Spotify Wrapped and its ilk may have told us what the world has been listening to in 2024, but which songs have guitarists and pianists been learning to play? Muse Group - owner of both Ultimate Guitar and MuseScore, popular repositories of guitar tab and piano notation respectively - has now given us a good idea by revealing some of its key year-end stats.
In terms of songs released in 2024, it turns out that the clear winners are Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, whose Die With a Smile topped the rankings on both websites. Billie Eilish’s Birds Of A Feather and Wildflower also feature in both top 10s, as do Chappell Roan’s Good Luck, Babe! and Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things.
It’s also noteworthy that Gracie Abrams has attracted the attention of budding guitarists - they’re keen to learn both I Love You, I’m Sorry and That’s So True - while K-Pop star IU’s Love Wins All lands at an impressive second place in the MuseScore chart.
The most surprising entry, though (for us, anyway), is Gigi Perez’s Sailor Song, a track that completely passed us by but became a TikTok sensation and reached number 1 in the UK singles chart. It was the second most popular song on Ultimate Guitar and number 5 on MuseScore.
If you factor in songs from across musical history, of course, the charts look very different. Guitarists are still very keen to learn The Eagles’ Hotel California and Radiohead’s Creep, for example.
Less predictably, JVKE and Joe Hisaishi top the MuseScore chart with Golden Hour and Merry-Go-Round of Life respectively, with Kanye West (Runaway) and Patrick Watson (Je Te Laisserai Des Mots) landing at numbers 3 and 4. Who knew?
Filter the guitar tab down to just pop music, though, and Ed Sheeran is a clear winner, filling numbers 1, 2 and 4 in the chart with Perfect, Photograph and Thinking Out Loud. It’s a very ballad-heavy list, in fact, with Bruno Mars, James Arthur and Adele also riding high.
None of the aforementioned artists, though, is the most viewed on MuseScore. Here, good old Ludvig van Beethoven reigns supreme, with Hans Zimmer coming an impressive second.
Spare a thought for Mozart, though, who only creeps into the top 10 behind the likes of Coldplay, Toby Fox and JVKE. Tough crowd.
The complete charts from Ultimate Guitar and MuseScore are below.
Top 10 tabs and scores of songs released in 2024
Ultimate Guitar
- Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars – Die With a Smile
- Gigi Perez – Sailor Song
- Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather
- Hozier – Too Sweet
- Billie Eilish – Wildflower
- Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
- Benson Boone – Beautiful Things
- Gracie Abrams – I Love You, I’m Sorry
- Sabrina Carpenter – Please Please Please
- Gracie Abrams – That’s So True
MuseScore
- Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars – Die With a Smile
- IU – Love Wins All
- Benson Boone – Beautiful Things
- Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather
- Gigi Perez – Sailor Song
- Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
- Hazbin Hotel – Stayed Gone
- ROSÉ, Bruno Mars – APT.
- HOYO-MiX – If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
- Billie Eilish – Wildflower
Top 10 tabs and scores of songs released from throughout history
Ultimate Guitar
- Eagles – Hotel California
- Radiohead – Creep
- Ed Sheeran – Perfect
- John Denver – Take Me Home, Country Roads
- Elvis Presley – Can’t Help Falling in Love
- Oasis – Wonderwall
- Goo Goo Dolls – Iris
- Coldplay – Yellow
- Vance Joy – Riptide
- The Cranberries – Linger
MuseScore
- JVKE – Golden Hour
- Joe Hisaishi – Merry-Go-Round of Life
- Kanye West – Runaway
- Patrick Watson – Je Te Laisserai Des Mots
- Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For?
- Laufey – From The Start
- Hans Zimmer – Interstellar
- Dmitri Shostakovich – Waltz From The First Echelon, Op. 99
- Tom Odell – Another Love
- Stefano Landi – Passacaglia Della Vita
Ultimate Guitar top 10 pop tabs
- Ed Sheeran – Perfect
- Ed Sheeran – Photograph
- Bruno Mars – When I Was Your Man
- Ed Sheeran – Thinking Out Loud
- James Arthur – Say You Won’t Let Go
- Adele – Make You Feel My Love
- ABBA – Slipping Through My Fingers
- One Direction – Night Changes
- Conan Gray – Heather
- Bee Gees – How Deep Is Your Love
MuseScore most-viewed artists
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Hans Zimmer
- Joe Hisaishi
- Coldplay
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Toby Fox
- Koji Kondo
- Frédéric Chopin
- JVKE
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
