The 21st-century song that held number one for the longest in chart history
Pop music has always been a dominating force in the charts, for obvious reasons, but other genres continue to have their moments, proving that it’s not always about pandering to trusty formulas or commercial expectations.
In fact, some of the best-selling singles and albums of all time aren’t exactly what you’d call pop music at all – for instance, Michael Jackson’s pop megahit Thriller remains the best-selling record of all time, but behind that lies some eye-opening truths about mass tastes, with AC/DC’s Back in Black appearing in second place, followed by Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon and the Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975).
There are, of course, other era-defining pop or pop-adjacent pieces like The Bodyguard soundtrack and Shania Twain’s Come On Over, but overall, this list proves that the more obvious choices don’t always lead to popularity, and, often, good music with strong cultural resonance is often all it takes to go the extra mile, both in terms of sales and timelessness.
The same is true for some of the most successful singles in history. In fact, one of the songs that has spent the longest at the top was also one of the most innovative rock opera pieces in history; Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. For a song that most people seemed to be against releasing at the time, its success surely says a lot about what the people want. And sometimes, it isn’t the most basic, catchy pop song that does the trick.
Other times, it’s rock ballads like Bryan Adams’ ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’, which spent 16 weeks at number one in the UK, a record previously held by Slim Whitman’s ‘Rose Marie’, which remained unbroken for 36 years following its release in 1955 until Adams’ lovelorn megahit swiped it out of the way.
Which song held the number one spot for the longest?
However, while Adam’s hit was certainly impressive, considering it spent that many weeks at number one consecutively, the song that held the number one for the longest non-consecutively was actually Frankie Lane’s ‘I Believe’, which held the spot for 18 weeks in 1953, until it was surpassed with tied hits ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X and ‘A Bar Song’ by Shaboozey, which both collected a staggering 19 weeks at the top.
Lil Nas X’s achievement is especially interesting when you consider that, written down, it seemed to collect facets of songs and genres that shouldn’t have worked in the same space. Sampling Nine Inch Nails for a song that involved Billy Ray Cyrus sounds like it should have been a disaster, but clearly, something about it stuck.
As Debbie Harry once argued, the song itself was a match for previous risk-takers like Blondie’s ‘Rapture’, combining pieces of different genres to make something unexpected, but which people flocked to, because somehow, it made complete sense, and somehow, it sounded innovative, even though it merely reinvented what had already been done before.
So maybe that’s the real lesson: it’s not always about tried and true pop sensibilities, because sometimes, it’s about pushing the boundaries of expectation, and mashing together elements of different styles in ways that audiences will find fresh and exciting – it won’t always pay off, but when it does, it might just smash records.
