Est. August 4, 1958 · The Billboard Hot 100
The Hot 100 Files
One hundred true stories from the chart that has measured America’s taste in music for more than six decades.
Since its debut in the issue dated August 4, 1958, the Billboard Hot 100 has been the United States’ definitive song chart — a single all-genre ranking that began by blending record sales with radio airplay, and today combines paid sales, radio audience, and on-demand streaming. For generations it has settled arguments, minted stars, and recorded in cold numbers exactly when the country fell for a sound.
What follows are one hundred fact-checked stories drawn from that history — record-breaking reigns, unexpected chart battles, the quiet rule changes that rewired the whole game, and the cultural moments hiding behind the rankings. They are arranged out of order on purpose, so the decades collide. Every figure, date, and milestone here was verified before it was printed.
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The Hot 100 launches with a teen idol on top
Billboard published its first Hot 100 chart in the issue dated August 4, 1958, consolidating its older sales, airplay, and jukebox surveys into a single all-genre ranking. The inaugural number one was "Poor Little Fool" by 17-year-old Ricky Nelson, the teen star of the family sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Beneath Nelson sat a snapshot of the era, with Perez Prado's "Patricia" at number two and Elvis Presley's "Hard Headed Woman" at number four. The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard, and Billboard retired its Best Sellers in Stores chart by October 1958.
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"Old Town Road" breaks the all-time No. 1 record
Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road," featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, ruled the Hot 100 for 19 weeks in 2019, breaking the previous record of 16 weeks shared by "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito." It first reached number one on the chart dated April 13 and set marks including the most weekly U.S. streams recorded at the time, around 143 million. Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" eventually ended its reign, and the song finished as the year's number-one Hot 100 single. It was a defining example of a TikTok-fueled viral hit conquering the mainstream chart.
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Thriller breaks the singles record
Michael Jackson's 1982 album Thriller became the first album to send seven singles into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Two of them, "Billie Jean" and "Beat It," reached number one, with "Billie Jean" holding the top spot for seven weeks. The title track was the seventh and final top-10 hit, reaching number four in March 1984. The album also spent 37 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and is widely cited as the best-selling album of all time.
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SoundScan and BDS rewrite the rules
On November 30, 1991, Billboard overhauled the Hot 100, replacing store and radio surveys with point-of-sale barcode data from Nielsen SoundScan and electronically monitored airplay from Broadcast Data Systems. The automated system eliminated guesswork and the "paper adds" that radio stations reported but never played. It immediately revealed that country, hip-hop and alternative rock were far more popular than the old method had shown. Fittingly, the first number one of the new era was a hip-hop record, P.M. Dawn's "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss."
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The Beatles seize the entire top five
On the Hot 100 dated April 4, 1964, the Beatles achieved a feat no act has matched before or since, occupying all five of the chart's top positions simultaneously. "Can't Buy Me Love" led at number one, followed by "Twist and Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and "Please Please Me." In total the group placed twelve songs on the Hot 100 that single week. The closest any act has since come is 50 Cent, who landed three titles in the top five in March 2005.
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iTunes opens and begins reshaping the single
On April 28, 2003, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store with more than 200,000 tracks, offering a legal alternative to piracy services at a moment when the industry was reeling. Within six months the catalog had doubled, and by 2008 iTunes had become the second-largest music retailer in the United States. The store popularized the 99-cent paid download and helped shift the business from CDs to digital singles. The transition carried a heavy cost, as U.S. music sales fell from $11.8 billion in 2003 to roughly $7.1 billion a decade later.
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Debby Boone sets the decade's longest No. 1 run
Debby Boone's recording of "You Light Up My Life" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 15, 1977, and stayed there for ten consecutive weeks. That run was the longest of the entire 1970s and the longest in Hot 100 history to that point. Curiously, Boone's version was a cover; the rendition heard in the film of the same name was sung by Kasey Cisyk, not Boone. The single later won the Grammy for Record of the Year.
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Taylor Swift sweeps the entire top 10
On the chart dated November 5, 2022, Taylor Swift became the first artist in Hot 100 history to occupy all ten of the top spots in a single week, with every entry drawn from her album Midnights. "Anti-Hero" led the way at number one, her ninth career chart-topper, while Midnights became the first album ever to place ten songs in the top 10 at once. The feat surpassed Drake, who had logged nine of the top 10 in 2021. Swift would later repeat the full top-10 sweep in May 2024 with The Tortured Poets Department.
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Chubby Checker and the first chart-topping comeback
Chubby Checker's cover of Hank Ballard's "The Twist" first reached number one on September 19, 1960, riding a dance craze among younger fans. After Checker performed it on The Ed Sullivan Show in October 1961, the single was re-released and the dance caught on with adults, sending the same recording back to number one for two weeks beginning January 1962. This made "The Twist" the first song to top the Hot 100 in two entirely separate chart runs, a feat that would not be repeated until 2020. The achievement helped cement rock and roll's acceptance among older audiences.
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The first song to enter at No. 1
On September 2, 1995, Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone," written and produced by R. Kelly, became the first song in the Hot 100's 37-year history to debut at number one. It was Jackson's 13th and final chart-topper. Weeks later, on September 30, Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" became the second song ever to bow at the summit and the first by a woman. The achievements held a Guinness World Record and signaled how the SoundScan era's first-week sales could rocket a single straight to the top.
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"We Are the World" tops the chart in record time
The charity single "We Are the World," credited to USA for Africa, reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 13, 1985, in just its fourth week on the chart, and held the top spot for four weeks. Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones, it assembled 45 artists in a single session. It became the fastest-selling American pop single up to that point and the first single ever certified multi-platinum by the RIAA. The project raised tens of millions of dollars for African famine relief.
