The Year in Charts: 24 Billboard Chart Feats for 2024

25 – Max Martin broke out of a tie with the late George Martin, best known for helming the bulk of The Beatles’ catalog, for the most career Hot 100 No. 1s among producers, thanks to two in 2024: Ariana Grande’s “Yes, And?” and “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love),” upping his total to 25 leaders in that role.

1 – Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter ruled Top Country Albums for four weeks in April, while lead single “Texas Hold ‘Em” topped Hot Country Songs for 10 weeks in February-April. With her sonic turn from pop/R&B/hip-hop, the superstar became the first Black woman ever to lead each list.

14 – On the May 4-dated Hot 100, amid her record run on The Eras Tour, Swift monopolized the top 14 spots – the most titles from the top of the chart on down ever in a single week. “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone, launched at No. 1 that week, becoming her 12th leader. (Fittingly, per its title, it spent two weeks on top.)

Each song is from Swift’s LP The Tortured Poets Department, which concurrently premiered as her 14th No. 1 on the Billboard 200, tying her with Jay-Z for the most leading sets among soloists.

19 – In November, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hoisted a record-equaling 19th week at No. 1 on the Hot 100. Over the chart’s 66-year history, the song is now tied for the longest reign with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus), which dominated for 19 weeks in 2019.

Shaboozey reworked the lyrics to his breakthrough smash at the 2024 Billboard Music Awards, musing, “In the song, it says, ‘me and Jack Daniels got a history.’ Now me and Billboard got a history.”

57 – Cyrus ran up her record run atop the Adult Contemporary chart to 57 weeks for “Flowers.” The song’s span at No. 1 stretched from April 2023 through this July.

99 – Teddy Swims’ soulful smash “Lose Control” became the No. 1 hit on Billboard’s year-end 2024 Hot 100 Songs chart – after it debuted at No. 99 in August 2023.

While a 98-spot climb to the summit on the weekly survey for a year-end leader might seem unexpected, given how many big hits now bound in in the top 10, it’s the second trek of at least that many places for an annual No. 1 this decade: Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” wrapped as the top song of 2021, after it entered at No. 100.

3 in the Top 5 – Carpenter’s buzzy 2024 included her becoming only the second act to chart three initial top five Hot 100 hits in the region simultaneously, via “Taste,” “Please Please Please” and “Espresso” in September. She joined only The Beatles, who first tripled up in March 1964.

Carpenter previously moved into The Beatles’ rarified chart air when “Please Please Please” debuted at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and “Espresso” first reached No. 3 in June. She likewise became the first solo artist and second act overall, after the Fab Four 60 years earlier, to place two initial top-three hits with no other billed artists in the region simultaneously.

“That one sounds fake to me,” Carpenter said of the latter stat on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in August. “I’m just so grateful that you guys are listening.”

5 in the Top 5 – As Lamar’s new LP, GNX, blasted in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in December, the superstar rapper ruled the Hot 100 with the set’s “Squabble Up,” which likewise opened at the summit. The track became his fifth Hot 100 No. 1, and his third of 2024 – the most among all artists this year. He previously led in 2024 with “Not Like Us,” for two weeks beginning in May, and “Like That,” with Future and Metro Boomin, for three weeks in April.

Lamar swept the Hot 100’s top five with four more debuts from GNX: “TV Off” (featuring Lefty Gunplay), “Luther” (with SZA), “Wacced Out Murals” and “Hey Now” (featuring Dody6) at Nos. 2-5, respectively. He joined only Taylor Swift, Drake and The Beatles in having placed at Nos. 1-5 in a single week.

50 – In August, Asake became the first artist to reach 50 entries on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart, dating to the list’s April 2022 start. Concurrent with the milestone, he earned his first No. 1: “Active,” with Travis Scott.

33 – In June, Chesney notched his record-extending 33rd Country Airplay No. 1 with “Take Her Home.” Tim McGraw and Blake Shelton follow with 29 leaders each, dating to the chart’s January 1990 inception.

61 – McGraw scored his record-tying 61st Country Airplay top 10 with “One Bad Habit” in November, matching Kenny Chesney and George Strait for the mark. Alan Jackson is next with 51 top 10s, followed by Keith Urban (44), Toby Keith (42) and Brooks & Dunn (41).

5 – Wallen rounded up five Country Airplay chart-toppers in 2024 – marking the first year in which an act has amassed that many. “Lies Lies Lies” led in November, following “Cowgirls” (featuring ERNEST; one week, July); Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” (featuring Wallen; four weeks, June-July); “Man Made a Bar” (featuring Eric Church; one week, April); and Thomas Rhett’s “Mamaw’s House” (featuring Wallen; one week, March).

