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Morgan Wallen Tops Apple Music's 2023 Song Chart While Taylor Swift, SZA Also Lead Streaming Lists

(FILES) US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs during her Eras Tour at Sofi stadium in Inglewood, California, August 7, 2023. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP)
(FILES) US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs during her Eras Tour at Sofi stadium in Inglewood, California, August 7, 2023. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP)
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Morgan Wallen Tops Apple Music's 2023 Song Chart While Taylor Swift, SZA Also Lead Streaming Lists

(FILES) US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs during her Eras Tour at Sofi stadium in Inglewood, California, August 7, 2023. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP)
(FILES) US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs during her Eras Tour at Sofi stadium in Inglewood, California, August 7, 2023. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP)

Country singer Morgan Wallen ’s “Last Night” topped Apple Music’s global song chart in 2023 as the giant music streamer released year-end lists Tuesday and provided listeners with data on their own most listened-to tunes.
Wallen’s hit emerged as the country song with the most days — 52 — at No. 1 on the Global Daily Top 100 chart.
Nigerian rapper Rema’s “Calm Down” remix with Selena Gomez was No. 12 on the global songs chart, the highest entry, ever, for an African song. (“Calm Down” was No. 1 on the streamer’s Shazam chart.)
Joining “Last Night” at the very top of the global songs list were “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus in second, “Kill Bill” by SZA in third, “Rich Flex” by Drake and 21 Savage in fourth, and another SZA track in fifth slot: “Snooze,” which was followed by Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.”
SZA, who leads the 2024 Grammy nominations, topped Apple's most-read lyrics in 2023 for her smash single, “Kill Bill.”
Wallen’s “Last Night” stayed atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 16 weeks this year, beating Harry Styles’ “As It Was” for the record of longest No. 1 run for a non-collaboration. It also tied Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee feat. Justin Bieber’s “Despacito” for the title of second-longest reign in Hot 100’s 65-year history.
New to 2023's suite of year-end charts is the inclusion of an Apple Music Sing chart, which allows users to view which songs fan sang along the most to this year. On the inaugural chart, J-pop duo YOASOBI hit No. 1 with their song “アイドル(Idol).”
Apple’s data also shows the growing presence of Música Mexicana globally. Peso Pluma and Eslabon Armado’s history-making “Ella Baila Sola” made it to No. 18 on the Global Daily Top 100, which also featured Grupo Frontera and Bad Bunny’s “un x100to,” Peso Pluma and Natanael Cano’s “PRC,” and Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera’s “Bebe Dame.”
Also available Tuesday is Replay — Apple’s alternative to Spotify’s Wrapped playlist — which allows Apple Music subscribers to engage with what music was most popular on the streaming service this year.
In November, Apple Music named Taylor Swift its artist of the year, after the pop superstar broke incredible records: In the first 10 months of 2023, 65 of Swift's songs reached Apple Music’s Global Daily Top 100. The Eras Tour was a catalyst: Streams grew 61% globally when she kicked off her landmark concert tour in March, and continued to build.
“Taylor Swift’s impact on music is absolutely undeniable — not just this record-breaking year, but throughout her entire career," Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats, said in a statement. “She is a generation-defining artist and a true change agent in the music industry, and there is no doubt that her impact and influence will be felt for years to come."

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Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
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Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)

Jack Nicholson did not want to go to the Oscars. It was 1976 and he was nominated for best actor in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The Miloš Forman film, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a nationwide theatrical re-release on July 13 and July 16, had become a bit of a sensation — the second highest grossing picture of 1975, behind “Jaws,” and had received nine Oscar nominations.

But Nicholson wasn’t feeling optimistic. In five years, he’d already been nominated five times. He’d also lost five times. And he told his producer, Michael Douglas, that he couldn’t go through it again.

“I remember how hard I had to persuade Jack to come to the ceremony. He was so reluctant, but we got him there,” Douglas said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “And then of course we lost the first four awards. Jack was sitting right in front of me and sort of leaned back and said ’Oh, Mikey D, Mikey D, I told you, man.’ I just said, ‘Hang in there.’”

