The project
ARIA ranked them then.
Streams rank them now.
Back in the day the ARIA charts captured what Aussies were buying and what radio couldn't stop playing. Streaming data now captures what people are going back to. The gap between the two can tell a more interesting story about music and culture than either does alone.
So pick a year and find out which songs won the long game*.
King Hit
Big then, still big now.
Sleeper
Charted low. Streams high.
Fader
Charted high. Streams faded.
Choose a year
How the scoring works ↓1990
The song at #43 is now the most-streamed of the year. By a long way.
1991
The song at #83 turned out to be one of the most-streamed of the decade.
1992
The most-streamed song of the year wasn't in the top 50.
1993
The song at #91 moved 90 places. It now has 2.9 billion streams.
1994
The song at #94 has been streamed 2.9 billion times. It moved 93 places.
1995
One of the few years the #1 song actually held its ground.
1996
The #1 song of 1996 had one of the steepest falls of all.
1997
The #1 song has 63 million streams. The song at #62 has 1.6 billion.
1998
The #1 song has 20 million streams. One song in the top five has 3.4 billion.
1999
The #1 song didn't win the long game. Neither did most of the top 10.
2000
The most-streamed song of the year charted at #57.
2001
The song at #33 now has 4 billion streams. The #1 has under 400 million.
2002
The song at #95 jumped 92 places and passed 2 billion streams.
2003
The #1 song now ranks 62nd for streams. The song at #87 ranks second.
2004
Not one song from the top 10 is still in the top 10 by streams.
2005
The song at #95 moved 87 places. It now has 1.2 billion streams.
2006
The song at #11 fell 87 places. It's been streamed fewer than half a million times.
2007
The song at #92 has nearly a billion streams. Only one of the top 10 held on.
2008
The #1 song is still top 10 for streams, with 1.7 billion.
2009
The song at #92 is the most-streamed of the year. It charted the year before too.
2010
32 songs from 2010 have passed a billion streams. More than any other year.
How it works
We took every ARIA Top 100 from 1990 to 2010 and re-ranked each song by streams. Here's how to read what came out.
KING HIT
One per year. The song that ranked highest based on both the original ARIA chart and total streams today. Big then, still big now, with the numbers to back it up.
SLEEPERS
Songs that have accumulated far more streams than their original chart position would suggest. The scoring accounts for where they charted so a #80 song with millions of streams now beats a #5 song with only thousands. That gap is what makes it a Sleeper.
FADERS
The flip side. These songs ranked well at the time but have underperformed on streaming relative to their chart position. The higher they charted, the more they had to live up to.
1990–2010
Years
21
ARIA Charts
619.5B
Streams
Chart data: ARIA Top 100, 1990–2010. Stream counts sourced from Spotify, October 2026. Rankings calculated within each year.
*This project and the data within has been developed with a bit of curiosity and a lot of Claude and Lovable. Don't rely on it for anything more than nostalgia and arguments with your mates about which songs were overrated/underrated.