread was significantly different during this era.

From 3/24/2012-2/23/2013, I used a multiplier of x1.4.

[brady47]

This is AMAZING, thank you so much!

Wow, it's amazing how massive "Roar" really was - it's chart run doesn't reflect that when in fact it was a bigger hit than E.T, California Gurls and was almost a same sized hit as "Firework"

[mikerivera]

Yeah Roar was earning over 50k points for 10 of its first 11 weeks. Seeing how 50k is about what the average #1 from that era received, if you think of it as 10 weeks at #1, it’s placement makes a lot more sense. That’s how it managed to be #10 on the 2013 YE list despite only charting for 14 weeks during that chart year (for context, Closer spent 15 weeks in the 2016 chart window, 12 of which were at #1, and also finished at #10 that year)

[korbel16]

Still such a great list, hopefully someone could make a similar list for the 2020’s so far and keep it up!