Billboard Lists

Taylor Swift’s Lover logs its 45th week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Catalog Albums chart, extending its record for the longest run by a female solo artist in the chart’s history. Lover eclipsed Adele’s debut album, 19, four weeks ago.

Lover didn’t get all that much love (at least by Swift’s sky-high standards) when it was released. The album spent just one week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was passed over for a Grammy nod for album of the year (though it did receive a Grammy nod for best pop vocal album). But the belated success of “Cruel Summer,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks starting in October 2023, more than four years after the album’s release, has revived the album. The phenomenal success of the Eras Tour has also kept it high on the charts.

The Catalog Albums chart ranks the week’s most popular catalog albums in the U.S. Catalog albums are titles that are older than 18 months old and have fallen below No. 100 on the Billboard 200 — or holiday albums in their second holiday season. The chart was introduced in Billboard in the issue dated May 25, 1991.

For the first 18 years of Top Catalog Albums, catalog albums weren’t eligible to appear on the Billboard 200. That changed with the Dec. 5, 2009-dated chart, when catalog restrictions were lifted, turning the Billboard 200 into an all-inclusive list of the best-selling albums in the country, regardless of their age. (The adjustment came after Michael Jackson’s death in June 2009, which triggered a sales explosion for his catalog titles. Jackson’s catalog compilation Number Ones was the best-selling album in six of the first seven weeks following his death, yet was ineligible for Billboard’s flagship chart – marking the first time a catalog album had outsold the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200.) Starting with the issue dated Dec. 13, 2014, Billboard shifted from pure sales to a multi-factor consumption formula that also includes on-demand streaming and digital track sales.

We’re going to count down the 17 albums with the longest runs at No. 1 on Catalog Albums from 1991 to the present. It’s an eclectic list, to say the least. It includes two Christmas albums, a film soundtrack and a remarkably wide range of music, including pop, traditional pop, rock, hard rock, R&B, rap, country and reggae.

Eight of the albums on the list were released prior to the 1991 inception of the chart. Impressively, they made the list even though activity prior to the chart’s inception doesn’t count.

Here are the albums with the longest runs at No. 1 on Catalog Albums from 1991 to the present. Each entry includes the album’s release date, the date the album first reached No. 1 on Catalog Albums and the album’s peak position on the Billboard 200.

Prince, The Very Best of Prince, 18 weeks

Image Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Depending on who you’re talking to, sex is either the most natural thing on earth or a shameful sin that must be endured without pleasure to ensure the future of the human race.

Whether it’s being celebrated or censored, discussed openly or surreptitiously, done for procreation or recreation, you can be sure of one thing – if you mention it, you get people’s attention. (Hey, that’s just biology. Or chemistry. Or some sort of science thing.)

When the Billboard Hot 100 launched on Aug. 4, 1958, America wasn’t exactly in its most socially progressive era. You could sing about crushes, hand holding and even kissing on the radio, but you dare not mention the dirty. But since humans are wired to think about it regardless of social mores, songs that subtly tipped to the nasty penetrated popular music anyway.

Musicians spoke about it in coded slang terms, alluded to it in song lyrics (both poetic and crass) or implied it by singing the most innocent words in a suggestive tone. Heck, rock n’ roll – the youth culture music of the Boomer Era – is named after it (as far back as the 1910s, African American communities were using the phrase “rock and roll” as a euphemism for sex).

Following the sexual revolution of the ‘60s, the U.S. began to loosen up, and by the ‘70s, it was only the old fogies wagging their fingers and clucking their tongues when the words “sex” and “sexy” began to appear in the titles of hit songs on the Billboard charts.

And that’s what this list is about – the most popular songs in Hot 100 history to have the words “sex” or “sexy” in the title. Some of these Hot 100 hits are, well, hot; others are hokey; a couple have aged poorly.

Without beating around the bush any further, here are the 15 biggest songs with “sex” or “sexy” in the title in Hot 100 history.

This ranking is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from each era, certain time frames were weighted to account for the difference between turnover rates from those years.

Marcy Playground, “Sex and Candy”

“Carnival” by Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign featuring Rich the Kid and Playboi Carti, which moves up to No. 1 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100, has absolutely nothing in common with the Broadway cast album to Carnival, which topped the Billboard 200 in July 1961, except for having the same title and the fact that they both reached the top of Billboard’s flagship charts.

This is the 14th time that a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and a No. 1 song on the Hot 100 have shared a title – and nothing else. So, we’re not counting, say, “You Light Up My Life,” because Debby Boone’s No. 1 single by that name and LeAnn Rimes’ No. 1 album You Light Up My Life: Inspirational Songs are related. The title song of Rimes’ album is a cover of Boone’s smash.

Many of you have probably never even heard of Carnival, which starred Anna Maria Alberghetti. The show ran on Broadway for nearly two years, from 1961-63 (aka, the Kennedy years). Its best-known song is the melodic “Love Makes the World Go Round.” Even if you drew a blank on Carnival, I guarantee you that you’ve heard of songwriter Bob Merrill’s follow-up Broadway show – Funny Girl, which turned Barbra Streisand into a superstar. Here’s an oddity: the Funny Girl cast album peaked at No. 2, not quite following Carnival to the top of the ferris wheel.

Here are all the cases where a song that topped the Hot 100 had the exact same title as an unrelated album that topped the Billboard 200. We show the album, when it reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and how long it stayed on top. We also show the single, when it reached No. 1 on the Hot 100, and how long it stayed on top.

I’ll start off with 14 exact matches and, just for fun, follow it with a batch of 10 near-misses. The exact matches have the header “Shared Title:” The near-misses have the header “Near Miss:” Both groupings are arranged in alphabetical order.

Note: The Billboard 200 began as a weekly chart in March 1956. The Hot 100 originated in August 1958. This list doesn’t include songs that pre-dated the Hot 100 that would otherwise have made the list when coupled with like-titled No. 1 albums. That would have brought in “Because of You” (the title of a 1951 song by Tony Bennett and a 2007 album by Ne-Yo), “Cry” (the title of a 1951 song by Johnnie Ray & the Four Lads and a 2002 album by Faith Hill) and “Don’t Be Cruel” (the title of a 1956 smash by Elvis Presley and a 1989 album by Bobby Brown).

Additional research by Andrew Unterberger.

Shared Title: “Believe”