The Top 2000 tradition, a poll of radio listeners’ favourite records, celebrates its 25^th anniversary this year, with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody in the top spot for the 20th time.

The countdown is played every December on NPO Radio 2 and attracts hundreds of thousands of extra listeners. “Different generations listen together and it has almost become cultural heritage,” radio expert Arjan Snijders told NOS Nieuws. “As long as we listen to radio, the Top 2000 will be with us.”

Uunco Cerfontaine manager of commercial radio station Sky Radio said radio is more of a complete product than a streaming service like Spotify. “It is a sort of end of year tradition,” he said. “You close off the year with the Top 2000 and oliebollen… it is about hearing all those classic songs again.”

The list has been manipulated in the past by a radio boss who refused to have Het is nog nooit zo donker west from Groningen singer Ede Staal at the top of the list, and in the early days, the ranking was compiled by the station, not the public.

Nowadays listeners try to pack the vote as well. The number Utereg me stadje from Herman Berkien has a place in the list this year after Joop de Jager launched a campaign because he missed Utrecht accents.

And two years ago, Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale, was shunted up the ranking because it was a favourite of murdered television journalist Peter R de Vries.

Bohemian Rhapsody, which dates from 1975, has only been ousted from the top spot five times in the listing’s history, twice by the Eagles Hotel California, once by Imagine by John Lennon, once by Avond from Boudewijn de Groot and in 2020 by Roller Coaster from Danny Vera.

This year’s top 10:

1. Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
2. Danny Vera – Roller Coaster
3. Eagles – Hotel California
4. Billy Joel – Piano Man
5. Coldplay – Fix You
6. Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven
7. Pearl Jam – Black
8. Boudewijn de Groot – Avond
9. Metallica – Nothing Else Matters
10. Queen – Love of My Life

The Top 2000 has also spawned a number of other lists, including its own spin-off, The Extra 500 – numbers which failed to make the main ranking.

Radio 10 has the Top 4000 since 2005, which is also based on listeners’ preferences. There too Bohemian Rhapsody has topped the list in all but three years.

Radio Veronica has the Top 1000 of All Time,  topped by Golden Earring’s Radar Love while NP Radio 5 has the Evergreen Top 1000, which is broadcast in late November.

Q-Music also has a Top 1000, which is this year topped by, yes, you guessed it, Bohemian Rhapsody.