Hangin' Out In 100b

By way of an introduction to this episode of Those Zany Charts, I’m going to ask you, gentle reader, to hazard a guess at which artist or band has had the most No. 1 hits in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. Have a think about it, I’ll wait.

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Michael Jackson, right? That was my guess anyway, and that of some people I posed the same question to. Somehow none of us thought of the obvious.

I recently came across this chart of charts – the Billboard list of the biggest hit-makers in the history of their Hot 100 (the first edition occurred in August 1958). Of course the answer is The Beatles, with a whopping 20 (twenty!) chart-topping singles. I’m almost ashamed not to have gotten it right, though I will say that none of the Beatles’ #1s are songs I really love. (Go here to see a detailed list of specific singles.) Maybe that’s because, since they were so big, they’re the ones that are played most frequently and you gradually get sick of them over your lifetime. Or maybe I just like other Beatles songs much better. Whatever the case, I’m not at all surprised to see them at the top, only embarrassed not to have figured it out for myself.

As for the rest of these chart-topping artists, let’s have a more general look. Yup, there’s Michael Jackson, down at #3 with 13 top hits. And what a 13 they are (other than maybe “Say Say Say” and “You Are Not Alone”, ugh), though I am kind of surprised at how short they each stayed at the top. Ditto for Madonna, just below Mr. Jackson with 12 #1s. The Supremes and Rolling Stones (12 and 8 hits, respectively) are hardly a shock, nor are Stevie Wonder (10), the Bee Gees (9), or Elton John (9).

Whitney Houston (11) and Janet Jackson (10) aren’t people I’d have thought of but I guess it does make sense that they’re represented on this list. It does seem funny though that neither “My Love Is Your Love” nor “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” – in my opinion, their best songs – were #1s. Anyway, the real surprises, for me at least, are:

- Paul McCartney/Wings with 9 chart-topping singles. Yeah yeah, he was a Beatle, the emphasis being on was. Paul McCartney without John, George, and Ringo? Blerg.

- Mariah Carey, right below the Fab Four with a total of 18 #1s. Seriously? The second highest chart-topper of the last 50-ish years? That’s quite shocking, and somehow I only know about half of those songs anyway. Hmm.

- And Usher, down at the bottom, but still kickin’ it with 8 #1s. Again, I only know a few of these songs (no, I’m not so much with chart music – what gave it away?) and the only Usher song I really loved back in the day, “You Make Me Wanna”, apparently only made it to Number 2 in 1997.

And what about The King? Billboard does note that a good number of Elvis’ big hits pre-date the Hot 100. Apparently there is some controversy over how many ‘hit’ singles Elvis actually had, but at least 7 of them were No. 1s on the Hot 100 chart, including these classics: