What an evolution.

The Beatles twice, Paul McCartney twice more (collaborations).

But not a single Michael Jackson (but 2 Janet Jacksons)???

Hard to believe.

by appealing to listeners of two different musical genres

source for most popular song for a given year?

I'm surprised that Janet Jackson had three top songs and Michael Jackson zero????

I recognized more songs before my birth year (1954), than I did after 1990.

I'm going through all the Billboard Top 100 songs for the different years, listening to bits of them on YouTube to see if it's a song I recognize AND like. I started in the 90s - which was a rough decade because - in my opinion - of all the boy bands, divas, and divos (Boyz II Men, Nsync, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston) who instead of focusing on actual musicality, relied on drum machines and pre-programmed music playing forgettable 50 beats per minute tunes so nothing could possibly upstage their warbling of dancing around a note before actually hitting it... Anyway, I digress, but the 90s did fill me with rage because I have fond memories of that decade, but I now realize it's because that's when I started getting into Latin music due to studies in college. Anyway, I've looked over all the years (even though I haven't gone through them), and a lot of the number one songs aren't matching with this video.

TlalocW

My little grandson rocked out in his car seat to "Stayin' Alive." My son and daughter in law were "purists" about rock and roll, total Beatles fans. They were a bit appalled...