Billboard – All Time Hot 100 Artists

Last updated 10/10/2015.

image from billboard.com

For the 50th anniversary of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 2008, the magazine released a list of the All-Time Hot 100 Artists. They updated the list in 2016 to include all songs which had charted from the inception of the Hot 100 chart on August 4, 1958 through October 10, 2015.

1. The Beatles
2. Madonna
3. Elton John
4. Elvis Presley
5. Mariah Carey
6. Stevie Wonder
7. Janet Jackson
8. Michael Jackson
9. Whitney Houston
10. The Rolling Stones

11. Paul McCartney
12. The Bee Gees
13. Rihanna
14. Usher
15. Chicago
16. The Supremes
17. Daryl Hall & John Oates
18. Prince
19. Rod Stewart
20. Olivia Newton-John

21. Aretha Franklin
22. Marvin Gaye
23. Phil Collins
24. Katy Perry
25. Billy Joel
26. Diana Ross
27. The Four Seasons
28. The Temptations
29. Donna Summer
30. The Beach Boys

31. Lionel Richie
32. Neil Diamond
33. Carpenters
34. Taylor Swift
35. Boyz II Men
36. The Jackson 5/The Jacksons
37. Connie Francis
38. Kenny Rogers
39. Beyoncé
40. Brenda Lee

41. Barbra Streisand
42. Bryan Adams
43. Cher
44. Maroon 5
45. George Michael
46. Black Eyed Peas
47. Bobby Vinton
48. John Mellencamp
49. Three Dog Night
50. Huey Lewis & the News
51. Gloria Estefan/Miami Sound Machine
52. Bon Jovi
53. Pink
54. Chubby Checker
55. Ray Charles
56. Foreigner
57. Kool & the Gang
58. Ricky Nelson
59. Duran Duran
60. The Commodores

61. Bruno Mars
62. Eagles
63. TLC
64. Paul Anka
65. Barry Manilow
66. Dionne Warwick
67. Chris Brown
68. Lady Gaga
69. Gladys Knight & the Pips
70. Heart

71. Nelly
72. The Everly Brothers
73. Bobby Darin
74. R. Kelly
75. James Brown
76. Paula Abdul 77. Alicia Keys
78. Linda Ronstadt
79. Kelly Clarkson
80. Richard Marx

81. Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship
82. Destiny’s Child
83. Celine Dion
84. The Miracles
85. Eminem
86. Jay-Z
87. Bob Seger
88. Fleetwood Mac
89. Kanye West
90. Justin Timberlake

91. Neil Sedaka
92. Bruce Springsteen
93. The Pointer Sisters
94. John Denver
95. The Four Tops
96. Tony Orlando & Dawn
97. 50 Cent
98. 5th Dimension
99. Captain & Tennille
100. Andy Gibb

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Resources:

• Billboard.com: The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists (8/58 to 7/08)
• Billboard.com: The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists (8/4/1958 to 10/10/2015)

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50 years ago: The Beatles hit #1 with “Yesterday”

Yesterday The Beatles

Writer(s): John Lennon, Paul McCartney (see lyrics here) Released: September 13, 1965 First Charted: September 18, 1965 Peak: 14 US, 13 CB, 14 GR, 12 HR, 1 CL, 8 UK, 13 CN, 2 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.2 UK, 1.2 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 10.0 radio, 56.6 video, 367.28 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The music for “Yesterday” came effortlessly to Paul McCartney. He was staying in an attic room in London on Wimpole Street while the Beatles were filming their Help! movie. Paul said he woke up one morning with the melody. SS He said, “[I] tumbled out of bed and put my hands on the piano keys and I had a tune in my head.” RSP He assumed he’d unconsciously plagiarized it, TB remembering one of the many jazz tunes his dad had known. RS500 As he told The Hollywood Reporter, “I…spent about three weeks asking all the music people I knew, ‘What is this song?’ I couldn’t believe I’d written it.” FB Once he knew it was original, Paul gave the song some dummy lyrics. He said, “the lyrics used to go, ‘Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs.’” SS Once the Help! movie was done, Paul went on a European vacation at the end of May with his girlfriend Jane Asher. He finished the song over a two-week period. He said, this “was quite a long time for me. Generally, John and I would sit down and finish within three hours.” SS When the Beatles took a shot at it, Ringo couldn’t make the drums work and John struck out on the organ. RSP Lennon also disliked the song’s “mawkish sentimentality.” HL Paul even attempted giving it to blues shouter Chris Farlowe and fellow Liverpudlian Billy J. Kramer. HL Producer George Martin suggested trying it with a string quartet. Paul said, “We were a little embarrassed about it…We were a rock & roll band.” RS500 Martin convinced McCartney to try it, assuring him that they could always re-cut it if it didn’t work. HL While the song was included on the group’s Help! album, they decided not to release it as a single in England because they weren’t sold on releasing a full-on ballad that was really a solo recording instead of a band effort. SS They did, however, allow its release as a single in the United States, because they didn’t live there. SS Despite their reservations, it became one of the most successful ever. According to Guinness World Records, “Yesterday” is the most recorded song of all time RS500 with more than 2500 versions. RSP Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for The Beatles FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 185. HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. Blandford Books: London, UK. Page 18. RS500 RollingStone.com “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” RSP Rolling Stone. (September 8, 1988; Issue 534)."The 100 Best Singles of the Last 25 Years." New York, NY; Straight Arrow Publishing Company. Page 65. SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 108-9. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 73. Related Links: Last updated 4/13/2023.

