Which song held the number one spot for the longest in the 2000s?
Much has been made of the Y2K revivalism that has struck the online world and broader popular culture in recent years. While easily scoffed at along with the so-called indie sleaze, the fact is that the dawn of the millennium was indeed a fashion and cultural document that evokes a wistful era before crushing online ubiquity and algorithmic strangulation.
Misty-eyed harkening to days long gone is nothing new, but the chrome gadgets and democratised cyberspace of the early 2000s is charged with an authentic pull toward a time that feels simpler and less disorienting than the bleak contemporary. Economic stasis, War on Terror, and the rapacious maw of corporate globalisation aside, the era’s whiff of innocence setting off the Gen Z lot is deeper than just retro fetishism.
A perusal of the number one singles that scored the 21st century’s first decade on both sides of the Atlantic shows hip-hop and rap dominating the charts, with grime particularly seizing the UK. While Eminem, Outkast, and Kanye West stood as the era’s defining artists, rock, in its broadest sense, was in a less secure place. Plodding along post-Britpop mulch, nu-metal silliness, and the tsunami of landfill indie flooded the rock world with slim pickings of decent bands and communities amid the Kerrang! and NME gush over some of the era’s worst acts.
Typically, the longest-held number one of any given decade is at odds with the retrospective memory of the critical consensus of what defines pop’s ten-year output. However, the 2000s pretty much align with the collective impression of exactly what CDs and newfangled downloads were being snapped up the most. Over in the UK, arguably, Def Jam’s biggest single wouldn’t budge from the number-one spot. Rihanna and Jay-Z’s 2007 R&B smash, ‘Umbrella’, spent a British record of ten consecutive weeks at the top slot.
So, what was the longest number one in the 2000s?
The record of the decade is tied between two monster artists of the day, with 14 consecutive weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. First up is adult-contemporary wailer turned urban pop queen Mariah Carey.
After a 16-week chart domination of ‘One Sweet Day’, with drippy vocal harmony boyband Boyz II Men, that pushed 1995’s Daydream as one of the biggest selling albums ever, Carey sought to lick her wounds after the critical mauling of Glitter and Charmbracelet, looking to evoke some of the previous decade’s former gloss her fans were pining for. Her efforts paid off handsomely.
The second single for 2005’s The Emancipation of Mimi, ‘We Belong Together’ stitched crisp programmed beats and R&B piano drops for a stellar number-one score about deep-seated yearning.
On the other hand, sharing the 14-week record was the supremely irritating Black Eyed Peas. The second single for 2009’s The END, the David Guetta co-written ‘I Gotta Feeling’ was stuck in every bad nightclub and clogged the music channels like an unwelcome EDM hairball in music’s shower drain. Add to that 14 weeks of awful synth jabs, grating autotune vocals, and an aggressive “aren’t we all having a good time!?” grimace, this corporate rave horror spelt a dark moment for pop.