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The Black Eyed Peas own half a year
The Black Eyed Peas began an unprecedented stranglehold on the Hot 100 when "Boom Boom Pow" reached number one on April 18, 2009, and led for 12 weeks. It was dethroned only by the group's own "I Gotta Feeling," which then ruled for 14 weeks, the longest-running number one of the year. Together the two singles, both from the album The E.N.D., held the top spot for a record 26 consecutive weeks, roughly half of 2009. No act had ever dominated the chart for so long a continuous stretch.
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The Beatles set a length record with "Hey Jude"
Released on the Beatles' new Apple label, "Hey Jude" reached number one on September 28, 1968, and stayed there for nine weeks, the group's longest run atop the Hot 100. That tied the all-time record for weeks at number one set by Percy Faith in 1960. At seven minutes and eleven seconds, it also became the longest song ever to top the chart at that time, an unusual feat for a single built for radio. "Hey Jude" spent a remarkable nineteen weeks on the Hot 100 overall, the longest stay of any single that year.
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"Despacito" ties a two-decade-old record
Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito," featuring Justin Bieber, spent 16 weeks at number one in 2017, tying the all-time Hot 100 record then held by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day" from 1995–96. The achievement was a landmark for Latin music, as the largely Spanish-language hit dominated mainstream American radio and streaming. Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" finally ended its reign, denying it an outright 17th-week record. The original video also became the first on YouTube to surpass three billion views.
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Wings answers its critics with the year's biggest hit
Paul McCartney's post-Beatles band Wings reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 22, 1976, with "Silly Love Songs," which held the top spot for five weeks. It finished as Billboard's number-one song of the entire year. McCartney later said the breezy track was a deliberate response to critics who dismissed his lighter material. It underscored that Wings had become one of the most commercially dominant acts of the 1970s.
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The Hot 100 goes digital
On the chart dated February 12, 2005, Billboard began counting paid digital downloads from retailers such as iTunes and Rhapsody toward the Hot 100, the first major overhaul of the chart's formula since December 1998. A song could now chart on download sales alone, with or without radio airplay, even as physical sales remained part of the equation. The change shook the chart immediately, allowing some songs to debut on strong online sales and others to make sharp leaps. It laid the groundwork for streaming's later addition and reflected the collapse of the physical single.
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The Beatles arrive at number one in America
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" gave the Beatles their first American number one on the Hot 100 dated February 1, 1964, after the single had debuted just two weeks earlier. It spent seven weeks at the top and launched what would become a record-setting 20 number-one singles, the most of any act in chart history. Days after reaching the summit, the group appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show before an audience estimated at around 73 million viewers. The song's success effectively opened the floodgates of the British Invasion.
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"One Sweet Day" sets a benchmark that stood for decades
Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day" debuted at number one on December 2, 1995, and held the Billboard Hot 100 summit for 16 weeks, through March 16, 1996. The run surpassed the 14-week reigns of Houston's "I Will Always Love You" and Boyz II Men's own "I'll Make Love to You." The record stood for more than 23 years, tied by "Despacito" in 2017 and finally broken by "Old Town Road" in 2019. The ballad addressed grief over lost loved ones during the AIDS epidemic.
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MTV signs on with a knowing wink
At 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981, the cable channel MTV launched in the United States, opening its broadcast with the music video for The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star." The choice was deliberately symbolic rather than commercial: the song had only reached number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979, but its theme of new technology displacing older media suited a network built around music video. In its earliest days the channel's rotation leaned heavily toward white rock acts, a pattern that would later be challenged. MTV's arrival reshaped how records were marketed and ultimately influenced which songs could chart at all.
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Baauer's "Harlem Shake" storms in on new rules
Baauer's electronic track "Harlem Shake" debuted at number one on the Hot 100 the very week YouTube data entered the chart's methodology, dethroning Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's "Thrift Shop." The surge was powered by countless fan-made dance clips uploaded worldwide rather than by radio play. According to YouTube, the song's videos had drawn more than 100 million views, and Nielsen SoundScan reported sales jumping to 262,000 downloads in a single week. A largely unknown Brooklyn producer thus reached number one in a way no previous chart-topper ever had.
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Bobby Darin wins a Grammy while still at number one
Bobby Darin's swinging reinvention of "Mack the Knife," a song drawn from Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, reached number one on October 5, 1959, and spent nine weeks at the top, though not consecutively. While the single still sat at number one, Darin took home the Grammy for Record of the Year in late November 1959, plus the award for Best New Artist. The quick turnaround between release and a televised win meant a chart-topping record was honored as the year's best while still leading the chart. The track finished as the second-biggest song of 1959 behind Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans."
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OutKast becomes the first duo to replace itself at No. 1
OutKast released "Hey Ya!" and "The Way You Move" on the same day from the double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. "Hey Ya!," led by André 3000, reached number one on December 13, 2003, and reigned for nine weeks, with "The Way You Move" lodged at number two for eight of them. On Valentine's Day 2004, "The Way You Move," featuring Sleepy Brown, finally bumped "Hey Ya!" from the top, making OutKast the first duo in chart history to replace itself at number one. The latter single was also the 900th number one in Hot 100 history.
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Boyz II Men shatter a 36-year-old record
Boyz II Men's "End of the Road," written and produced by L.A. Reid and Babyface for the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 weeks beginning in August 1992. That run broke a longevity record that had stood since 1956, when Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" double-sided single spent 11 weeks at number one. No Hot 100-era song had previously held the summit for more than 10 weeks. The new mark would last only months before being eclipsed.
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Gloria Gaynor wins disco's only Grammy
Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" was originally issued as a B-side before club and radio DJs flipped the record and drove it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 10, 1979. The song won Best Disco Recording at the Grammy Awards, a category that was introduced that year and dropped the next, leaving it the only Grammy ever awarded specifically for disco. Its journey from afterthought B-side to anthem showed how much power dance-floor DJs held over the singles chart.
