This study concerns itself with the changing characteristics of singing within popular music. It does so by examining 100 of the most successful songs – “most successful” denoting the top selling songs, or the songs with the highest chart positions – of the last 100 years, selecting 10 songs from each decade. All 100 songs were analyzed with regards to the vocal range the singer sang in; the range between the bottommost note and the topmost note was measured (referred to as ”låtomfång”). Here it was found that the overall range shrunk and lowered during the first half of the 20th century, and then expanded and rose during the second half.  The use of physically produced vocal effects – such as distortion or breathy voice – of the 20 most popular songs (two from each decade) was also examined. Here it was found that the presence of vocal effects in the popular music analyzed in this study has developed along a similar curve to that of the vocal ranges. This means that an overall decrease of the use of vocal effects happened until the mid 20th century, whereas an overall densification of the presence vocal effects took place during the second half of the 20th century. It would also seem that the types of vocal effects more commonly used in current popular music is less associated with classical singing than the vocal effects that were in use in older popular music.