Reporters Alyssa Pepsny and Nina Areyan sought out this year’s top ten musical artists with help from the student body of Shore Regional.

As the year comes to an end, members of Shore Regional’s The Beacon have been seeking this year’s best tidings. With all the chaos and revel, this year has quite the list to choose from. One particular area that did quite well this year was the music industry. From setting new records to the surprising romance scandals, the world of music has still found ways to entertain the public.

Before approaching students and the public, we conducted a thorough investigation to seek out who truly topped the charts this year. Using streaming platforms and Billboard’s official chart archive, candidates for the chart were not hard to find. Before we had even turned to the internet, we predicted the rankings of the list. Here were our predictions:

#1.  Drake

#2.  Justin Bieber

#3.  Rihanna

#4.  Kanye West

#5.  The Chainsmokers

#6. The Weeknd

#7. Ariana Grande

#8. Beyonce

#9. Shawn Mendes

#10. Sia

Surprisingly enough, our list of predictions were quite similar to that of the internet’s. However, we wanted to take it one step further and seek input from the students right here at Shore Regional. We created a Google form with several questions relating to this year’s musical acts. Our list completely differed that of the student body! The responses are as follows:

#1. Beyonce

#2. The Chainsmokers

#3. Drake

#4. Ariana Grande

#5. Rihanna

#6. Justin Bieber

#7. The Weeknd

#8. Shawn Mendes

#9. Sia

#10. Kanye West
What was quite interesting was seeing what an important role publicity and relevance plays in the music industry. It seems as though artists’ with later album release dates gained more publicity and attraction and essentially overshadowed artists’ with album releases early in the year. With that being said, Beyonce’s win may not come as much of a surprise. Sophomore Grace Leslie states ”It isn’t much of a surprise. Her social media image truly does contribute to her success”.  Another tactic that has become more and more prevalent in the music industry is the use of publicity. With social media by their side, musicians have been releasing previews and “sneak peaks” of their work to remind consumers that new music is soon to come. This is a popular advantage among those in the industry and continues to ensure guaranteed success.