Which year had the least number one singles?
The weekly announcement of the charts used to be a thing of excitement. What would the new number one be? Anything new to listen to? Any big upsets and unseats? Now it’s just the same old, same old.
It used to be the case that by the time the calendar of the year had drawn to a close, you would have a stacked list of hits from over the 12 months just gone by, enough to sink your teeth into and reminisce on that specific nugget of history. Nowadays, you’d be lucky if that playlist filled an hour, because the volume of number ones achieved in the space of a year seems to be shrinking exponentially.
It’s perhaps a sign of the times that a selected tiny group of huge artists completely dominate the charts, without giving any chance to some of the littler guys to even get a leg in. Streaming has a lot to answer for in this respect – with livelihoods having been monopolised and the industry now tougher than ever to break, from the moment the charts started including streams as their biggest dictator, it seemed we were forever doomed.
In this sense, it’s really no surprise that the year with the least number one singles fell during the heart of the 2010s, namely in the heady year of 2016, as streaming enforced its tightest grip. It was somewhat ironic, given that this was a year often cited as one of the greatest in recent pop music history, that it spawned so few chart-toppers. But with ten number ones to its name, 2016 was a time that will always go down in commercial music history for a mixture of both the right and wrong reasons.
Why did so few singles go to number one in 2016?
The more statistically savvy among you will wager that the reason so few songs made it to the top spot over the course of 2016 was because one song simply wouldn’t move out the way for a hefty period of time, and you would be right. The tune ‘One Dance’ by Drake came within touching distance of overall chart history as it amassed a whopping 15 weeks at number one, first assuming the throne on April 21st and not vacating the seat until August 4th.
Indeed, over the 12 months, just one single stayed at the top for only a week: that was ‘Pillowtalk’ by Zayn. Among the other big contenders, alongside Drake, was ‘Rockabye’ by Clean Bandit, which stayed at the top for nine weeks at the end of the year, as well as ‘7 Years’ by Lukas Graham and ‘Cold Water’ by Major Lazer featuring Justin Bieber. Hits for the ages, if you ask me.
Of course, this is said with a slight tongue-in-cheek effect. None of those songs are tunes that will transcend generations and we’ll tell our grandkids about, but they do represent a pivotal time in history where the charts of old were gasping their dying breaths, and the streaming era was just beginning the streak of its everlasting reign.
Whether you can tell that in the quality of the songs themselves, or the artists behind them, one thing is clear: the data does the talking.
