Greg Williams2017 may have been a year when women made their voices heard — but not on the Billboard chart.
The top 10 artists on the publication’s year-end Top Artists of 2017 charts — which takes into account performance from December 3 through November 25 — are all men, led by Ed Sheeran, the Artist of the Year. He’s the first British male solo artist to top Billboard’s Top Artist of the Year chart since George Michael in 1988.
The rest of the top 10 Artists of the Year are Bruno Mars, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers, Justin Bieber, Future, Shawn Mendes, and Korean boy band BTS.
What’s more, the top 10 Hot 100 Songs of the Year are all by male artists, as are the Top Billboard 200 Albums of the Year. Ed Sheeran has the Billboard Hot 100 Song of the Year, with “Shape of You,” while Kendrick Lamar has the year’s top album, DAMN.
As for why there were no women in the year-end top 10, Billboard notes that, thanks to its popularity on streaming services, rap songs took over the Hot 100 in 2017, and that’s a male-dominated genre. What’s more, female powerhouses Adele and Taylor Swift were between albums for most of 2017.
The highest-ranking woman on the Top Artists list is Ariana Grande at #15. The highest-ranked album by a woman is Rihanna‘s 2016 album, ANTI. On the Hot 100 Songs year-end chart, the only woman in the top 10 is Halsey, and that’s as a featured artist on the song “Closer.” The highest-ranked solo woman the year-end chart is Cardi B, thanks to “Bodak Yellow.”
As for the Top 10 New Artists of 2017, there’s only one woman on the list: Cardi B, in at #7. The #1 Top New Artist is rapper Lil Uzi Vert, followed by Khalid, Niall Horan, rapper Kodak Black, 21 Savage, James Arthur, rapper XXXTentacion, Harry Styles, and country star Brett Young.
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