Longest Span of Chart Hits

In the last few weeks (this week in 1975), and Casey twice answered an interesting chart question that has changed answers over the years....who has had the longest span of top 40 hits?  His answer both times was Frank Sinatra, who first hit the charts in 1940 (on the very first Billboard chart) as a supporting artist and then in 1943 as a soloist, with his last hit (by then) in 1969 with "My Way."  

Since American Top 40 debuted in 1970, Casey Kasem had yet to play any Sinatra records.  That changed a few years later as the theme from "New York, New York," made an unlikely run up the charts into the top 40, extending Sinatra's record to 40 years (or 37 as a solo artist.)

The next to enter that range was Michael Jackson, whose first solo hit "Got to Be There" was in 1972 and his first song with the Jackson 5 debuted in late 1969.  His last (to date) posthumous hit "Hold My Hand" charted in 2011, giving him the record of 42 years overall and 40 as a soloist.

The next artist to break that with a newly record song was Sir Elton John whose 2022 hit "Hold Me Closer" (w/ Britney Spears) bookending his first hit "Your Song" in 1970...52 years with top 40's... in this case top 10's!

If you include re-released songs, Burl Ives topped Elton's longevity in the top 10 later in 2022 with "Holly Jolly Christmas" reaching #5 into early 2023, extending his span from early 1962's "A Little Bitty Tear"...61 years! (which will likely extend year over year for the foreseeable future).   

As for top 40 longevity including re-releases...Chuck Berry's even one step longer from 1955 "Maybellene" until recent re-chartings of 1958's "Run, Rudolph, Run" (#32 this January) -- 64 years...and counting!

 

Slowest Climbs To and Falls from #1

As for slowest falls from #1, Casey noted that the record at as of 1972 was 24 weeks by Pat Boone's "Love Letters in the Sand" by Pat Boone from 1958, which I would believe would hold until at least 1991 when the charts changed to Soundscan.  

Without doing a full accounting for every song, "Blinding Lights" by the Weeknd would clearly be a contender.  Its last week at #1 was 2 June 2000, and it spent the next 31 weeks in the top _10_ alone and a total of 66 more weeks on the chart (having been bumped off for a few weeks over Christmas).  No wonder it finished in the top 3 two consecutive years and Billboard now lists it as the #1 song of all time.

Another likely contender was Glass Animals' "Heat Wave" which now holds the record for longest chart run and slowest climb _to_ #1 (a stunning 59 weeks on the chart...), but it "only" spent 21 weeks on the chart after hitting #1.

The slowest fall statistic will always need an * as the rules for when a song is removed has changed over time, with the biggest change in 1991 when songs below #50 were removed if they'd charted more than 20 weeks.  Both "Blinding Lights" and "Heat Wave" were removed when they dropped below #25 having already charted more than 52 weeks.

That rule also impacted the slowest climb to #1 -- Los Del Rio's "Macarena" which by chart rules hit #1 in its 33rd week, but because it hadn't made it to #50 by its 20th week on the chart, it was dropped from the Hot 100 for the next 4 months until it reached the #47 and then continued its climb to #1 13 weeks later.  It was on the Hot 100 Sales chart the whole time, so it was clearly one chart run.

Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" was also a slow climber to #1 in two senses:  it didn't make it until 25 years after first release, plus its 3-5 weeks of charting many years over Christmas before hitting #1 gave it a remarkable tally of 35 non-consecutive chart weeks prior to hitting #1.

Quickest Falls from #1

This week's random retro countdown on SiriusXM was from December 1972, and Casey Kasem read a letter about fastest and slowest falls from #1.  At that point, The Rascals' "Groovin'" had the record for the quickest drop off the chart with "Groovin'" which fell 1 to 2 to 9 to 38 and then off.

In the next few years to follow, this dubious record was tied by Billy Preston's "Nothing from Nothing", which fell 1-15-39-72-off, Andy Kim's "Rock Me Gently", which fell 1-12-32-48-off, and Freddy Fender's "Before the Next Teardrop Falls", which fell 1-7-19-44-off.  Preston's record was the long-standing record holder for biggest drop from #1.

