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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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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.