The longest-charting song since records began
As an artist in the current landscape, it’s never been more difficult to get your music heard and, simultaneously (theoretically), it’s never been easier. While streaming has made it possible for unsigned British bands to have Brazilian fan accounts dedicated to them on social media, due to the high quantity of music available online, charting has never been more challenging.
More often than not, the charts are occupied by the same cabal of highly successful musicians who seemingly take turns to share the pole position. While the occasional artist manages to break into the club and become a member, this is a rare achievement. However, if a song successfully gauges the attention of the wider general public, the rewards can be life-changing.
In recent history, the singles chart has seen a series of songs that remain in the chart for over a year, which seems absurd considering 100,000 new tracks are released daily on streaming platforms. Despite music being available in higher quantities than ever before, most people continue to listen to the same small selection of artists.
When The Weeknd released ‘Blinding Lights’ at the end of 2019, the song became a monster hit and an immovable object in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Astonishingly, the track spent 57 weeks in the top ten of the chart, which included four consecutive weeks at number one.
During this time, the world went through a global pandemic and the way in which people lived completely changed. However, one thing which remained the same was the American public listening to ‘Blinding Lights’ and the song continued to stay perched near the top of the chart.
While the stay in the top ten didn’t last forever, ‘Blinding Lights’ continued to stay in the Billboard Hot 100 until 2022, when it finally exited after 90 weeks in the chart. The Weeknd’s track surpassed the previous record set by Imagine Dragons with ‘Radioactive’ and set a high bar for other artists to beat.
A few months after ‘Blinding Lights’ left the Billboard Hot 100, The Weeknd’s record was topped by Oxfordshire indie-pop band Glass Animals with ‘Heat Waves’. Their track was released in 2020 but didn’t begin to chart in the United States until the following year and became the ultimate sleeper hit.
Due to its popularity on Tik-Tok, interest in the track grew with each week until it reached the top of the chart in March 2022 – almost two years after first being released. Remarkably, it continued to chart for another seven months and survived on the Billboard Hot 100 for a total of 91 weeks.
Glass Animals’ Dave Bayley said of breaking the record: “Wow, all I can say is wow. Many of you know [that] when I wrote this song, I was writing about missing someone I loved very dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would lead to so much love and connection across the globe. You all have done that. Thank you to everyone who has helped this song reach so many people. You know who you are. Thank you.”
Before ‘Heat Waves’, Glass Animals, despite releasing three albums, had never had a song chart anywhere in the world apart from 2014’s ‘Gooey’, which climbed to 40 in Australia. Making the Billboard Hot 100 for one week would have been their greatest chart achievement in America, yet, it’s now been streamed over 2.5 billion times on Spotify alone.
Listen to ‘Heat Waves’ below.