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BTS becomes the first all-South-Korean act at No. 1
BTS earned its first Hot 100 number one when "Dynamite," the group's first all-English single, debuted atop the chart in late August 2020. The seven-member group became the first all-South Korean act to lead the Hot 100, a watershed for K-pop's global reach. The debut was powered by about 33.9 million U.S. streams and 300,000 downloads, the biggest digital sales week in nearly three years. It was also one of a record number of songs to debut at number one that year, reflecting how release-week streaming bursts had reshaped the chart.
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The Supremes set a consecutive-number-one record
When "Back in My Arms Again" reached number one on June 12, 1965, the Supremes became the first group to score five consecutive chart-topping singles on the Hot 100. The streak began with "Where Did Our Love Go" in 1964 and continued through "Baby Love," "Come See About Me," and "Stop! In the Name of Love." All five were written and produced by Motown's songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland, with Diana Ross on lead vocals. The run was especially striking given that the trio had earlier been nicknamed the "no-hit Supremes" inside Motown.
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Eminem sets the record for a rap No. 1
Eminem's "Lose Yourself," the centerpiece of the 8 Mile soundtrack, reached number one on the Hot 100 on November 9, 2002, and stayed there for 12 consecutive weeks. It was his first Hot 100 number one and set the record at the time for the longest run atop the chart by a rap song. The reign bridged two years before B2K and P. Diddy's "Bump, Bump, Bump" replaced it. The song later won both the Grammy for Best Rap Song and the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
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Carole King and the rise of the singer-songwriter
Carole King had spent the 1960s writing hits for other artists before stepping out front with her album Tapestry in 1971. Its double A-side single "It's Too Late" / "I Feel the Earth Move" reached number one on the Hot 100 on June 19, 1971, and held the top for five weeks. Tapestry then logged 15 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200, a longevity record for a female solo artist that stood for more than two decades. The album helped define the confessional singer-songwriter wave that shaped the decade.
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Mariah Carey finally reaches No. 1 with her holiday classic
Mariah Carey's 1994 recording "All I Want for Christmas Is You" topped the Hot 100 for the first time on the chart dated December 21, 2019, twenty-five years after its release. The delayed coronation was driven largely by streaming, as holiday playlists pushed the song back up the chart each December. It made Carey the first artist to reach number one in four different decades, and it set the record for the longest climb to the top in chart history. The song has returned to number one every holiday season since.
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Motown breaks through with the Marvelettes
"Please Mr. Postman," the debut single by the Marvelettes, a group of young women from Inkster, Michigan, became the first Motown recording to top the Billboard Hot 100 when it reached number one on December 16, 1961. The song was a slow burner, taking fourteen weeks to climb to the summit. It also reached number one on the R&B chart and became a million-seller, announcing Berry Gordy's Motown as a chart force. The record set the stage for a decade in which the Detroit label would dominate American popular music.
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Mariah Carey passes Elvis among solo artists
Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body," released in February 2008, reached number one on the Hot 100, becoming her 18th chart-topping single. The milestone made her the solo artist with the most number-one hits in U.S. history, surpassing Elvis Presley's 17. It did not, however, break the all-time record, as the Beatles still led all acts with 20 number-one singles. The debut also gave Carey her 79th week atop the chart, tying Presley for most weeks at number one at that point.
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A soundtrack scores four No. 1 singles
The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack produced four different Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers: the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love," "Stayin' Alive," and "Night Fever," plus Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You," which reached number one on May 13, 1978. It became the first soundtrack album ever to achieve four number-one singles. The Bee Gees' "Night Fever" alone held the top for eight weeks, the longest run of any single that year.
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Shaboozey ties the all-time record
Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" tied the all-time Hot 100 record with a 19th week at number one, confirmed on the chart dated November 30, 2024, matching the reign of "Old Town Road." It also set a distinct mark as the longest-running number one by a performer with no credited accompanying artist. The achievement extended a multi-year surge for country and country-adjacent music at the top of the chart. Alongside Wallen and Lil Nas X, Shaboozey helped country songs claim the three longest number-one runs in Hot 100 history.
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A patriotic ballad becomes the year's biggest hit
"The Ballad of the Green Berets," co-written and sung by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler, reached number one on March 5, 1966, and held the spot for five weeks. Sadler, a combat medic wounded in Vietnam, wrote the song during a long hospitalization and recorded it for RCA after an underground military version took off. It was one of the rare popular songs of the era to cast the military in a positive light, and it crossed over to the easy listening and country charts. Billboard ranked it the number-one single of all of 1966.
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Billboard finally lets album cuts onto the Hot 100
Through the mid-1990s, songs needed a commercial single release to qualify for the Hot 100, so labels withheld singles to push album sales, locking radio smashes off the chart. No Doubt's "Don't Speak" spent 16 weeks atop the airplay chart yet never appeared on the Hot 100, and the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" logged a record 18 weeks at number one on airplay while ineligible. On December 5, 1998, Billboard changed the rule to admit airplay-only songs, and 60 tracks entered the chart for the first time that week. "Iris" debuted and peaked at number nine.
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Streaming quietly enters the Hot 100 formula
In the issue dated August 11, 2007, Billboard began folding weekly data from streaming and on-demand services, then sourced from platforms like AOL and Yahoo, into the Hot 100. The change took effect after a July 2007 methodology revision and was the first major formula overhaul since December 1998. At the time the impact was minimal, with streaming estimated to account for only about five percent of the chart's total points. The move nonetheless foreshadowed the streaming-dominated chart of the years to come.
