Which song has topped the charts in the most different countries?
Chart and art are far more than a mere ‘ch’ apart. It’s hypothesised by scientists that humans could actually sing before we could talk, and we certainly weren’t belting out those first primitive notes thinking, ‘I hope this tune outstrips The Kinks in the race for number one for the sake of my ego and commercial cache’. Nevertheless, while the Billboard Hot 100 might not reflect the purpose of music’s soul-espousing ways, it does depict its modern interplay with society at large.
The concept of charting music by physical sales, understandably, began in the home of hard capitalism, the USA. In the summer of 1913, Billboard first posted a list titled: ‘Last Week’s Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs’. Notably, the chart pertained to sheet music rather than physical releases. Topping the inaugural list that July was Al Jolson’s ‘You Made Me Love You’, marking the song out as the first number one in history despite the fact that Jolson himself hadn’t even attempted a physical recording of it at this stage.
Sadly, but somewhat informatively, Jolson was a blackface performer, a practice now discredited as flagrantly racist. The concept of a song in this vein marking the birth of the charts is as shocking as it is illuminating. More often than not, the charts are not a repository of timeless art that captures what humans truly love, but more so a marker of fads, trends and market forces.
Since then, documenting unfortunate market forces has steadily caught on. The initial Billboard concept has slowly built up into what it is today, with the UK launching its first official chart in 1952, and now over 80 further countries following suit. Through this global documentation, we can increasingly see clear commercial trends.
For instance, Far Out recently uncovered that ”84% of songs that entered Billboard’s Global 200 chart in 2024 went viral on TikTok first.” Notably, TikTok is a medium without borders. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
The song that went number one in nearly every single country
However, this rise of rapid cultural hegemony was occurring long before it was enforced by algorithms. Back in 2017, for instance, ‘Despacito’ by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber achieved the record-breaking feat of topping the charts in 47 different countries. That meant it pretty much hit the top spot in every chart that it entered.
Beyond its catchiness, this remarkable stat is as informative about modern society as Al Jolson’s troubling hit was way back in 1913. The first and most obvious notable characteristic of the song is that it is largely sung in Spanish. The language’s prominence has risen rapidly in the last 100 years, rising from an estimated 60-100 million in the 1920s to over 600 million today. Thus, the song not only reflected the changing global demographic, but also greater acceptance of cultural globalisation.
This acceptance was bolstered by the fact that streaming services are far less regionalistic than typical culture hubs like radio stations. The YouTube video for ‘Despacito’ now has 8.7 billion views, which is more than the entire human population of planet Earth. On these platforms, the uptick was driven by the simple virtue of its catchy appeal, bypassing traditional gatekeepers in suits and ties who may well have said, ‘We can’t play this, nobody will understand it’. Or perhaps more sinisterly, ‘We can’t play this, it will erode our cultural dominance’.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the song was a win for diverse culture. The track might largely be sung in Spanish, but its plainly polished pop appeal hints at the rise of a capitalist-driven global monoculture rather than a democratisation of the arts. The vaguely Spanish rhythms mixed with Americanised pop convey a sense that the track was essentially music for nowhere for everyone.
In essence, not to detract from the evident appeal of the irresistibly catchy track too much, but every song that achieves such success can be said to be a cultural oddity in one way or another, and ‘Despacito’ stands out as a perfect algorithmic product. To data-driven streaming platforms, it was serve-able to fans of pop, reggaeton and hip hop. It had the fresh novelty buzz of two unknown names, backed by the safe pivoting presence of a global superstar. It was new, but nostalgic and knowable. And it was so damn summery.
What other pop hits achieved global domination?
Other hits have achieved this crossover appeal in various different ways. Britney Spears’ debut single, ‘…Baby One More Time’, also came very close to topping the chart in every single country it entered. The track made great use of the global boom of MTV, living long in the memory as a visual performance as much as a typical song. Troubling eroticism was also clearly part of its marketing angle, and that also helped it to garner global attention.
Then there are hits like Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind, 1997’, dedicated to Diana, Princess of Wales. This anthem is the second-best-selling single of all time, and rose to the top in at least 21 countries around the world. It achieved this lofty position by playing into the news surrounding the death of Lady Di. The story had hit the headlines around the globe, and ‘Candle in the Wind, 1997’ came along for the ride, mimicking the outcry of righteous public sentiment.
In short, these strange giants of success prove for certain that art’s three-letter word in the chart somewhat overstates its importance. If you want a global hit of such huge proportions, you need timing, tricks of the trade, and trends to fall in your favour—the song itself is secondary.
