Adult Contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

is a chart published by '' Billboard'' ranking the top-performing songs in the United States in the

adult contemporary music Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

(AC) market. In 2017, 11 different songs topped the chart in 52 issues of the magazine, based on weekly

airplay Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in n ...

data from radio stations compiled by

Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems Broadcast Data Systems (also known as BDS or Luminate BDS), is a service that tracks radio, television and internet airplay of songs. The service, which is a unit of MRC Data, is a contributing factor to North American charts published by co-owned ...

. In the first issue of ''Billboard'' of 2017 singers

Brett Eldredge Brett Ryan Eldredge (born March 23, 1986) is an American country music singer, songwriter and record producer, signed to Warner Music Group Nashville. Eldredge has had five No. 1 singles on the ''Billboard'' Country Airplay chart, three of ...

and

Meghan Trainor Meghan Elizabeth Trainor (born December 22, 1993) is an American singer-songwriter and television personality. She rose to prominence after signing with Epic Records in 2014 and releasing her debut single "All About That Bass", which reached ...

moved up to number one with their version of "

Baby, It's Cold Outside "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a popular song written by Frank Loesser in 1944 and popularized in the 1949 film '' Neptune's Daughter''. While the lyrics make no mention of a holiday, it is commonly regarded as a Christmas song owing to its winter ...

", displacing another festive song, " This Christmas" by the band

Train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

. The following week, as the chart began to reflect post-Christmas airplay, Eldredge and Trainor's song dropped all the way to number 30, the chart's lowest position, and was replaced in the top spot by

Adele Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (, ; born 5 May 1988), professionally known by the mononym Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a rec ...

's song "

Send My Love (To Your New Lover) "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter Adele for her third studio album, ''25''. It was written by Adele, Max Martin and Shellback, with the latter two also handling its production. The song was fir ...

". In the issue dated February 25, Justin Timberlake's song "

Can't Stop the Feeling! "Can't Stop the Feeling!" is a song recorded by American singer Justin Timberlake. It was released on May 6, 2016, as the lead single of the soundtrack to the film '' Trolls'' (2016), in which Timberlake voiced the character "Branch" and served a ...

" regained the top spot more than nine months after it first entered the chart, in its 41st week on the listing. The song, taken from the soundtrack of the film ''

Trolls A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...

'', had been one of the biggest hits of 2016, topping both the AC chart and ''Billboard''s all-genre chart, the Hot 100. In January 2017 it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and shortly after it regained the number one position on the Adult Contemporary listing Timberlake performed the song at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony. In early May, British singer

Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran (; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently re ...

's song "

Shape of You "Shape of You" is a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. It was released on 6 January 2017 as one of the double lead singles from his third studio album '' ÷'' (2017), along with "Castle on the Hill". The dancehall and R&B-infused ...

" reached number one, a position which it went on to hold for more than five months without interruption. The track's total of 24 weeks atop the chart was the second-longest run by a song at number one on the AC listing to date, behind only

Uncle Kracker Matthew Shafer (born June 6, 1974), also known by his stage name Uncle Kracker, is an American singer and musician. He was previously a turntablist for Kid Rock's backing group Twisted Brown Trucker and since 1999 has recorded as a solo artist. ...

's 2003 recording of " Drift Away", which spent 28 weeks in the top spot. "Shape of You" was the biggest-selling song of the year in the United States, and topped the Hot 100, as well as a number of genre-specific charts ranging from Adult Contemporary to Dance Club Songs. It was finally displaced from the top of the Adult Contemporary chart in the issue of ''Billboard'' dated October 21 by "

Something Just Like This "Something Just Like This" is a song by American electronic music duo The Chainsmokers and British rock band Coldplay. It was released on February 22, 2017, as the second single from The Chainsmokers debut album, '' Memories...Do Not Open'', and ...

", a collaboration between American DJ/production duo the Chainsmokers and British band

Coldplay Coldplay are a British rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer Will Champion and creative director Phil Harvey. They met at University ...

, another example of a song that achieved success in both the Adult Contemporary and dance music markets. Having started with a festive song at number one, the year ended with another in the top spot, as Australian singer

Sia Sia Kate Isobelle Furler ( ; born 18 December 1975) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Adelaide, she started her career as a singer in the acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s. In 1997, when Crisp disbanded, she rel ...

topped the chart for the final two weeks of the year with her song " Santa's Coming for Us".

Chart history

Alessia_Cara_at_the_Capital_Pride_Concert

References

{{Adult Contemporary Chart

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

Number-one adult contemporary singles United States Adult Contemporary

Chart history

See also

References