What is the longest song to reach number one in chart history?
Typically, songs must be a certain length in order to become hits and storm the charts. Since contemporary music in its current form became popularised in the 1960s, the charts and radio have been closely intertwined. Therefore, singles needed to fit the criteria of the stations to be successful.
While there have always been a few outliers, traditionally, most acts tend to keep their singles under the four-minute mark in order to appease radio stations and music channels on television. Before the age of streaming, radio and TV were the only mediums available in order to present music to a mainstream audience, and if the track was too long, it likely wouldn’t be played.
Radio edits became common practice, allowing artists to secure airplay for a shorter version of their song than the one officially released. One artist who took advantage of this loophole was Don McLean, whose anthem ‘American Pie (Parts I and II)’ was edited down for radio and reached the top of the chart at the start of 1972.
The version of the track, which was sold to fans, lasted over eight and a half minutes, making it the longest song to top the Billboard Chart. ‘American Pie (Parts I and II)’, which spent four weeks at number one, was so lengthy that McLean’s label split the song onto two sides of the seven-inch vinyl record.
For decades, it seemed improbable that anybody would score a number one with a longer song due to the restrictions placed by the gatekeepers. However, in recent years, how people consume music has completely changed, and radio stations no longer have the power they once yielded in previous eras.
To balance that, however, a debate continues to rage regarding the modern consumer and how attention spans have seemingly shrunken, with a demand from the younger generation to take in culture on a bite-size level. While some modern music has clearly been adapted to appease Tik-Tok algorithms, which does have an impact on the charts, Taylor Swift secured a number-one single in 2021 with the ten-minute track ‘All Too Well’.
The track, which originally appeared on Swift’s 2012 album Red, was re-recorded by the singer and surprisingly flew to the top of the chart without radio support. The power of streaming is what took ‘All Too Well’ to number one on the Billboard Chart, and during the first week of release, it was listened to online 54 million times.
After holding the record for almost 50 years, McLean was gracious in defeat as his creation lost its record to Swift. He told Billboard: “Let’s face it, nobody ever wants to lose that number one spot, but if I had to lose it to somebody, I sure am glad it was [to] another great singer/songwriter such as Taylor.”
While Swift is no stranger to topping the chart, ‘All Too Well’ offered something different simply because of its abnormally long length, which should have stopped the track from becoming a hit. Additionally, the song’s original version had been released almost a decade prior, which makes the triumph even more surprising.
When ‘All Too Well’ climbed to the top of the chart, Swift took to Twitter to share her unexpected joy with fans, writing: “I’m floored. A ten-minute song is at the top of the Hot 100”.
