MUSIC: MTV PROPS FOR DRAKE, FETTY WAP
Fetty Wap named top artist, Drake’s Hotline Bling named top song
NEW YORK — Hello? MTV is out with its list of 2015’s top musical artists, and Adele only made it to No. 7 despite selling more than twice as many albums as anyone else this year.
Fetty Wap, whose songs Trap Queen and My Way established him as a rapper to watch, was named top artist. Drake’s booty call groove, Hotline Bling, was chosen by the network’s staff as the best song of the year.
Besides Fetty Wap, MTV judged Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber and Kendrick Lamar above Adele for best artist. Adele sold nearly 4.5 million copies of her new album, 25, in the U.S. in just two weeks. The No. 2 album in sales, Swift’s 1989, has sold just under 1.8 million copies for all of 2015, the Nielsen company said.
“There’s a strong argument that (Adele) could be No. 1 and we welcome that back-and-forth,” MTV senior news director Eric Ditzian said. “We wanted to take into context all of 2015.”
Adele’s new disc was released Nov. 20, with the Hello single out a month earlier.
Besides sales, MTV considers streams, impact on pop culture and an artist’s contact with fans through social media in its decision. Adele is relatively low key in social media and, thus far, hasn’t made songs from 25 available for streaming through sources like Spotify.
Adele’s Hello was everywhere for the past month, but ranked No. 2 to Drake for best song. Hotline Bling was “inescapable in a very good way,” Ditzian said.
Rounding out MTV’s top five best songs were Can’t Feel My Face by The Weeknd, Lamar’s Alright and Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon.
MTV said the best movies of 2015 were Furious 7, Straight Outta Compton and Dope.