Billboard’s Hot 100, started in 1958, ranks trending songs using a formula that includes sales, airplay, and streaming to quantify the most popular songs each week. The data from all the years and categories of Billboard charts tell an interesting story of the national music industry.
If you were to think of highly distinguished pop artists, the people who dominate the airwaves, The King of Pop surely comes to mind. In fact, Michael Jackson was the first ever to achieve five No. 1 songs from the same album. Over the span of nine months in 1987-88, “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Bad,” “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Man in the Mirror,” and “Dirty Diana” were able to take over the airwaves for seven weeks. The next person to do so was Katy Perry, with five No. 1’s from Teenage Dream between 2010-11. In many ways, Katy Perry rivals MJ’s streak, holding the No. 1 spot for 18 weeks in 14 months. Because of this run, she also holds the record for most consecutive weeks in the top 10, with singles “California Gurls,” “Teenage Dream,” “Firework,” “E.T.” and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” charting for 69 consecutive weeks.
To quantify Beatlemania, The Beatles locked out the top two spots in two charts, with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “Twist and Shout,” alternating positions for nine consecutive weeks in the Hot 100 and Meet the Beatles! and The Beatles Second Album in the Billboard 200 albums. The Beatles have a record 20 No. 1’s and 34 total top 10s, and as such Billboard names them No. 1 on the Greatest of All-Time Hot 100 Artists chart, with Madonna at No. 2. This chart factors No. 1 singles and top 10 singles, though Drake and Taylor Swift beat both Madonna and The Beatles in most top 10s, with 67 and 40 respectively.
Drake holds a number of Billboard records, with the most No. 2 singles (9), most top five (34), most No.1 debuts (7), and most top 10 debuts (52). For his highly anticipated album Certified Lover Boy in the fall of 2021, Drake became the first artist to debut 9 songs in the top 10, with only The Kid LAROI and Justin Beiber’s “Stay” preventing a complete shutout. The next week, “Stay” had regained No. 1 and only three songs from Drake’s album remained in the top 10. All ten spots would first be occupied by Taylor Swift with the release of Midnights, which on its second week retained four of the top 10 spots, and on its third, just “Anti-Hero” remained at No. 1, with Drake and 21 Savage taking up spots two through eight. Drake has two of the longest-running streaks in the Hot 100, did not leave the Hot 100 for 431 weeks between May 2009 and August 2017, and again with 188 weeks from February 2018 to September 2021.
Mariah Carey holds the record for most cumulative weeks at No. 1, with 91 total weeks, in no small part due to “All I Want for Christmas is You,” which has held the No. 1 for 12 weeks across the past five years. Her song with Boyz II Men, “One Sweet Day,” shares second place with “Despacito” on most weeks at number one, the number one spot being taken by “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus.
To achieve a No. 1 hit, a large part of the country needs to be tuning in; the repeat record-breakers clearly hold weight as the music industry’s heavy hitters. The wisdom of the crowd is not always true, so the Billboard charts are not perfect for capturing the music landscape, but the metrics they collect give insight into decades of audience tastes.
