Beyoncé Tops Google's Year-End List of Most Searched Artists and Songs
By Jon Wiederhorn
MOUNTAIN VIEW (RADIO.COM) – The ubiquitous search engine Google has revealed its most searched artists and songs of 2016 and Beyoncé has topped both lists. The other artists in the top five are Céline Dion, Kesha, Kehlani and Coldplay. And on the most searched songs list Queen Bey's "Formation" came in ahead of Prince's "Purple Rain" and Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles," Billboard reports.
One contributing factor could have been that neither Formation or Purple Rain were available on iTunes, thereby forcing fans to take so search engines to locate the albums.
Google's top 10 music artist search list reveals the public's insatiable hunger for celebrity news. Beyoncé's groundbreaking Lemonade album, long-form video and tour kept her in the headlines all year. Dion took second place due to the tragic death of her husband Rene Angelil and her return to the Vegas stage. Kesha maintained readers interest due to her ongoing legal battle with former label boss and producer Dr. Luke and Kehlani earned search hits because of her hospitalization in May, curiosity about her upcoming album and her spot on the Suicide Squad soundtrack.
Interestingly, Teyana Taylor, who starred in Kanye West's striking video "Fade" grabbed the number six slot, beating West, who, surprisingly, only reached number eight, despite all the controversies and headlines. Grace VanderWaal, the winner of this year's America's Got Talent, took number seven, social star Jacob Sartorius landed at eight and the reunited Guns N' Roses made the final spot of the top ten.
Here are the top 10 most Googled songs of the year:
- Beyoncé — "Formation"
- Prince — "Purple Rain"
- Rae Sremmurd — "Black Beatles"
- Desiigner — "Panda"
- Drake — "One Dance"
- DNCE — "Cake by the Ocean"
- Adele — "Hello"
- Ruth B — "Lost Boy"
- Disturbed — "Sound of Silence"
- Mike Posner — "I Took a Pill in Ibiza"
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