6 – For over half a century, songs that stemmed from Road Dahl’s 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have sweetened Billboard surveys, encompassing three hit films, a Broadway musical and more.

The franchise’s latest entry is Wonka, the movie that chronicles the backstory of how famed chocolatier Willy Wonka’s career began. Its companion album rose to No. 6 on Billboard’s Soundtracks chart in January. Plus, one of its signature songs, “Pure Imagination,” by Wonka’s namesake star Timothée Chalamet, became a hit on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart.

72 – In November, Martin’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” dashed onto the Adult Contemporary chart – nearly 72 years after the legendary entertainer recorded it. The song was released at last on Oct. 14. Per a press release, it is the late Martin’s earliest known holiday recording, and his only recorded version of the classic carol, which Meredith Willson wrote in 1951. The performance is from a radio broadcast on Dec. 16, 1952, as part of NBC’s The Martin and Lewis Show that starred Martin and Jerry Lewis.

A new animated video for Martin’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” also premiered in November.

Top 40 – Late folk-country icon Denver returned to the top 40 of the Hot 100 in August as a writer, thanks to mgk and Jelly Roll’s “Lonely Road.” The song, which reimagines Denver’s breakthrough anthem as a recording artist, “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which journeyed to No. 2 in 1971, brought him back to the top 40 as a writer for a second time in the past decade, both via reworkings of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” In October 2016, “Forever Country,” by Artists of Then, Now & Forever, hit No. 21. That song, released in celebration of 50 years of the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, is a medley of three favorites: “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” and Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

’86 & ’24 – Thirty-eight years after it first became a hit, The Outfield’s “Your Love” was back in the lineup on Billboard’s charts. Originally a No. 6-peaking single on the Hot 100 in 1986, the pop-rock classic hit the Billboard Global 200 in April. Meanwhile, a new version debuted on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, and in the top 10 of Dance/Electronic Song Sales, in May: “Your Love (Remix),” by The Outfield and Diplo. Thanks to the song’s reimagination, The Outfield charted a newly released entry for the first time since 1992.

200+ million – In November, ROSÉ and Bruno Mars’ ‘APT.’ debuted with 224.5 million global streams, according to Luminate. It added 207.5 million in its second week, becoming the first title since the Billboard Global 200 chart started in 2020 to have drawn at least 200 million streams worldwide in multiple weeks.

As the track also soared in at its No. 8 best on the Hot 100, BLACKPINK member ROSÉ made history as the first female artist prominent in K-pop (Korean pop) to hit chart’s the top 10. Mars, meanwhile, added his milestone 20th Hot 100 top 10.

24 – Joel achieved his 24th Adult Contemporary top 10 with “Turn the Lights Back On” in February. The ballad became his first top 10 since his version of Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love” in 1997. Notably, he earned his latest top 10 a week shy of the 50th anniversary of his first appearance on the chart: In 1974, he debuted with his breakthrough classic, and eventual first top 10, his own tipsy bar song “Piano Man.”

26 – Nearly 50 years after making his Billboard chart debut, Springsteen scored a first, notching his initial appearance on Hot Country Songs, thanks to his featured role on Zach Bryan’s “Sandpaper,” which entered at its No. 26 high in July. The song also returned The Boss to the Hot 100 for the first time in over 15 years.

20 & 21 – In April, Boney James became the first act to tally 20 No. 1s on Billboard’s Smooth Jazz Airplay chart. The venerable saxophonist reached the milestone as featured on “Cigar Lounge” by Big Mike Hart (who led with his first chart entry). James added his 21st leader, “Slide,” in December.

22 – Sum 41’s “Landmines” is the No. 1 Alternative Airplay hit of 2024, after it led for two weeks in March. The act ended a break of more than 22 years between weekly leaders (since “Fat Lip” in 2001), the longest in the chart’s history.

4 – As Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran debuted at No. 1 on Top Latin Albums in April, she became the first woman to crown the chart in four distinct decades (1990s, 2000s, ‘10s and ‘20s). Among all acts, only Alejandro Fernández has also earned the honor.

11 – Charli xcx boasts the most entries on an annual Hot Dance/Electronic Songs recap since the chart originated in 2013. “360” leads her 11-song haul at No. 6 for the year.

22 – Sparked by its synch in the film Saltburn, Ellis-Bextor’s 2002 U.K. hit “Murder on the Dancefloor” broke through stateside at last, 22 years later. It spent five months in the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 10 and wraps in the top 10 on the year-end ranking.