We are all Billboard chart nerds here.
But how many of you listened to all 32 hours of SiriusXM’s recent, limited-edition countdown on their channel 14?
…A Billboard #2 Countdown…
Consisting of 519 songs ranked by performance on the Billboard charts?
I did.
Not all at once, but in breaks. And mostly in the background.
With the help of xmplaylist.com (and jrctennis23’s spreadsheet for the peak years), I have detailed the songs in order up to #101 here, including the breaks where I stopped listening. If your favorite #2 hit isn’t listed here, it’s most likely in the top 100.
Here are some fascinating notes about the countdown:
- The bottom two, Lil Wayne & Kendrick Lamar’s “Mona Lisa” (#519) and J. Cole, 21 Savage, & Morray’s “My Life” (#518), are without a doubt the most uncommercial songs ever to reach #2 on Billboard.
They’re both rap tunes with tons of lyrics and no real hooks, and probably only debuted at #2 because they’re collaborations between rap superstars.
- – The rest of the bottom 30 have a few 60s and 70s tunes, but mostly consist of heavily frontloaded songs from the SoundScan era which nobody cared about after their first few weeks.
Think American Idol coronation songs or tunes like “Yummy” and “Lift Me Up,” which became immediately hated by the artists’ fanbases.
- In this countdown “Yellow Submarine” and “Barbara Ann” ended up just outside of the bottom 30. But if SoundScan existed in the 60s, I imagine they’d probably be with this group.
- The lowest-ranking 80s song (at #447) is “Lovesong” by the Cure. Which is quite shocking.
- Taylor Swift is the only artist to have back-to-back songs, with “Lavender Haze” and “Me.”
- Peter, Paul, & Mary have their only two #2 hits the closest apart (5 places), closely beating Gary Lewis & the Playboys (6 places).
- However, that’s beaten by the two Bond themes, ranking four places apart.
- The worst juxtaposition of songs, in my opinion, is “Burning Love” followed by “Not Gon’ Cry.” The accidental tonal whiplash still bothers me!
A close second is Kesha’s hyper “Die Young:”
Sandwiched right between four rather mellow songs from the 60s.
- “Express Yourself,” obviously, is the most ironic #2 hit in Billboard history. “Hate It or Love It” is a distant second.
- Best bonus beat for a #2 hit? Either gotta be Elvis Costello’s version of “Beautiful…”
…or the Jimmy John’s commercial with Brad Garrett, sound tracked to “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress”:
- The section starting with #302 (Justin Bieber’s “Cold Water”) and ending with #269 (“Candy Rain”) is what I like to call the “Jack-FM Power Hour(s),” as every sha-la-la and every whoa-whoa-oa fit perfectly on Jack-FM radio, and all but two songs went to #2 between 1967 and 1995.
- The other two were “Cold Water,” the epitome of the inoffensive modern hit that Jack-FM stations love to play in between the older hits, and “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” which needs no explanation because it’s Elvis.
This stretch included four consecutive songs that peaked at #2 in the summer of 1969. (Bryan Adams was in there too, as a guest vocalist on “Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone).”)
Just an indicator of how chart success doesn’t mean everything: “Never My Love” was, according to BMI, the second-most played song on radio during the entire 20th century.
- On the countdown, it comes at #243.
- “Material Girl” came on when I was listening to the countdown on my earbuds in a big Halloween costume store.
No Madonna costume though! …or Mariah Carey, who came on next!
…or Rita Coolidge -who came on after that!
And now for some comments on the DJ interludes, which I generally loved:
- Best introductions:
60s on 6’s Shotgun Tom Kelly for “Chain of Fools…”
- Kelly’s co-host Phlash Phelps for “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,
- Magic Matt of 70s on 7 for “For Once in My Life,”
VJ Alan Hunter for “What Have I Done to Deserve This,” and VJ Downtown Julie Brown for “Party Like a Rockstar,”
And Pop2K’s Rich Davis for “Pon de Replay.”
Favorite facts:
- Kodak Black & co.’s “Zeze” being the highest-peaking song ever starting with the letter Z, and Frankie Valli marrying again in goddamn 2023.
- Missed opportunities: Magic Matt talking about the “Late Lament” part of the “Nights in White Satin” album version, only for the single edit to be played next.
On a more humorous note:
- Shotgun Tom Kelly mentioning that “Jazzman” was memorably used in a Simpsons episode…
…but not mentioning that the very next song, “Classical Gas,” was also memorably used in a Simpsons episode: Dental Plan!
And now I’m going to talk about why I didn’t say “the countdown of all Billboard #2 hits,” just saying “the countdown.”
There have been 519 #2 hits on the Hot 100 up through Taylor Swift’s “Karma,” and there are 519 songs in the countdown, but they are not the exact same.
That’s because a certain 90s pop star had three #2 hits, but SiriusXM did not play any of them for reasons you all know.
They filled in the gap with three songs from the same era that went to #2 on the airplay chart but were ineligible for the Hot 100: “Lovefool,” “Walkin’ On The Sun,” and the Fugees’ cover of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
Tune in next time: where I go into the top 100.
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I recently got a car that came with a SiriusXM trial period, and I didn’t like it. It sounded overly compressed, like a lot of terrestrial radio, the the DJs were, well, let’s put it nicely. They didn’t add value. It had another similarity to my local radio stations. If I listened to a channel for too long, I started hearing the same songs over and over again. So I let the trial period expire and subscribed to YouTube Music. I think it sounds better, I can pull up anything I want to hear at any given moment.
