State Champ Radio Hot 100
Page: 4
It all comes back to pop music. Pop is the backbone not only of the music industry, but of culture in general: Nothing else connects people, defines moments and lives and passes down history from generation to generation the way pop does. It’s our shared language, our communal experience. It’s why wedding receptions are usually joyous and celebratory occasions even if the DJ doesn’t know a thing about the people they’re playing to, why karaoke can feel like a spiritual awakening in the right circumstances, why top 40 and oldies radio remain cultural staples a decade into the streaming era. There is no safer bet, no easier sell than pop music.
And yet, there’s been relatively little attempt to properly canonize modern pop’s greatest works and practitioners. While rock as a genre has been listed and anthologized to death over the past 50 years, and hip-hop and country are finally starting to catch up, such pop histories are relatively few and far between. There’s no official pop hall of fame, like there is for those other genres. It shouldn’t be possible for the biggest music on the planet to be overlooked, but it does feel that way sometimes.
So we here at Billboard have decided to take the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Billboard Hot 100 — with the chart finally having lived a full-enough life to be at retirement age, though it’s still as vital as ever and certainly nowhere near hanging it up — to take our shot at listing the 500 best pop songs since the chart’s debut. Though songs had to hail from the Hot 100 era to qualify for our list, this isn’t a charts-determined ranking: Rather, these are the songs our staff felt were simply the greatest, most enduring pop songs of that 65-year period, the songs that we most think of when we think of what pop music could and should be. (Because 500 is a much smaller number than you think when talking about 65 years of pop music, and because we wanted to be able to include as many different artists as possible, we capped the number of pop songs per lead artist at three.)
How are we defining “pop songs,” you might ask? Well, that’s a little tough: One of the reasons pop can be hard to summarize is because there’s no real sonic or musical definition to it. There are common elements to a lot of the biggest pop songs, but at the end of the day, “pop” means “popular” first and foremost, and just about any song that becomes popular enough — whether it be rock, dance, rap, R&B, country, reggaetón or some combination — can be considered a pop song. So the only hard-and-fast qualification we laid down for songs to be eligible for our list was that they had to have hit the Hot 100 at some point, in some version. (The only exception we made was for songs that came during the ’90s period where many huge airplay hits were ineligible for the Hot 100; read here for more details on that.)
All that said, the “pop” part of this project was still essential when determining our ranking. We were looking for the songs that most fit our idea of pop music — catchy, tight, rousing, emotional, immaculately crafted, instantly memorable. If a song didn’t strike us as an obvious pop song, we might have ranked it lower on our list than most other all-time songs lists have in the past, or left it off altogether. Conversely, if a song makes us go “now that’s a pop song!” every time we hear it, even if it’s not the kind of critically revered song that often ends up on all-time lists, we made sure to give it a little extra love here. Our definition of pop might differ from yours — we couldn’t even all agree on every song ourselves — but even if we can’t do much better than “we know it when we hear it,” we’re confident you’ll hear it plenty yourself while reading through the songs on our list.
Here are our staff’s 500 favorite pop songs since the introduction of the Billboard Hot 100 on Aug. 4th, 1958 — from Lesley Gore to Carly Rae Jepsen, from Sam Cooke to SZA, from The Kinks to The Chainsmokers, from Chubby Checker to Rae Sremmurd. We’ll be counting down from 500 to 301 today (Oct. 17), then from 300 to 101 on Wednesday, with the final 100 being unveiled on Thursday (Oct. 19), along with more related articles you can read all about here.
Join us below all week, and feel free to sing along; we know you know the words.
500. Los Del Rio, “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)”
Image Credit: Evan Agostini/Liaison/Getty Images
Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” spent six weeks atop Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. But the track wasn’t recorded anywhere near Nashville — it was crafted alongside producer Ryan Hadlock, over 2,000 miles away at Bear Creek, the rustic barn-turned-studio that Hadlock’s parents had built in 1977 just outside of Seattle, not far from the birthplace of grunge. The genre-fluid song didn’t just top the country chart — it peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, too.
“Even the term ‘country music’ is almost becoming passé in some ways because in working with Zach, in a lot of ways, he doesn’t really consider himself a straight-up country musician,” says Hadlock, who also produced Bryan’s “From Austin.” “He’s a singer-songwriter who happens to be from Oklahoma, has an accent and sings about the world he’s in… I think he will be doing amazing things for a really long time.”