The Weeknd knocks himself from #1 with “The Hills”

The Hills The Weeknd

Writer(s): Abel Tesfaye, Emmanuel Nickerson, Carlo Montagnese, Ahmad Balshe (see lyrics here) Released: May 27, 2015 First Charted: June 13, 2015 Peak: 16 US, 2 RR, 12 BA, 13 DG, 14 ST, 40 A40, 114 RB, 3 UK, 11 CN, 3 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 11.0 US, 1.8 UK, 14.75 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1635.3 video, 1938.8 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: In August 2015, Abel Tesfaye, better known as the Weeknd, reached #1 for the first time with “Can’t Feel My Face.” It spent three non-consecutive weeks on top, finally dethroned by “The Hills.” With his second single from Beauty Behind the Madness, the Weeknd outdid himself, spending six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. The “spooky-sounding song” SF is “intense musically, mixing heavy soul and rap.” PSP Hardeep Phull wrote in The New York Post that the Weekend “is in brilliantly sinister form.” WK Billboard said, “Number one hits aren’t supposed to be this sonically adventurous and dark...There’s barely a pop hook to speak of here – just a beguiling, harrowing soundscape that’s impossible to forget.” WK The Weeknd “takes the voice of a celebrity…driven by self-destructive hedonism and has no qualms about it.” SF He sings “of a secret relationship, possibly with a celebrity. The singer is all too aware that now because he is famous, the hills have eyes – i.e., everyone is watching him.” SF The title of the song and its lyrics reference the 1977 horror film The Hills Have Eyes, SF but can also be viewed as a reference to the Hollywood Hills. PFF The song is more than just an exploration of a love affair. It’s about how “people pretend to be who they aren’t and judge others for doing the same things.” PFF Pitchfork’s Hannah Giorgis called the song “a dark, almost discordant meditation on lust, drugs, and fame.” WK Resources: PSP The Pop Song Professor SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 2/6/2021; last updated 7/22/2023.

Squeeze released Cradle to the Grave after a 17-year gap

Cradle to the Grave Squeeze

Released: October 2, 2015 Peak: -- US, 12 UK Sales (in millions): -- Genre: new wave

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Cradle to the Grave [3:20] Nirvana [3:55] (3/17/16, --) Beautiful Game [3:25] Happy Days [4:36] (8/2/15, --) Open [3:46] Only 15 [3:11] Top of the Form [3:05] Sunny [2:59] Haywire [3:52] Honeytrap [3:30] Everything [4:06] Snap, Crackle and Pop [4:52] Songs written by Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook. Total Running Time: 44:32 The Players: Chris Difford (vocals, guitar) Glenn Tilbrook (vocals, guitar, keyboards, etc.) Lucy Shaw (bass) Stephen Large (keyboards) Simon Hanson (drums)

Rating: 2.503 out of 5.00 (average of 15 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: In 2007, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook reunited as Squeeze but it wasn’t until 2010 that they returned to the studio for Spot the Difference, a collection of re-recorded versions of some of their best loved songs. Five years later they released Cradle to the Grave, their first set of new songs since 1998’s Domino. Surprisingly, it became their highest-charting studio release in the UK. It was their only album to feature Lucy Shaw on bass and the first to feature Stephen Large and Simon Hanson. “Remarkably, especially given its mortality-obsessed title, Cradle to the Grave doesn’t play like a revival, nor does it seem concerned with modern fashion. Difford and Tilbrook simply pick up the thread they left hanging in the ‘90s, acting as if no time has passed. Happily, the pair does not seem as knackered as they did on Domino, a record where they seemed to limp along out of habit.” AMG “Without consciously reviving any specific Squeeze era -- the closest companion this album has may be the early-‘90s efforts, such as Play and Some Fantastic Place – Cradle to the Grave relies on the sharp melodic construction of Tilbrook and Difford’s diffident wit, a combination the crackles throughout this lean 44-minute record.” AMG “Although there’s little doubt this is first and foremost a pop album constructed almost entirely out of tight three to four-minute tunes, what Squeeze celebrate is classic pop aesthetics, not sound: perhaps the Tamla-Motown bounce of the title track is expected, but the glitterball disco that follows on Nirvana is not, and the record is filled with such sly curveballs, finding a bit of earthiness in the majestic contours of the Beach Boys and splendor within boozy singalongs. When applied to such sturdy songs, these grace notes make Cradle to the Grave feel nothing less than celebratory, an affirmation of Difford and Tilbrook’s special chemistry as songwriters and bandleaders.” AMG Notes: A deluxe edition added four cover songs: Lou Reed’s “Hangin’ ‘Round,” Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley PTA,” Ray Davies’ “This Strange Effect,” and Tom Waits’ “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Squeeze AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 5/20/2022.