This Boomer Complaint Minute has been brought to you by Titanjoints, the best artificial knees on the market. Ask for them by name, you’ll be glad you did.
Ahem. Having said that, I like the idea of doing a countdown of all the #2s. There are some great tunes here, and some I’ll have to go listen to. What is the ranking based on?
I don’t know the exact formula SiriusXM used but it seems to be based on success on the Billboard Hot 100 (or Airplay chart for a few of the songs) relative to other songs during their time on the charts.
I agree that some of the channels sound compressed. For me, it’s the themed channels that win me over. I agree, when I listen to a themed channel, I better not hear the same song in at LEAST 6 hours, but I do. Still, it is good for when you feel like getting into a particular genre. Having DJs is helpful, I think, to add a little color commentary to songs. And sometimes I just really like someone else choosing my songs for me.
Despite all of those points, my subscription is currently lapsed. 🙂
Also, it is Tom in the adjacent cube’s main source of music. He’s had a subscription for well over a decade and still loves it.
Kudos to you, ISurvivedPop, for making that 32 hour long sacrifice for us! Definitely looking forward to what the Top 100 – and particularly the Top 10 – #2’s will be, because this was quite the bonkers list.
Was it just me, or did the list not seem even legitimate until around #250? Soooo many songs from the streaming era that I just have No Clue what the song was, it came and went so fast.
Thanks for this – excellent debut topic. 🙂
Wait until you find out that the second-highest ranked song in the countdown was from the streaming era.
I won’t spoil anything by giving my guess for what that second-ranked song might be, but if it *is* that song, it at least deserves to be ranked that high (and in fact really should have risen all the way to #1 on the Hot 100).
What an awesomely statistical idea!
Busy at the moment but had to say this: the funniest possible combination would have been if Downtown Julie Brown had announced Girl You Know It’s True.
Wubba wubba wubba.
No Sirius XM in Britain so its all new to me. Sounds like a mammoth undertaking.
What shocked me is learning that The Association’s Never My Love was the 2nd most played song on radio of the 20th century. Another one that didn’t cross the Atlantic.
I’d have guessed Yesterday topped that particular radio play metric but it only picks up the bronze. Having looked at the list can’t argue with You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling at #1 though.
https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/19991214_bmi_announces_top_100_songs_of_the_century
Link Crawford will want to read that article. There’s a mention of Bert Kaempfert.
Hmm…
My love of Kaempfert is common knowledge. I should write an article…
In sadder “Never My Love” news, the lead singer of the song died a few days ago.
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/terry-kirkman-the-association-dead-1235420005/
I’m not surprised by any of those top three since it’s “played songs,” not “played recordings.” “Never My Love” had three Top 15 versions in the U.S. (The Association, The Fifth Dimension and Blue Swede) in less than 10 years, and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” not only had the massively played original but the massively played remake by Hall and Oates (pretty sure it has more radio plays than either of the Top 5 singles from that album). “Yesterday” has more cover versions than I think any other song, although off the top of my head, I can’t think of another besides the original that earned significant radio airplay.
That BMI list is fascinating…and hard to believe. It is obvious that songs that were favorable to covers did the best. Still…”Never My Love”? I’m delighted, and it’s my favorite Association hit, but I would NEVER have guessed.
Great job, ISP! What a debut!
As a Boomer Club guest member, I will take the opportunity to complain about the need for a new system that prevents it from being so obviously warped by recent technology, and so obviously gamed by people with nothing better to do.
[Your Titanjoints Cloud Yelling Points have expired]
But on the other hand, thanks for all the hard work on this! And welcome to the tnocs illuminati!
It was a simpler time: Two Julie Browns. I don’t recall Just Julie Brown being a VJ. I do recall laughing a lot. The same people who tuned into 120 Minutes, I suspect, was the same audience who watched Just Say Julie. Those proto-hipsters needed something else to watch.
Downtown Julie Brown was an inspired addition to MTV. I checked her Wikipedia page. Her timeline does coincide with the sea change on top 40 radio as I remember. New jack swing, and its archetype, the Janet Jackson album Control, wasn’t my jam, but in retrospect, I can see how important it was for songs that previously would have charted exclusively on the R&B top 40, made the crossover into pop/rock. And Downtown Julie Brown was the perfect embodiment of this musical integration.
I wrote a version of this yesterday, but I have an old phone that doesn’t do what I want it to do. Thank you, ISurvivedPop, for giving me a reason to write about the Julie Brown binary.
One of the other songs DTJB announced – Donny Osmond’s “Soldier of Love” – seems to be the perfect metaphor for that phenomenon: New Jack Swing as performed by the whitest person imaginable.
But then again, there is Donny Osmond’s secret avant-garde side. During lockdown, I stumbled upon a live version of “Crazy Horses”, shot for German television. I was bouncing off the walls. I was excited.
I’m not a musician. Somebody has to explain to me what Donny is doing on his keyboard, but it looks really innovative and cool. “Soldier of Love” was fun. Wasn’t it a hit around the same time David Cassidy returned to the charts? It’s a tie as to which comeback was more improbable.
There is a film to be made about The Osmonds fighting for the right to make their own music. “Deep Purple” was a very early childhood memory. I have a soft spot for Marie Osmond.