Within Nashville, too, a similar genre-mashing ethos has bubbled up on hits such as Morgan Wallen’s muted, acoustic-based chart juggernaut “Last Night,” which spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks atop the Hot 100 in 2023. “He has one of those magical voices that allows him to span multiple formats, really,” says producer Joey Moi, who has worked with Wallen since his debut album. “He can sing a traditional country song, or over a hip-hop, contemporary production or a contemporary country production, and it still sounds like a Morgan Wallen song.”
As more and more country tracks have risen to the upper reaches of the Hot 100 this past year, many of the standouts — not only “Something in the Orange” and “Last Night,” in addition to other tracks by Bryan and Wallen, but also Luke Combs’ rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” (which reached No. 2), Bailey Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place” (which hit the top 10) and Jelly Roll’s rock and country-blending “Need a Favor” (which broke into the top 20) — demonstrate an instinct for crafting sounds that appeal beyond the genre.
A mix of newcomers and veterans, they include Hadlock; Wallen’s “Last Night” producers, Moi and Charlie Handsome; Zimmerman producer Austin Shawn; Combs’ “Fast Car” co-producers, Jonathan Singleton and Chip Matthews; and Jelly Roll producer Austin Nivarel.
Notably, many of these studio creatives have résumés that extend beyond country. Before working with Big Loud artists like Wallen and Florida Georgia Line, Moi produced Canadian rock band Nickelback. Hadlock has worked with names ranging from Foo Fighters to Brandi Carlile, while Handsome’s credits include Post Malone, Kanye West, Juice WRLD and Lil Wayne.
For Wallen and Bryan, scaled-back production proved essential to the genre-traversing success of their respective hits. “We purposefully kept it simple,” Moi says of “Last Night.” “There are a handful of parts going on, but it’s more about the negative space and making it about the story, the vocal and the instrumental that runs throughout. It lends itself to being accessible by more lanes as far as radio formats; it was tougher to define as just a country song, or just a pop song or [adult top 40] song. It kind of fit everywhere.”
[embedded content]
Moi says the song’s sparse production partially resulted from Wallen’s own creative inclinations. “My natural instinct is to build these larger-than-life productions, and Morgan is great about coming behind me and being like, ‘Take this out and that part out,’ making sure I’m not doing too much on certain things,” Moi says. “I’d say he has had his best opportunity on the last two records to really imprint upon every aspect of it, from the songwriting to demos to our approach to tracking in the studio and postproduction. You can hear his contemporary, youthful thoughts over all of it.”
Similarly, Hadlock notes the minimal production on “Something in the Orange,” which utilized vintage mics and gear. “Sometimes old equipment is better at capturing emotion, and part of it is having a good room; I think people don’t always realize how much an instrument the room is that people are playing in,” says Hadlock, whose goal was a recording that sounded like Bryan was “playing right in front of you,” that would make “people listen to it and say, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing live recording.’ ”
For Shawn, the freedom to experiment was key in landing the right feel for Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place.” He and Zimmerman produced the song a half-dozen different ways before landing on the approach they used for the final recording. “We produced an almost John Mayer-esque, real smooth-sounding [version], then the acoustic version and one that was a dark piano ballad, with strings and fiddle that sounded almost like you were listening to a country Goo Goo Dolls song,” Shawn says.
As he did with “Fall in Love,” Shawn incorporated a “three-minute-long sample of just wind” into “Rock and a Hard Place.” “It feels like you are in a desert, and I wanted to feel that open style — we added fiddle and pedal steel, just subtly to bring out the emotive aspect. We wanted this song to feel like you could play it on acoustic guitar, but at the same time, it can still fit into a country radio modern format.”
[embedded content]
Shawn, who co-wrote Zimmerman’s “Fall in Love,” recalls the no-barriers approach he and Zimmerman took early on in developing his sound. “We thought about the kinds of songs he would want to hear and made the music as fans, just encompassing everything we love… There’s no gimmicks with this kid. His gift is making the music that defines him and his lifestyle.”
Ultimately, producers who encourage such experimentation — whether Combs’ cover of a 1980s folk-pop classic, Bryan’s poetic blend of country, folk and rock or Wallen’s country-to-hip-hop range — have shaped songs that are resonating with a multitude of listeners.
“He has always wanted to stay in the country lane, but we all knew he had a sort of contemporary side,” Moi says of Wallen. “If we planted our roots and built our foundation in a good spot, [we knew] we’d have the opportunity to explore other genres, and I think we’re in a sweet spot for that right now.”
This story originally appeared in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.
The growing popularity of Calle 24’s riveting corridos number “Qué Onda” with Chino Pacas and Fuerza Regida caught him by surprise — particularly because he didn’t initially intend for it to be his own track.