Casey made no qualifications about seasonal records, so I was surprised the answer wasn't "The Chipmunk Song" which spent 4 weeks at #1 over the 1958 Christmas season, but overall charted for 13 weeks, 6 of which were after it was #1.

The current record holder will be the all-time record holder, since no one can do more than tie... Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" in the 2019 Christmas season hit #1 (a record 25 years after its release), and when Christmas was over, it fell from #1 all the way off the charts.  Due to the timing of when Christmas Day falls in a given official chart week, in subsequent years she has actually stayed on the chart for an extra week .

Given the extraordinarily slow falls most records take, I doubt any non-seasonal records will even match the Rascal's achievement.  I looked up "Harlem Shake" and even that spent 9 weeks on the chart following the peak of the meme.

March 1983 -- goodbye to a legend

If I were a writer for the Big 80's on 8, Big 40 countdown, I would add much more historical perspective to the countdown.  The DJs regularly note whether a song is going up or down, like Casey Kasem would, and unlike him, even note where a song would peak.

What's rarer is to say where a given song fits into the artist's broader chart history -- at least Casey would often mention whether it was their first or 10th chart record and any streaks associated with it, which the DJs nearly never so.  Even more interesting though, the DJs know the future, and rarely indicate if a song the last of a string, which of course Casey never knew.

Such was the case today...Nine Blackwood appropriately honored Neil Diamond as she introduced "I'm Alive," but what she failed to mention was that this was his last week ever in the top 40.  He's known as a 70's singer-songwriter, but as of this chart, he'd had 9 top 40 hits in the 80's, including 4 top 10's.  This made him the 12th biggest artist of the 80's to date (per a Casey Kasem countdown that summer), but since this was the end, he did not end up in the top 50 artists of the 80's by the end (per Whitburn's book)

He also happens to be the singer on the first album I ever owned "I'm Glad You're Here With Me Tonight" from 1977 and on one of two 45's I received on my 13th birthday, "Hello Again" which started my collection that eventually numbered in the 100's.

This week also featured the last top 40 hit for lesser luminaries like Earth, Wind, and Fire; Eddie Rabbitt; Crystal Gayle; and Joe Jackson (plus the one-hit wonders...) making room for lots more hits from first-timers Culture Club and Duran Duran.

Favorite:  Journey, "Separate Ways"

1 4 BILLIE JEAN –•– Michael Jackson (Epic)-7 (1 week at #1) (1)

2 2 SHAME ON THE MOON –•– Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band (Capitol)-12 (2)
3 3 STRAY CAT STRUT –•– The Stray Cats (EMI-America)-11 (3)
4 5 DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME –•– Culture Club (Virgin)-14 (4)
5 6 HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF –•– Duran Duran (Harvest)-11 (5)
6 1 BABY, COME TO ME –•– Patti Austin with James Ingram (Qwest)-25 (1)
7 7 YOU AND I –•– Eddie Rabbitt with Crystal Gayle (Elektra)-22 (7)
8 9 WE’VE GOT TONIGHT –•– Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton (Liberty)-6 (8)
9 11 BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG –•– The Pretenders (Sire)-13 (9)
10 10 PASS THE DUTCHIE –•– Musical Youth (MCA)-13 (10)

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11 14 YOU ARE –•– Lionel Richie (Motown)-8 (11)
12 16 ALL RIGHT –•– Christopher Cross (Warner Brothers)-7 (12)
13 13 YOUR LOVE IS DRIVING ME CRAZY –•– Sammy Hagar (Geffen)-13 (13)
14 8 DOWN UNDER –•– Men At Work (Columbia)-18 (1)
15 20 SEPARATE WAYS (Worlds Apart) –•– Journey (Columbia)-5 (15)
16 18 TWILIGHT ZONE –•– Golden Earring (21 Records)-15 (16)
17 17 ALLENTOWN –•– Billy Joel (Columbia)-15 (17)
18 21 ONE ON ONE –•– Daryl Hall & John Oates (RCA)-6 (18)
19 23 BREAKING US IN TWO –•– Joe Jackson (A&M)-8 (19)
20 24 MR. ROBOTO –•– Styx (A&M)-4 (20)