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An orchestral instrumental rules 1960
Percy Faith and his Orchestra's lush instrumental "Theme from A Summer Place" climbed to number one on February 22, 1960, and held the spot for nine consecutive weeks. That run set a Hot 100 record for the era that would stand until 1977, and it remains the longest-running number-one instrumental in chart history. Billboard ranked it the top song of all of 1960, and it won the Grammy for Record of the Year. Curiously, this famous recording was not the version heard in the film; Max Steiner composed the score, and Faith arranged his own hit interpretation.
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Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" explodes out of nowhere
Olivia Rodrigo's debut single "Drivers License" entered the Hot 100 at number one in January 2021, the first chart-topper of the year and an extraordinary launch for a 17-year-old's first major release. It drew roughly 76 million U.S. streams in a single week and briefly broke Spotify's record for most daily streams for a non-holiday song. Its momentum was fueled by TikTok virality, Rodrigo's Disney following, and intense online interest in the song's backstory. The ballad spent eight weeks at number one and launched one of the decade's biggest pop breakthroughs.
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The oil embargo threatens the record business
In October 1973, the OAPEC oil embargo nearly quadrupled the price of crude over the following months. Because records were pressed from polyvinyl chloride, a petroleum-based plastic, the cost of manufacturing vinyl rose sharply and pressing plants operating on thin margins faced a supply crunch. Labels grew more cautious about which titles to press as raw-material costs climbed, illustrating how dependent the singles business was on global commodity markets. Supplies eased through 1974 after the embargo was lifted.
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Whitney Houston's streak begins
Whitney Houston reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Saving All My Love for You" on October 26, 1985, the start of a historic streak. The first three chart-toppers came from her self-titled debut album, an unprecedented run for a debut by a solo artist. She became the first woman to generate multiple number-one singles from a single album. The streak would ultimately set an all-time Hot 100 record by the spring of 1988.
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Drake lands his first No. 1 as a lead artist
Drake topped the Hot 100 as a lead artist for the first time when "One Dance," featuring Wizkid and Kyla, reached number one on the chart dated May 21, 2016. He had previously hit the summit only as a featured guest, on Rihanna's "What's My Name?" and "Work." The track, from his album Views, went on to spend ten weeks at number one and was named Billboard's Song of the Summer for 2016. It marked an early milestone in what would become the most dominant chart career of the streaming era.
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The 5th Dimension turn a musical into a number one
The 5th Dimension's medley "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In," drawn from the rock musical Hair, reached number one on April 12, 1969, and stayed at the top for six weeks. It was the first medley ever to top the American pop charts and the first number-one hit for the group's five members. The recording was made unusually, with the vocals cut in Las Vegas where the group was performing. The song went on to win the Grammy for Record of the Year, and its theme captured the era's mood of peace and idealism.
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Boyz II Men succeed themselves at the summit
Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love to You," written by Babyface, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks beginning in August 1994, tying Houston's record. Remarkably, the group's own follow-up "On Bended Knee" then replaced it at number one, making Boyz II Men only the second act in the Hot 100 era to succeed itself at the top, after the Beatles in 1964. The feat made them the first act with consecutive double-digit-week number-one runs. The two singles cemented their place among the chart's all-time longevity leaders.
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Mariah Carey's "song of the decade" comeback
After several years critics had written off, Mariah Carey returned to number one when "We Belong Together" climbed to the top of the Hot 100 on June 4, 2005, where it stayed for 14 weeks. The run ranked it, at the time, among the longest reigns in chart history, trailing only her own 16-week "One Sweet Day." Billboard would later name it the song of the decade. On the week ending August 6, 2005, it became the first song to top nine Billboard charts simultaneously.
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A boxing anthem born from a rejection
Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" began a six-week run at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 24, 1982, and became the year's second-best-selling single. The track was written for Rocky III after Sylvester Stallone failed to secure rights to Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," which had been used in an early cut of the film. Guitarist Frankie Sullivan and keyboardist Jim Peterik built the song's staccato riff to match the rhythm of the movie's training montage. It won the Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group and earned an Academy Award nomination.
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Louis Armstrong halts Beatlemania at age 62
On May 9, 1964, Louis Armstrong's recording of "Hello, Dolly!" reached number one, ending the Beatles' roughly fourteen-week stranglehold on the top of the Hot 100. At 62, Armstrong became the oldest artist to top the chart, a record among male artists that still stands. He had recorded the show tune, written by Jerry Herman for the Broadway musical, as a promotional demo in December 1963 and was reportedly surprised by its runaway success. The single went on to win Armstrong a Grammy for Best Vocal Performance, Male.
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Drake's "God's Plan" debuts at the summit
Drake's "God's Plan" entered the Hot 100 directly at number one on the chart dated February 3, 2018, powered by a then-record on-demand streaming week of roughly 82 million U.S. streams. It became his longest-leading number one to that point, ruling for eleven weeks, and finished as the most-streamed song of 2018 in the United States. The same week, his track "Diplomatic Immunity" debuted at number seven, a feat that underscored how streaming let established artists flood the chart. The song epitomized how dominant catalog-and-streaming releases had become.
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Saturday Night Fever ignites the disco boom
The Bee Gees' lead single from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, "How Deep Is Your Love," reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 25, 1977. It was the first of several chart-toppers the project would generate as the film and its music pushed disco firmly into the American mainstream. The soundtrack would go on to spend 24 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 in 1978. Its dominance made disco the defining commercial sound of the late 1970s.
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Madonna, Pepsi, and a costly collision
In 1989 Pepsi signed Madonna to a reported five-million-dollar endorsement deal built around her single "Like a Prayer," airing a commercial that featured the song. After Madonna's own music video for the track, with imagery including burning crosses, drew protests from religious groups, Pepsi pulled the commercial; it had aired on television only once. On April 4, 1989, Pepsi announced it was canceling the ad and the associated tour sponsorship. The single itself reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, while the controversy became a landmark case of brand and artist tensions in the MTV era.
