Johnny Marks & Owen Bradley Return to No. 1 on Hot 100 Songwriters & Producers Charts
Written by djfrosty on December 8, 2022
Johnny Marks and Owen Bradley return to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers charts, respectively, thanks to seasonal classics making their annual return to the Billboard Hot 100 (with all charts dated Dec. 10).
Marks rules Hot 100 Songwriters on the strength of three songwriting credits on the latest Hot 100: Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (No. 3), Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (No. 6) and Gene Autry’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (No. 34).
With his 15th week at No. 1, Marks ties Lin-Manuel Miranda for the second-most time spent at the summit since the chart began in 2019. Olivia Rodrigo leads all acts with 22 weeks on top.
With holiday hits annually scaling the Hot 100, Marks has now ruled Hot 100 Songwriters in each of the four most recent Yuletide seasons, starting in December 2019. He died in 1985 at age 75, and became the first artist to posthumously top the chart. He concurrently tops the Holiday Songwriters list, which Billboard launched a week ago.
On the Hot 100 Producers chart, Bradley returns to No. 1 thanks to his production on Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” (No. 5).
Similar to Marks, Bradley has topped the producers chart every year since Billboard initiated the producer charts. With his eighth week at No. 1, he ties Finneas for the seventh-most weeks spent at No. 1. Dan Nigro leads all acts with 27 weeks at the helm. Bradley died in 1998 at age 82.
The weekly Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers charts are based on total points accrued by a songwriter and producer, respectively, for each attributed song that appears on the Hot 100; plus, genre-based songwriter and producer charts follow the same methodology based on corresponding “Hot”-named genre charts. As with Billboard’s yearly recaps, multiple writers or producers split points for each song equally (and the dividing of points will lead to occasional ties on rankings).
The full Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers charts, in addition to the full genre rankings, can be found on Billboard.com.