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21 27 FALL IN LOVE WITH ME –•– Earth, Wind & Fire (Columbia)-7 (21)
22 25 I KNOW THERE’S SOMETHING GOING ON –•– Frida (Atlantic)-18 (22)
23 12 GOODY TWO SHOES –•– Adam Ant (Epic)-17 (12)
24 15 HEART TO HEART –•– Kenny Loggins (Columbia)-15 (15)
25 31 COME ON EILEEN –•– Dexys Midnight Runners (Mercury)-7 (25)
26 26 ON THE LOOSE –•– Saga (Portrait)-14 (26)
27 19 AFRICA –•– Toto (Columbia)-19 (1)
28 32 I’VE GOT A ROCK N’ ROLL HEART –•– Eric Clapton (Duck)-6 (28)
29 22 YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE –•– Phil Collins (Atlantic)-18 (10)
30 34 DREAMIN’ IS EASY –•– Steel Breeze (RCA)-8 (30)

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31 55 DER KOMMISSAR –•– After The Fire (Epic)-4 (31)
32 37 MY KIND OF LADY –•– Supertramp (A&M)-6 (32)
33 33 THE WOMAN IN ME –•– Donna Summer (Geffen)-12 (33)
34 41 JEOPARDY –•– The Greg Kihn Band (Beserkley)-6 (34)
35 35 I’M ALIVE –•– Neil Diamond (Columbia)-8 (35)
36 39 POISON ARROW –•– ABC (Mercury)-6 (36)
37 47 LITTLE TOO LATE –•– Pat Benatar (Chrysalis)-5 (37)
38 38 TIED UP –•– Olivia Newton-John (MCA)-8 (38)
39 42 MAKE LOVE STAY –•– Dan Fogelberg (Full Moon / Epic)-5 (39)
40 40 DON’T TELL ME YOU LOVE ME –•– Night Ranger (Boardwalk)-8 (40)

Separate Trips to #1

This week on American Top 40 from 1979, Casey made a big deal out of "Le Freak" by Chic moving into the #1 position for the 3rd time in the same chart run.  Once hitting #1, it was replaced by "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," regained the top spot, was replaced by "Too Much Heaven" for a couple weeks, then regained the top spot again.  No record in the rock era had ever done that.

And for the next few decades, no one did again!  Even the arrival of the Soundscan era didn't lead to a lot of bouncing and rebounding near the top, though some #1 runs were interrupted by the first-week surge of an artist with a huge fan base (mostly Mariah Carey).

The introduction of streaming and digital downloads made that easier to do, leading to 

a) More interruptions by a surge from a new release (at first, many "American Idol" winners then later big sellers like BTS, Drake, and Taylor Swift) 

b) true dueling between songs, which began most seriously in 2008 with T.I. matching "Le Freak"

c) occasional remixes and the addition of a duet partner leading to a resurgence of popularity, and 

d) the late 2010's rise in Holiday hits disrupting the normal charts

The first song to have 4 runs at #1 was Drake's "Nice for What" in 2018 which logged 8 weeks over the course of thirteen weeks, including one gap with two different songs.

2022 took the record to 5 separate moves into the #1 spot, with Harry Styles "As it Was" being bumped mostly for reason a) above, including once by 3 different songs in a row!  Despite the bumps, it logged 15 weeks at #1 over a stunning 25-week period -- the longest such period in a single chart run -- look for that in the next listing of biggest hits of all time!