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Morgan Wallen sets a solo No. 1 record
Morgan Wallen's "Last Night" spent 16 weeks at number one on the Hot 100 across 2023, reaching the summit during five separate stretches between March and August. The run gave it the longest reign ever for a song credited to a single, non-collaborating performer, surpassing Harry Styles' "As It Was." Overall it tied for the second-longest reign in chart history, matching "Despacito" and "One Sweet Day" at 16 weeks. Wallen also topped Billboard's 2023 year-end Hot 100 Artist ranking, the first primarily country act to do so since Kenny Rogers in 1981.
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How the early Hot 100 was actually compiled
The Hot 100 was not invented from scratch; its combined-metric approach traced back to Billboard's Top 100, first published in November 1955, which merged sales, radio airplay, and jukebox activity using a point system. By the time the Hot 100 debuted in 1958, the declining jukebox data had already been dropped, leaving sales and radio airplay as the two inputs. Crucially, this data came not from electronic monitoring but from surveys of retail merchants and playlists submitted by radio stations. Billboard generally weighted record sales more heavily than airplay, and adjusted that ratio repeatedly over the following decades.
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TLC's biggest year and a chart first on AIDS
TLC reached the Billboard Hot 100 summit for the first time on January 28, 1995, with "Creep," which held number one for four weeks. The trio's "Waterfalls" then spent seven weeks at number one that summer and, with its lyrics confronting the drug trade and HIV/AIDS, was cited as the first number-one single to reference AIDS. The parent album, CrazySexyCool, sold more than seven million copies in the United States and remains among the best-selling albums by a female group in the country. It won the 1996 Grammy for Best R&B Album.
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Gnarls Barkley tops the UK chart on downloads alone
American duo Gnarls Barkley, made up of Danger Mouse and CeeLo Green, made chart history in Britain when "Crazy" debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart on April 8, 2006, on roughly 31,000 download sales, a week before the CD reached stores. It was the first song ever to top the UK chart on download sales alone, made possible by updated rules that allowed downloads to count if a physical release followed within a week. "Crazy" then held number one for nine weeks and was Britain's best-selling single of 2006. On the Billboard Hot 100, the song peaked at number two.
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Ray Stevens opens the decade with an inspirational No. 1
Ray Stevens, a singer best known for comedic novelty records, scored a straight-faced number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 with the uplifting "Everything Is Beautiful." It was the first of his two chart-toppers of the decade and signaled how broad the Hot 100's tastes were heading into the 1970s. The same artist would return to the top in 1974 with a very different kind of song. The record won the Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
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Prince conquers chart, album, and box office at once
Prince's "When Doves Cry" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 7, 1984, holding the top spot for five weeks and finishing as Billboard's top-selling single of the year. It was his first Hot 100 chart-topper. That summer Prince simultaneously held the number-one single, the number-one album with the Purple Rain soundtrack, and the number-one film at the U.S. box office. No artist had achieved that triple feat before.
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Drake extends his grip on the Hot 100's record books
By 2026, Drake held a sweeping collection of all-time Hot 100 records built largely in the streaming era. On the chart dated May 30, 2026, he charted a record 42 songs in a single week and became the first artist ever to reach 400 career entries, finishing with 402. He also held the record for most top-10 hits, extending his career total to 90, far ahead of runner-up Taylor Swift. Analysts note these tallies reflect how streaming lets every track from an album chart at once, a structural shift from the single-release rules of earlier decades.
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Marvin Gaye delivers Motown's biggest hit of the decade
Marvin Gaye's version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" reached number one on December 8, 1968, and held the top of the Hot 100 for seven weeks. It overtook the earlier Gladys Knight and the Pips recording to become the biggest-selling single on the Motown family of labels up to that point. During its run, Motown briefly held the top three positions on the Hot 100, with Diana Ross and the Supremes at number two and Stevie Wonder at number three. The recording was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
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Bryan Adams rules the summer from Sherwood Forest
Bryan Adams' power ballad "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," recorded for the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1991 and finished as the year's number-one song. On the separate sales-only chart it reigned even longer, holding the top for seventeen consecutive weeks. Co-written by Adams with Michael Kamen and Robert John "Mutt" Lange, the single sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. It became Adams' biggest hit and one of the best-selling singles of its era.
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Soulja Boy becomes a "human ringtone" at the market's peak
Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" reached number one on the Hot 100 dated September 15, 2007, spending seven weeks at the top while also topping ringtone and digital sales charts. In a single week it sold more than 186,000 ringtones, arriving at the exact moment the ringtone market peaked at nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue. The accompanying dance turned the song into a viral phenomenon spread largely online. On January 6, 2008, it became the first song ever to sell three million digital copies in the United States.
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The Gibb brothers lock up the top of the chart
In one week of March 1978, songs written or performed by the Gibb brothers occupied the top three positions on the Billboard Hot 100: the Bee Gees' "Night Fever" at number one, their "Stayin' Alive" at number two, and Samantha Sang's "Emotion," co-written by Barry and Robin Gibb, at number three. Andy Gibb's "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" sat nearby in the top five. Such single-family domination of the chart's upper reaches had previously been matched only by the Beatles in 1964.
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George Michael steps out from Wham!
George Michael's "Faith" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 12, 1987, and held the top spot for four weeks; Billboard named it the number-one single of 1988. It was the first solo non-duet chart-topper from his debut solo album of the same name, released after Wham! disbanded in 1986. Four singles from the album would reach number one on the Hot 100, making Michael the only British male solo artist to achieve that from one album. The Faith album also topped the Billboard 200 for 12 weeks.