Douglas, of course, was right. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” would go on to sweep the “big five” — screenplay, director, actor, actress and picture — the first film to do so in 41 years, (“It Happened One Night,” in 1934) which only “The Silence of the Lambs” has done since. That night was one of many vindicating moments for a film that no one wanted to make or distribute that has quite literally stood the test of time.

“This is my first 50th anniversary,” Douglas said. “It’s the first movie I ever produced. To have a movie that’s so lasting, that people get a lot out of, it’s a wonderful feeling. It’s bringing back a lot of great memories.”

The film adaption of Ken Kesey’s countercultural novel was a defining moment for Douglas, a son of Hollywood who was stuck in television and got a lifeline to film when his father, Kirk Douglas, gave him the rights to the book, and many of the then-unknown cast like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd.

DeVito was actually the first person officially cast. Douglas, who’d known him for nearly 10 years, brought Forman to see him play Martini on stage.

“Miloš said, ‘Yes! Danny! Perfect! Cast!’” Douglas said in his best Czech accent. “It was a big moment for Danny. But I always knew how talented he was.”

A Joyful Shoot

Though the film's themes are challenging, unlike many of its New Hollywood contemporaries it wasn’t a tortured shoot by any stretch. They had their annoyances (like Forman refusing to show the cast dailies) and more serious trials (they found out halfway through production that William Redfield was dying of leukemia), but for the most part it was fun.

“We were very serious about the work, because Miloš was very serious. And we had the material, Kesey’s work, and the reverence for that. We were not frivolous about it. But we did have a ball doing it,” DeVito said, laughing.

Part of that is because they filmed on location at a real state hospital in Salem, Oregon. Everyone stayed in the same motel and would board the same bus in the morning to get to set. It would have been hard not to bond and even harder if they hadn’t.

“There was full commitment,” Douglas said. “That comes when you don’t go home at night to your own lives. We stopped for lunch on the first day and I saw Jack kind of push his tray away and go outside to get some air. I said, ‘Jack, you OK?’ He said, ’Who are these guys? Nobody breaks character! It’s lunch time and they’re all acting the same way!'”

Not disproving Nicholson’s point, DeVito remembers he and the cast even asked if they could just sleep in the hospital.

“They wouldn’t let us,” DeVito said. “The floor above us had some seriously disturbed people who had committed murder.”

A lasting legacy

The film will be in theaters again on July 13 and July 16 from Fathom Entertainment. It’s a new 4K restoration from the Academy Film Archive and Teatro Della Pace Films with an introduction by Leonard Maltin.

“It’s a gorgeous print and reminds me how good the sound was,” Douglas said.

DeVito thinks it, “holds up in a really big way, because Miloš really was paying attention to all great things in the screenplay and the story originally.”

Besides the shock of “holy Toledo, am I that old?” DeVito said that it was a treasure to be part of — and he continues to see his old friends, including Douglas, Lloyd and, of course, Nicholson, who played the protagonist, R.P. McMurphy.

One person Douglas thinks hasn’t gotten the proper attention for his contributions to “Cuckoo’s Nest” is producer Saul Zaentz, who died in 2014. His music company, Fantasy Records who had Creedence Clearwater Revival, funded the endeavor which started at a $1.6 million budget and ballooned to $4 million by the end. He was a gambler, Douglas said, and it paid off.

And whatever sour grapes might have existed between Douglas and his father, who played R.P. McMurphy on Broadway and dreamt of doing so on film, were perhaps over-exaggerated. It was ultimately important for their relationship.

“McMurphy is as good a part as any actor is going to get, and I’m now far enough in my career to understand maybe you have four, maybe five good parts, really great parts. I’m sure for dad that was one of them,” Douglas said.

“To not be able to see it through was probably disappointing on one side. On the other, the fact that his son did it and the picture turned out so good? Thank God the picture turned out. It would have been a disaster if it hadn’t.”

Douglas added: “It was a fairy tale from beginning to end. I doubt anything else really came close to it. Even my Oscar for best actor years later didn’t really surpass that moment very early in my career.”