Top 100 Songs of 1997: The Year-End Chart

“Candle In The Wind 1997 / Something About The Way You Look Tonight” by Elton John was the biggest hit of 1997, finishing at No. 1 on the year-end Top 100 ahead of “Foolish Games / You Were Meant For Me” by Jewel and “I'll Be Missing You” by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans. The year-end chart ranks the songs that performed best across the whole year, not just in a single week.

12 acts placed more than one song on the list, led by Toni Braxton (3), Spice Girls (3), Puff Daddy (2), R. Kelly (2), Keith Sweat (2). 14 of the 100 were holdovers from the 1996 list, so 86 songs were new to the year-end chart.

The 1990s: the sound of the era

R&B and hip-hop became central to the pop charts in the 1990s, alongside dance-pop, grunge-era rock and, by the end of the decade, a new wave of teen pop. Changes to how the charts counted sales and airplay in 1991 made the year-end lists more closely reflect what people actually bought and heard.

Born in 1979? This was the year you turned 18. Tune the mixer to your year, or try today’s Name That Year game.

The full 1997 year-end Top 100

Source: Billboard’s year-end singles chart, as compiled on Wikipedia. Hey DJ 4U is an independent site, not affiliated with Billboard. ▶ plays the song in Hey DJ 4U; ♪ searches for it on Apple Music. Spotted an error? Tell us.