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"The Twist" returns and makes chart history
Chubby Checker's "The Twist" returned to number one on the Hot 100 for two weeks beginning January 13, 1962, more than a year after its first chart-topping run in 1960. The same recording thus reached number one in two separate, non-consecutive runs, a feat unmatched for decades. The revival was driven by adults embracing the dance after younger fans had first popularized it. The song's unusual chart history later helped it top Billboard's all-time Hot 100 ranking.
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A funeral tribute becomes the best-selling single
Elton John reworked his 1973 song "Candle in the Wind," originally a tribute to Marilyn Monroe, with new Bernie Taupin lyrics honoring Princess Diana after her death in late August 1997. Released in late September, it debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 11 and reigned for 14 weeks. It smashed first-week sales records and became the best-selling physical single in Billboard history, the first U.S. single certified Diamond. John donated the proceeds, raising more than $47 million for Diana's memorial fund.
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Carrie Underwood makes country history
After winning American Idol's fourth season, Carrie Underwood saw her coronation single "Inside Your Heaven" debut at number one on the Hot 100 dated July 2, 2005. The feat made her the first country artist ever to debut at the top of the chart, and she was the only solo country act to score a Hot 100 number one during the entire 2000s decade. Runner-up Bo Bice released his own version of the same song a week later, and it peaked at number two. The episode demonstrated how Idol fan-driven sales could rocket a debut single straight to the summit.
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A streaking fad becomes a No. 1 record
Ray Stevens turned the early-1970s craze of running naked through public places into "The Streak," which began a three-week run at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 18, 1974. The timing was remarkable: days after the single's release, a man dashed nude across the stage of the Academy Awards telecast, giving the song a jolt of free publicity. It was a textbook example of how a topical novelty could ride a cultural moment to the top of the chart.
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Whitney Houston sets the consecutive No. 1 record
With "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," which reached number one on April 23, 1988, Whitney Houston became the only artist to score seven consecutive number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. The previous single, "So Emotional" in January 1988, had given her a sixth straight chart-topper, tying a record shared by the Beatles and the Bee Gees. The seven hits ran from "Saving All My Love for You" in 1985 through 1988 and drew on her first two albums. Guinness World Records recognizes the streak.
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Adele returns and dominates with "Easy on Me"
Adele's "Easy on Me," the lead single from her album 30, rocketed to number one on the chart dated October 30, 2021, after its first full tracking week. It became her fifth Hot 100 chart-topper and earned about 54 million U.S. streams, 74,000 downloads, and 65 million radio impressions in its debut frame. The song went on to spend ten weeks at number one, matching the run of her 2015 hit "Hello." Its dominance showed that a marquee superstar could still command the chart across streaming, sales, and radio simultaneously.
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Roy Orbison crashes the British Invasion
At the height of Beatlemania, Texan Roy Orbison was one of the very few American rockers to keep topping the charts, reaching number one with "Oh, Pretty Woman" on September 26, 1964. The single spent three weeks at the summit and broke the dominance of British acts in the upper reaches of the Hot 100. It also went to number one in the United Kingdom. The record reportedly outsold any prior 45rpm single in its first ten days of release and eventually sold around seven million copies.
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The "Macarena" becomes a crossover phenomenon
Originally a 1993 Spanish-language flamenco-pop track by the Seville duo Los del Río, "Macarena" reached American radio through a Miami DJ who commissioned the English-laced Bayside Boys remix. The reworked version first peaked at number 45 in late 1995 before exploding in 1996, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks beginning August 3. It logged 60 total weeks on the chart, then the longest run in Hot 100 history, and finished as the year's number-one song. It proved the commercial viability of a Spanish-language crossover decades before "Despacito."
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Usher's Confessions era dominates like no solo act before
Usher's album Confessions produced a run unmatched by any solo artist of the Hot 100 era. "Yeah!," featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris, spent 12 weeks at number one, and successor "Burn" extended his hold so that the two singles gave him 19 consecutive weeks atop the chart in 2004. On the year-end Hot 100, "Yeah!" and "Burn" ranked number one and number two, making Usher the first artist to hold both top year-end spots since the Beatles in 1964. "Confessions Part II" and "My Boo" later gave the album four total number-one singles.
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Queen reaches its U.S. peak with an anthem pair
Queen released "We Are the Champions" as a double A-side with "We Will Rock You" in late 1977, and the single peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dated February 4, 1978. That made it Queen's highest-charting U.S. single up to that point, finishing higher than "Bohemian Rhapsody" had on its original release. The track spent 21 weeks on the chart and became a durable stadium and sports staple. It remains one of the band's most recognizable recordings.
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Lionel Richie's seven-year No. 1 songwriting run
Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me," written for the film White Nights, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks across the 1985–1986 chart period. By the mid-1980s Richie had become one of the era's dominant balladeers, scoring nine number-one singles as a solo artist between 1981 and 1987. As a songwriter he had placed a number-one Hot 100 record every year for seven consecutive years starting in 1978, spanning the Commodores, Kenny Rogers, and his own solo work. He also co-wrote "We Are the World."
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Cher's comeback brings Auto-Tune to the masses
Cher reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 13, 1999, with the dance-pop single "Believe," which held the top for four weeks. At 52, she became the oldest woman to top the chart at that time, and her gap since her previous number one, "Dark Lady" in 1974, set a record for the longest span between chart-toppers. The track's producers deliberately exaggerated the Auto-Tune pitch-correction tool to give Cher's voice a robotic warble. The technique, dubbed "the Cher effect," has been imitated on countless recordings since.
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Beyoncé launches her solo career with two No. 1s
Beyoncé stepped out from Destiny's Child in 2003 with "Crazy in Love," featuring Jay-Z, which topped the Hot 100 for eight consecutive weeks starting in July. Its follow-up, "Baby Boy," featuring Sean Paul, did even better in chart longevity, spending nine consecutive weeks at number one beginning that October. Both singles came from her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love. "Baby Boy" remained her longest-running number one until "Irreplaceable" surpassed it in 2007.