Born Diego Millán, he recalls that he wrote the foundation of the song for another group (who he declines to disclose), but when it ultimately didn’t work out for the band, he decided to keep the song for himself. He then showed the song to Fuerza Regida frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz (better known as JOP), and the two immediately decided to grow it even further with the addition of singer Chino Pacas.
The track’s horn-blaring, upbeat feel narrates a rendezvous both passionate and filled with debauchery, which has quickly resonated with listeners. Following its release on Aug. 30, “Qué Onda” has quickly become Calle 24’s biggest hit to date: it debuted at No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Sept. 16, marking his first entry on the chart, and has reached a No. 8 high on Hot Latin Songs.
At just 20 years old, the Chihuahua, Mexico-born musician is signed to Street Mob Records — JOP’s record label (which recently inked a deal with Cinq Music) — and is now performing as a solo act, after Calle 24 first formed as a group of four. “The name stayed with me, but my friendship and camaraderie with the others continues,” he says. He’s also quickly becoming an extremely sought-after songwriter within the booming regional Mexican music scene, with credits on Fuerza Regida’s “Sabor Fresa” and “Igualito a Mi Apá,” featuring Peso Pluma. He’s involved in the San Bernardino band’s upcoming work as well.
[embedded content]
Below, Calle 24 tells Billboard about the success of “Qué Onda,” working as a solo artist, his relationship with JOP and more.
What’s your reaction to your first Hot 100 hit?
I’m very excited. I didn’t think this was going to happen to me, but thank God it did. I hope it’s not the [last] time.
How did the song come together?
[Another group] asked me to do the song. Me and my [writing] partner Miguel Armenta, who is also a co-writer for “Bebe Dame,” started working on the song about a month or so ago in California, and midway through it, we said, “It’s coming along very well.” That same day we recorded it, and it was something very impressive. Now that regional Mexican music is expanding, you know when songs are on another level — we thought this could go worldwide because of the lyrics, the rhythm, all of that.
So, the other project didn’t happen, and I was like, “Well, I’m going to take my song,” because I wrote it. [JOP] told me we should do it together, so we uploaded a Reel to Instagram, promoting the song. That day, we added the voices, and we did not imagine [the results]. That night it accumulated several million [streams]. It was something crazy.
Tell me about the other people that worked on the song.
Cristian Humberto, and Jonathan Caro, who is a co-writer on “Sabor Fresa.” JOP also participated a little bit in the lyrics. We are a team. We’d rather work together: they say that more heads think better than one, so we set out to do that. That’s how we come out with more quality work. We are like a family, really. It’s better when people get along well because things come out much better with more enthusiasm.
How did Calle 24 form?
I am now a solo artist. We used to be a group, but it disintegrated because I believe that my colleagues had their own visions and work plans — and it is understood. Calle 24 started here in Cuauhtémoc, where I live in Chihuahua, with me, Ezequiel Rodriguez, Santiago Castillo and Angel Rivera. When I started four years ago, I was a solo artist like now. But they knew how to record at home, and I was impressed because I had gone to record in a studio and my song sounded worse than theirs. I was one of the first ones who approached them, and we started working together. The name stayed with me [now that I’m a solo artist]. I am Calle 24. But my friendship and camaraderie with the others continues.
How did you meet JOP?
Me and Ezequiel were in Chihuahua, and [JOP] was looking for underground artists from California or Texas. He contacted a colleague called Güero X to do a song and we began talking. We didn’t know that Güero X had just signed with JOP, [but] we did the song we were going to release, and out of the blue Güero X said, “I just signed with Street Mob and Jesús wants to connect with you”. So I sent him a load of songs, and after a week, he said, “Sign them!” I was over the moon. That was in July 2020. Imagine, I was 17 years old at the time. It was this great opportunity. In January 2021, I wrote [Fuerza Regida’s] “¿Qué Está Pasando?”
Since 2021, you’ve done extremely well on streaming platforms.
The truth is that it has been very nice. It’s difficult, but little by little, people are accepting more of what we do. Since the first song we released, which was “¿Qué Está Pasando”, the reception has been very good and we try to improve every day. It has been an incredible process.
Did you always think you would do corridos or regional Mexican music?
Never. In my childhood, I never listened to corridos. My mom was more into country and pop, so I listened more to Luis Fonsi, Caballo Dorado, things like that. One day, when I was about 8 years old, a friend came and told me, “Check out this song,” and it was a corrido. I got that little itch for that music, and from then, I never let it go. I made my first song when I was 11 years old with the help of my parents. To this day, they still support me — that’s what motivated me the most. When I was 13, they bought me my first guitar on my birthday. I knew it was going to be something. The truth is that I always had that hunch. You have to believe in yourself. Now I see that it was not in vain.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Sept. 23, 2023, issue of Billboard.
