Most Covered Song per Original Year

Ever wondered which song, released in 2016, has been covered the most? We have compiled this for every year since 1891!

View the entire list, and below are the last 10 years... with 3 times Adele! Impressive!

• 2016: The Chainsmokers' Closer
• 2015: Adele's Hello
• 2014: Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud
• 2013: John Legend's All of Me
• 2012: Rihanna's Stay
• 2011: Adele's Someone Like You
• 2010: Adele's Rolling in the Deep
• 2009: Lady Gaga's Bad Romance
• 2008: Coldplay's Viva la vida
• 2007: Timbaland's Apologize

Oooh, what a wonderful feature!!! Now I'll spend hours and hours just scrolling through this list thoroughly. Really exciting. And I must admit many of the songs are really characteristic for the years they belong to. They'd make a successful playlist for a discotheque, I guess.

Shouldn't Summertime be the most covered song for 1935?

Fixed. The list didn't include works with first performances.

Cool!

But I had to really smile when I saw "Med sukker på", an Alf Prøysen classic from the 60s being the third most covered song from 2007. Problem is that most of the covers are from well before 2007. The reason it is in the list, is that song's original melody, written in 1960, was not released until 2007, by Prøysen's daughter. Most Norwegians would know this song with the melody by Monn-Iversen that was written later and first performed in 1974. And this is the version that is most covered.

Prøysen himself recorded the song for Norwegian radio in 1963, which is the first recording of the original melody. However, this has never been released on record, only in songbooks. Thus, it is the third most covered song from 2007 1963 feels like the correct year though, maybe even 1960.

Quote from Bastien

Ever wondered which song, released in 2016, has been covered the most? We have compiled this for every year since 1891!

Wonderful, but keep in mind this is a subjective list, because they are the most covered songs ON SHS.

JoJo greets

Of course jojo. ALL statistics we publish are biased by the profile, interests and knowledge of our editor team

To me, the top places of these statistics are unbiased, as we cover the most popular songs exhaustively. I doubt there is any song missing with more covers than those songs we show in the list. Yes, definitely the 19th-century-songs statistics are biased, but from the 1930s til now our list is highly trustful, I'd say.

Nice, thanks!

Quote from dudek

Yes, definitely the 19th-century-songs statistics are biased, but from the 1930s til now our list is highly trustful, I'd say.

Mmm, in recent decades (80s-now), the amount of covers are sometimes pretty low, so nothing definite there. This is also a good place to express my longtime wondering about the overwhelming number of Ramones & Depeche Mode covers on the site.

Well, twelve Beatles songs in the top 3 resp. 5 x no. 1 between 1963 to 1969 (1969: all three) are surely not surprising and "Enjoy the Silence"'s no. 1 for 1990 isn't, either... "Gabriellas sång"'s and "All I Want for Christmas Is You"'s and some more are surely listed thanks to dedicated editors, though.

As for 3 x Adele in the last ten years: Looks like we should have another look into Amy Winehouse covers

Notwithstanding the above (and more), I'd say the statistic is generally quite representative. However, the database itself is even more so. And, in spite of never endingly growing, unbeatable, anyway...

Just wanted to add that I really enjoy this new feature, and the related discussion too. Good work, team!

Thank you JoAnn