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Why "The Twist" topped the chart's all-time list
For the Hot 100's 60th anniversary in 2018, Billboard crowned Chubby Checker's "The Twist" the chart's all-time number-one song, repeating its placement from earlier retrospectives. The ranking uses an inverse point system in which weeks at number one count the most, with different eras weighted to account for methodology changes. "The Twist" benefited enormously from its rare two separate runs to the top, in 1960 and 1962. More than 27,000 titles by over 7,500 artists had charted across the Hot 100's six decades by that anniversary.
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Whitney Houston tops a record-setting run
Whitney Houston's recording of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," from the soundtrack to her film debut The Bodyguard, reached number one on November 28, 1992, and reigned for 14 weeks, breaking the 13-week record Boyz II Men had just set. The single moved more than three million copies and became the year's top seller. The accompanying soundtrack spent 20 weeks atop the Billboard 200. The recording later won Grammys including Record of the Year and was entered into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.
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Elton John lands his first American No. 1
Elton John had already reached the U.S. top ten with "Your Song" and "Rocket Man," but neither had topped the chart. That changed when "Crocodile Rock" hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 3, 1973, and stayed there for three weeks. It marked the start of one of the most consistent chart runs of the decade for the British pianist. He would go on to become one of the era's most reliable hitmakers.
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"Billie Jean" pries open MTV
The video for Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" premiered on MTV on March 10, 1983, becoming one of the first videos by a Black artist to enter the channel's heavy rotation. According to widely reported accounts, CBS Records executive Walter Yetnikoff pressured MTV to air it by threatening to pull the label's roster from the network. The breakthrough demonstrated that a Black performer could command a mass crossover audience on the channel, and "Beat It" followed weeks later. Critics noted the change was incremental, as the network still gave limited airtime to many artists of color afterward.
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Streaming becomes the industry's engine
By 2019, streaming had become the clear primary driver of both the Hot 100 and the wider music business. The RIAA reported that U.S. recorded-music revenue hit $11.1 billion that year, with streaming accounting for about 79.5 percent of the total. Digital download revenue fell below $1 billion for the first time since 2006, confirming the collapse of the a-la-carte sales era. Billboard's chart formula had by then shifted to weight paid subscription streams more heavily than ad-supported ones.
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A song recorded twice tops the chart
James Taylor played guitar on Carole King's Tapestry sessions and recorded his own version of her composition "You've Got a Friend" at roughly the same time. Taylor's rendition was rushed out as a single and reached number one on the Hot 100 in July 1971. The episode captured how tightly the early-1970s singer-songwriter scene was interconnected, with the same circle of writers and players turning up on one another's records. It became Taylor's only solo number-one single.
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Olivia Newton-John sets a decade-long endurance mark
Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 dated November 21, 1981, and held the top spot for ten weeks, spanning into early 1982. That run tied the record at the time, set by Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" in 1977, for the longest reign in the chart's first several decades. It would remain the longest-running number-one single of the entire 1980s. Billboard later ranked it the number-one song on its all-time list for the decade.
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Destiny's Child score the last girl-group No. 1
Destiny's Child closed out a remarkable run when "Bootylicious," from their album Survivor, reached number one on the Hot 100 in the issue dated August 4, 2001, spending two weeks atop the chart. It was the trio's fourth career chart-topper, following "Bills, Bills, Bills," "Say My Name," and "Independent Women Part I." For many years afterward, "Bootylicious" remained the most recent number-one hit by a girl group on the Hot 100. The achievement underscored both the group's commercial peak and the decline of the girl-group format.
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A radio DJ's duck novelty hits No. 1
Memphis disc jockey Rick Dees recorded "Disco Duck," a comic send-up of the disco sound, credited to Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 16, 1976. In an odd twist, Dees was reportedly barred from playing his own hit on his station, and he was let go after mentioning the record on air. Some critics have called it among the last true novelty songs to reach the summit of the Hot 100.
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"Bad" sets the five-No.-1 album record
Michael Jackson's Bad, released in August 1987, produced five Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, a record for a single album that stood alone until Katy Perry matched it in 2011. The chart-toppers were "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Man in the Mirror," and "Dirty Diana," with the last reaching number one in 1988. Rapid chart turnover in the late 1980s helped blockbuster albums land hit after hit. The album also opened atop the Billboard 200 for six weeks.
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A rap tribute debuts at No. 1
Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You," featuring Faith Evans and 112, honored the murdered rapper Notorious B.I.G. and built its chorus around a sample of the Police's "Every Breath You Take." Beginning June 14, 1997, it became the first rap song to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, where it ruled for 11 consecutive weeks. That run was the longest for a rap number one until Eminem's "Lose Yourself" reached 12 weeks in 2002. The single went triple platinum before Puff Daddy's debut album had even reached stores.
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50 Cent floods the top 10
50 Cent's 2005 album The Massacre arrived with 1.1 million first-week copies sold, and its run made him the most ubiquitous act on the Hot 100 that year. "Candy Shop," featuring Olivia, reached number one, becoming his third chart-topping single. Across the year he placed six songs in the top 10, more than any other artist, including "Disco Inferno," "How We Do," "Candy Shop," "Hate It or Love It," "Just a Lil Bit," and the "Outta Control" remix. The achievement marked a commercial peak in his career.
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The compact disc quietly arrives
The compact disc reached the market in late 1982, with Sony's CDP-101 player and a CD pressing of Billy Joel's 52nd Street going on sale in Japan on October 1. The format, developed jointly by Sony and Philips, reached Europe and North America in 1983, initially with a small catalog and players that could cost around a thousand dollars. The music industry was in a sales slump when CDs appeared, and adoption was gradual at first. By the end of the decade the CD had become the dominant music format, reshaping label economics and catalog reissue strategies.
