The top 100 of 2009

With the chart year complete (mid-December 2008 to mid-December 2009), it's time to rank the year's 100 biggest hits. At the top is Uncle Kracker's "Smile," a song that spent more weeks at No. 1 -- four -- than any other this year. It's by far his biggest hit on my charts. (Had the charts been active when his remake of Dobie Gray's "Drift Away" was popular, that would've come close.)

Long chart runs can propel a song toward the top even if the song spends one week -- or no weeks -- at No. 1. Four of the year's Top 10 are songs that spent one week each at the top but more than 20 weeks on the survey: Darius Rucker's "It Won't Be Like This for Long," Nickelback's "If Today Was Your Last Day," Sister Hazel's "This Kind of Love" and the most recent, Owl City's "Fireflies." (That song is still in the survey, in its 23rd week.) Among the songs that did not hit No. 1, the biggest is No. 29, Carolina Liar's "Show Me What I'm Looking For." An 11-week run in the Top 10, with five weeks at No. 2, gave that song its year-end chart power.

No one artist dominated the charts this year, but several placed two songs in the year-end survey: David Cook, Whitney Houston, Keith Urban, James Morrison, Nelly Furtado, John Legend, Bruce Springsteen, The Fray, Solange, Mariah Carey and India.Arie.