Billboard Hot | 100 1997

Where was rock? It had one foot out the door. No rock song cracked the year-end top 10. The highest? (a distant #21) and Sugar Ray’s "Fly" (#25). Radio was already switching to "smooth rock" (Hootie, Matchbox Twenty) or hip-hop. The guitar solo was on borrowed time.

The #1 song of the year wasn’t a club banger or a rock anthem. It was Elton John’s reworked "Candle in the Wind," performed live at Princess Diana’s funeral. The recording became the (over 33 million copies). Paired with "Something About the Way You Look Tonight," it sat at #1 on the weekly Hot 100 for 14 weeks. It was inescapable, somber, and polite—the opposite of what 1997 felt like otherwise. billboard hot 100 1997

: The Tulsa-based trio of brothers took over the airwaves with the somewhat-nihilistic yet infectious "MMMBop," which reached the top spot in May 1997. Where was rock

According to the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1997, the top song of the year was: The highest