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A new wave of teen pop debuts
Christina Aguilera reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with her debut single "Genie in a Bottle," which began a five-week reign on the chart dated July 31, 1999, and ranked as the year's biggest summer song. She was the third female artist that year to top the Hot 100 with a debut single, following Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" and Jennifer Lopez's "If You Had My Love." Aguilera's debut album later spawned the additional number ones "What a Girl Wants" and "Come On Over Baby." The run earned her the 2000 Grammy for Best New Artist.
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Donna Summer dominates the summer charts
Donna Summer reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Hot Stuff" in June 1979 and again with "Bad Girls" that August, both drawn from her Bad Girls album. During the week of June 30, 1979, she became the first female artist to hold two of the top three positions on the Hot 100 simultaneously. With five top-ten hits across the year, she was the most successful artist of 1979 even as disco approached its commercial peak. Her dominance capped the genre's final blockbuster year.
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Madonna begins a remarkable top-10 streak
Madonna earned her first Hot 100 top-10 hit with "Borderline" in June 1984, launching a run of 17 consecutive top-10 singles that continued through 1989's "Cherish." Her first number one arrived in December 1984, when "Like a Virgin" began a six-week reign on the chart dated December 22. She would reach number one seven times during the 1980s alone. The consistency of that top-10 streak is the milestone most often cited from this stretch of her career.
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Mariah Carey debuts with four straight No. 1s
Mariah Carey scored her first Billboard Hot 100 number one on August 4, 1990, when her debut single "Vision of Love" reached the top and stayed for four consecutive weeks. The song had climbed slowly, entering the chart nine weeks earlier at number 73. Her self-titled debut album ultimately produced four Hot 100 chart-toppers, making Carey the first act since the Jackson 5 to send its first four singles to number one. The launch began one of the most dominant chart careers in American history.
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How chart methodology held back a best-seller
Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?," the British charity single released in December 1984, peaked at only number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 despite selling roughly 2.5 million U.S. copies. The Billboard Hot 100 combined retail sales with radio airplay, and the record received limited play on American stations, capping its chart position. The episode illustrates how the chart's dual sales-and-airplay formula could keep a commercial blockbuster out of the top 10. The song's success helped inspire the U.S. "We Are the World" project that followed in 1985.
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How the chart counted both sides of a record
In the Hot 100's early years a single's two sides could chart separately or together depending on airplay and sales patterns, a quirk that shaped how some hits were tallied. Double-sided singles were common in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Billboard's handling of them evolved over the decade. The practice reflected the era's 45rpm format, where both the A-side and B-side competed for radio attention. Chart rules were repeatedly refined as the industry's release strategies changed.
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Titanic's theme: radio giant, chart sprinter
Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," the love theme from Titanic written by James Horner and Will Jennings, debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 28, 1998. Despite its global ubiquity, it held the Hot 100 summit for only two weeks because it was issued as a limited-edition single before being pulled to drive album sales. On radio it was far more dominant, spending 10 weeks atop the airplay chart and reaching what was then among the largest radio audiences ever measured. It finished the year as the best-selling single in the world.
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Andy Gibb begins a record-setting debut streak
Andy Gibb, the younger brother of the Bee Gees, launched his recording career with "I Just Want to Be Your Everything," which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time on July 30, 1977. It was the start of an unprecedented feat: his first three chart singles would all reach number one. The achievement, completed in 1978, made him the first solo artist in Hot 100 history to accomplish it. His early success made him one of the defining young stars of the disco era.
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Flo Rida and Leona Lewis define the download era's peak
Flo Rida's debut single "Low," featuring T-Pain, opened 2008 by setting a single-week digital sales record of about 470,000 downloads and went on to spend 10 consecutive weeks at number one, the longest-running number one of the year. It eventually became the first song to sell four million U.S. digital copies. The same year, Leona Lewis, winner of Britain's The X Factor, reached number one with "Bleeding Love," becoming the first U.K. female artist to top the Hot 100 since Kim Wilde in 1987. "Bleeding Love" finished as the second-biggest hit of 2008.
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Kim Carnes and a song built on a movie-star tribute
Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" spent nine non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981, becoming Billboard's biggest hit of that year. Its run was interrupted for a single week by the novelty medley "Stars on 45" before it returned to the top. The song, written by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, won both Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards in early 1982. Actress Bette Davis, then in her seventies, reportedly wrote to thank the songwriters and Carnes for making her part of modern times.
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Mariah Carey sets the all-time weeks-at-No.-1 record
In December 2025, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" returned to number one and pushed its cumulative total to a record-breaking 22 weeks atop the Hot 100, the most of any song in the chart's history. It accumulated those weeks across seven separate holiday seasons beginning in 2019, a pattern no other song has matched. The festive standard had become Carey's 19th career number one, one short of the Beatles' all-time act record of 20. Its yearly returns illustrate how streaming rewards beloved catalog music.
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A garage band's lone hit becomes a chart curiosity
The 1960s saw numerous one-time chart-toppers from groups that never returned to the summit, a reflection of how fast the singles market moved. Regional acts could ride a single breakout record to national number one through a combination of radio play and brisk 45rpm sales. The decade's rapid turnover meant the Hot 100's upper reaches were unusually open to newcomers. This churn distinguished the 1960s from later eras dominated by established superstars.
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Ke$ha and the dawn of the digital-pop decade
Ke$ha's debut single "Tik Tok" spent nine weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 across early 2010, becoming one of the best-selling digital singles in U.S. history to that point. Its dominance reflected how completely the paid-download model had reshaped the chart by the start of the decade. The song's success helped usher in a wave of electronic-leaning dance-pop that defined the early 2010s. Digital sales were then the chart's most powerful single input, before streaming overtook them.
No entries in this decade.