Speaking of which, also look for Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" -- it too has risen to #1 five times, four of them marking the beginning of the 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 holiday seasons dominating streaming and sales...plus being interrupted during the 2020 run.  She's now logged 12 weeks at #1, with four this year.  She'll almost certainly break Styles' record for runs at #1 by the same song and within three years should have the most weeks at #1 overall (the record is currently 19 by "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X)...a record she held for a long time at 16 weeks for "One Sweet Day."

  

Top 10's per album

This week Casey noted the then historic accomplishment of Fleetwood Mac having four hits that made the top 10, all originating from one album, Rumours.  He claimed it was the first album of the 70's to do such, implying an act like the Beatles might've had more.  The "originating" word would leave out compilation/Greatest Hits albums or live versions on a concert album.

Michael Jackson would be the first to match that accomplishment with four top 10 hits in 1979-80 with "Off the Wall," and he then crushed the record in 1982-1984 with 7 top 10 hits from "Thriller" which broke open the floodgates for hit albums suddenly having 5 or more singles released, with 4 top 10's being done by rather ordinary artists like Richard Marx or Expose....and the standard became 4 or 5 number one singles from an album (Michael Jackson again, George Michael, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul).

The arrival of the "Soundscan" era of actually counting singles and sales in 1991 brought an end for awhile to such huge numbers of even top 10's, making even 2 #1's from an album a serious accomplishment and the top 10's per album were likewise limited as the charts slowed way down.

That all flipped around again when then whole idea of a single was challenged with streaming music and digital downloads of tracks from albums.  Now, for a big name artist like Drake (the master of this!) or Taylor Swift, or even SZA, your opening week for an album might carry many of the tracks into the Hot 100...with Taylor Swift in late 2022 pulling off the ultimate -- she claimed the entire top 10, with only one of those being a traditional radio-pushed single "Anti-Hero."

Ten does seem the natural limit -- to get to 11, you'd have to do the Taylor trick of covering the top 10 your first week then push one of the rest of the tracks later to radio eventually get to top 10 status, knowing that on initial release, it was not a fan favorite.

Given that Thriller only had 9 tracks to begin with, it demonstrates how fundamentally music purchasing and marketing has changed. 

Long Runs at #1

In two recent 70's countdowns, Casey's mentioned that Elvis was the first artist to have three #1's in a row on the charts...."Don't Be Cruel," "Hound Dog," and "Love Me Tender" were on top for 16 straight weeks.  At the time of the countdown, the number of back-to-back #1s had only been tied by the Beatles and the number of weeks in a row at the top had only been matched Les Brown and the Band of Renown.

In the decades to follow, having three #1's in a row by the same artist is still the record, but the weeks in a row at #1 had been smashed:

In 2009 the Black Eyed Peas hit #1 first with the 12-week champ "Boom Boom Pow" and then immediately another 14 with "I Gotta Feeling."

For three in a row, two artists got super close -- Usher replaced "Yeah!" at #1 with "Burn" which was interrupted at #1 by Fantasia (hot off an American Idol win) for 1 week, before "Burn" hit #1 again, to be replaced by his "Confessions (Part 2)" -- 22 out of 23 weeks.

Drake had a similar phenomenon in 2009 as "In My Feelings" replaced "Nice for What" which replaced "God's Plan" for a total of 29 weeks at #1... but "Nice for What" was interrupted a then-record three times by four different songs!

Next closest was Mariah Carey, who had 24 out of 25 weeks with "Fantasy" and "One Sweet Day", interrupted only by Whitney Houston's "Exhale" for a single week between the two.  Her partners on "One Sweet Day," Boyz II Men did earlier have back-to-back songs at #1 for 16 weeks, but the 2nd "On Bended Knee" was also interrupted, giving them 20 out of 22 weeks, starting with 14 weeks with "I'll Make Love to You."

But back to Elvis, he gets an * for three in a row anyway... the first two were flip sides of the same 45 rpm record, and it was before the Hot 100 began.  The Beatles three in a row were all independent records in the Hot 100 era of combining sales and airplay.