Which artist has the most top 40 hits without ever getting to number one?
Virtually every artist goes into their profession with some sort of goal in their sights as to what they’d like to achieve, and for many, that involves writing a pop song so instantaneously gripping that the world latches onto it and drives it to the top of the charts.
Of course, scoring a number one hit is not the be-all and end-all that success ought to be measured by. For certain rock acts such as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, who rarely ever released singles, the performance of their albums would have been a greater priority. Their reputations as excellent live acts almost preceded them. Granted, the latter example did manage to hit the peak of the charts with ‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2’, but in their case, it’s almost a footnote in a career marked by countless other accolades.
However, some acts had such a thirst for chart success that it became almost inevitable that they’d find their route to this apex once every few years, in the case of some, even more frequently. Acts like The Beatles, Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson were hard to ever prevent from reaching number one, with each of them having sat at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 over 15 times apiece during their respective careers.
Others are not so fortunate and, despite their best efforts, have never managed to hit these same peaks on either side of the Atlantic. While you might think that some of the artists who can’t claim to have had a number one hit aren’t household names, there are a few surprising figures present in this camp who you would expect to have been more successful.
However, who holds the unfortunate record of having reached the top 40 on the most occasions without ever hitting the top spot? It’s one thing not to be able to have the main accolade, but to have narrowly missed the mark on more occasions than any other artist would be gutting…
Who holds the record for most top 40 hits without a number one?
The undisputed ‘King of Soul’, but never the king of the charts, James Brown is the one with the misfortune of having reached the top 40 on the most occasions without ever being top of the charts, with his total appearances in this section of the US charts racking up to a whopping 44 entries.
With a further 11 appearances in the UK top 40, with none of them making it to number one across the pond either, Brown has to be one of the most unlikely figures you could imagine holding this record, given just how popular many hits of his have been.
His highest-performing hit in the US didn’t even make it to second place, with ‘I Got You (I Feel Good)’ having peaked at number three in 1965, and he would only come close to this again 20 years later with ‘Living In America’, which reached number four, and was incidentally his only top 10 hit in the UK as it reached number five.
The equivalent record in the UK is held by Depeche Mode, who have featured inside the top 40 a total of 33 times without ever having made it to number one in their home country. While nowhere near as popular in the US charts, it’s a surprise that they never eclipsed number four in the UK, making it this high on three occasions with ‘People Are People’, ‘Barrel of a Gun’ and ‘Precious’.
