Thursday, September 11, 2008

Billboard's Top 10 All-Time Songs

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of their “Hot 100” chart our good friends at Billboard Magazine have put together their list of their “100 All-Time Songs” (“all time” in this case meaning the first 50 years of the Hot 100…August 1958-July 2008.) The list ranks the songs by sales and radio airplay (and not, as should be readily apparent by some of the tunes that made the top 10, by any subjective artistic merits.)

The top 10 All-Time Songs are:

1) “The Twist” Chubby Checker

2) “Smooth” Santana featuring Rob Thomas (see above)

3) “Mack the Knife” Bobby Darin

4) “How Do I Live” LeAnn Rimes

5) “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” Los Del Rio

6) “Physical” Olivia Newton-John

7) “You Light Up my Life” Debby Boone

8) “Hey Jude” The Beatles

9) “We Belong Together” Mariah Carey

10) “Un-Break My Heart” Toni Braxton

Every decade in the period covered is represented…though apparently there were a lot of monster singles in the nineties. The Beatles made the top 10 only once and Elvis not at all (nor did Motown have a hit big enough to make the cut. ) I guess I’m surprised that Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” didn’t get into the top 10 either.

The rest of the top 100 can be found here.

And now, come on baby, let’s do the Twist! :-)


4 comments:

Very Anonymous Mike said...

My friend once pointed out that not one band broke out big in the 90's. The 90's was the decade of one-hit wonders. Maybe that's because it's the decade where the music industry forced us to buy an entire album for one good song.

I thought it only bit them in the ass.

Anonymous said...

Interesting list, though I must admit that Mack the Knife, Debby Boone and Physical surprise me for making it into the top 10.

Anonymous said...

Good gawd...a lot of people have lousy taste in music--"Physical"??!! "You Light Up My Life"???????!!!!! Well, at least "Hey Jude" made it there, and I'll give it to "The Twist," too, even though Chubby Checker once almost ran me over in his car while I was crossing the street in Paoli PA (a few miles from where he lives).

Anonymous said...

"Smooth” Santana kind of shocked me, I love the song very much, so I'm tickled to see the song make the list.