The numbers are in for this week’s Hot 100! Did Doja Cat hold on to No. 1? Is country music still reigning over the charts? Plus, Katy Perry sold her music catalog to Litmus for a whopping $225 million. The deal includes rights to the singer’s five chart-topping songs off ‘Teenage Dream.’ BTS’ Jung Kook […]
Jamie Foxx
Image Credit: Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Entries:“Infatuation,” No. 92, July 30, 1994“Slow Jamz,” No. 1, Feb. 21, 2004“Gold Digger” by Kanye West feat. Jamie Foxx, No. 1, Sept. 17, 2005“Unpredicatable,” feat. Ludacris, No. 8, Feb. 11, 2006“Georgia” by Ludacris & Field Mob feat. Jamie Foxx, No. 39, Jan. 14, 2006“DJ Play a Love Song,” feat. Twista, No. 45, June 17, 2006“Please Excuse My Hands” by Plies feat. Jamie Foxx & The-Dream, No. 66, Oct. 4, 2008“Just Like Me,” feat. T.I., No. 49, Jan. 3, 2009“She Got Her Own” by Ne-Yo feat. Jamie Foxx & Fabolous, No. 54, March 7, 2009“Blame It,” feat. T-Pain, No. 2, May 16, 2009“Digital Girl,” feat. Drake, Kanye West & The-Dream, No. 92, Aug. 22, 2009“Winner,” feat. Justin Timberlake & T.I., No. 28, April 24, 2010“Fall for Your Type,” feat. Drake, No. 50, Feb. 19, 2011“You Changed Me,” feat. Chris Brown, No. 93, June 13, 2015“Jam” by Kevin Gates feat. Trey Songz, Ty Dolla $ign & Jamie Foxx, No. 97, Feb. 20, 2016
Over 30,000 songs have graced the Billboard Hot 100 in the chart’s 65-year history. Of those, 1,151 have reached No. 1 (as of the chart dated Aug. 19, 2023) — a select 3.8 percent.
One of the rarest feats, perhaps, is repeating at No. 1 on the Hot 100 10 times — as only 10 artists in history have earned the distinction.
The elite list features eight solo artists and two groups. The Beatles lead all acts, with a whopping 20 No. 1s — a record they’ve held since 1965, when they surpassed Elvis Presley.
Presley, who’s notably absent from the list below, scored seven No. 1s in the Hot 100 era. The start of Presley’s career predated the Hot 100, which launched on Aug. 4, 1958, meaning that some of his classics, such as “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock,” preceded the chart’s existence. He did, however, reach the summit with “A Big Hunk O’ Love,” “Stuck on You,” “It’s Now or Never,” “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” “Surrender,” “Good Luck Charm” and “Suspicious Minds.”
As for the artists just outside the 10 No. 1 hits club: Bee Gees, Elton John, Katy Perry, Paul McCartney (solo and with Wings), Taylor Swift and Usher have all topped the Hot 100 nine times, while Beyoncé (excluding Destiny’s Child’s four leaders with her as a member), Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, George Michael (excluding two billed solely to Wham!) and The Rolling Stones have eight each.
Here are the 10 artists who have tallied 10 or more No. 1 hits on the Hot 100:
Title, Weeks at No. 1, Peak Date
The Beatles, 20 No. 1s
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo
Happy birthday, Shawn Mendes! The pop crooner turned 25 years old on Tuesday (Aug. 8), and to celebrate, we’re looking back on some of his biggest hits. Despite his young age, Mendes has 17 songs that have made it into the Hot 100, with six hitting the top 10. His first top 10 hit was […]
Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” sunk its teeth into the Billboard Hot 100 dated July 15, 2023, debuting atop the chart. The 20-year-old pop star took to Instagram on Monday (July 10) to celebrate her third leader on the tally, sharing a screenshot of the Hot 100 top 10 and writing, “AHHHHH IM SO EXCITED AB THIS!!! […]
Happy birthday, Ariana Grande! The superstar celebrated her 30th birthday on Monday (June 26), and marked the occasion with a sweet post dedicated to her inner child. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “HBD, tiny!” Grande captioned the throwback photo of herself dressed as Dorothy from The […]
Celebrating a milestone 10 years together as a group in July 2023, no one can deny BTS’ impact on not just K-pop, not just pop, but on music as a whole. With members of ARMY (the name of their loyal fanbase) stationed all over the world, RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook have […]
