Jay Z Most Popular Songs

[Lihuel Harding]

Afew weeks ago, I wrote about how difficult it is to determine what the most popular album is. To show that, I put together a dataset of the 50 most popular albums in Spotify history. I decided to start my investigation on the most popular track on an album with that dataset.

There are two takeaways from this chart. First, among the 50 most popular albums on Spotify, track 4 just ekes out track 3 as the most popular. So, my friend was almost right. Regardless, the most popular tracks are always near the front of the record. Why? Every album has a track 1, track 2, and track 3. Not every album has a track 10. In short, the earlier songs have an inherent advantage.

This time I dipped into the millions of albums that have been uploaded to Audiomack. When I scanned across every upload with more than 8 songs (i.e., an album), track 3 was most often the most popular. My friend was vindicated. But then I noticed something odd. The most popular track changed depending on how many streams the album had.

People listen to albums differently based on how popular the album and the artist are. For the unknown artists of the world (i.e., artists whose albums are getting fewer than 100,000 streams), listening is focused on singles. Track 3 is the most common place for a single to be located among those albums. Interestingly, we see the same thing with the most popular artists (i.e., artists whose albums are getting more than 10,000,000 streams). Among albums with more than 10,000,000 streams, track 2 is the most common location for a single. Among albums with more than 100,000,000 streams, track 6 is.

I\u2019m going to see Taylor Swift this weekend. While I was listening to her latest album Midnights in preparation for the show, I noted to my friend that the third song \u201CAnti-Hero\u201D was the most popular on the record. He told me that\u2019s not shocking. The third song is always the most popular. I was skeptical, so I decided to look into his claim.

My friend wasn\u2019t satisfied with this answer, though. A sample of 50 albums is small. Plus, the most popular albums might be very different from the average album. I agreed, so I decided to grab some more data.

When you look at all albums and albums with at least 1000 streams, track 3 is the most popular on average. Then when you look at albums with at least 100,000 and 1,000,000 streams, the most popular shifts to track 1. If you set the minimum at 10,000,000 streams, the most popular shifts to track 2. Then it goes to track 6 when you move the threshold to 100,000,000 streams. What\u2019s going on here?

I actually don\u2019t think this is that shocking. If you come across a super small artist, you\u2019re probably going to play a single before you play an album. It\u2019s a great way to get a taste of what the artist is about. For superstars, singles can be genuine hits. By definition, people listen to hit songs a lot.

But something strange happens for mid-tier artists (i.e., artists whose albums are getting more than 100,000 streams and less than 10,000,000 streams). These are artists who you might be familiar with, but who don\u2019t have massively popular singles. Because of this, listeners are invested enough to click play on that album, but not invested enough to listen to a single endlessly. Since not everyone is going to make it through your entire album, track 1 is going to be inherently advantaged.

In an interview with i-D, Remi Wolf described her music as \u201Cfunky soul pop\u201D that pulls influence from her relationships, mental illness, and Prince. That Prince-ian influence is on full display in \u201CPrescription\u201D, a sensual jam that Wolf stretches out for over 7 minutes. It\u2019s a direct descendent of Prince\u2019s slow jam \u201CAdore\u201D, the final track from his masterful album Sign o\u2019 the Times.

What this man was asking for the revival of was Primal Scream, the British group that smashed together Rolling Stones-esque rock and club music on their 1991 album Screamadelica. The first track on that album, \u201CMovin\u2019 on Up\u201D, is a delicious romp that somehow sounds like it\u2019s from the 1960s and 1990s. I agree with this tweeter that we should bring back this sound.

The Billboard Hot 100 is a singles chart published by Billboard which measures the most popular singles in the United States. Prior to the creation of the Hot 100, Billboard published four singles charts: "Best Sellers in Stores", "Most Played by Jockeys", "Most Played in Jukeboxes" and "The Top 100". These charts, which ranged from 20 to 100 slots, were phased out at different times between 1957 and 1958. Though technically not part of the Hot 100 chart history, select data from these charts are included for computational purposes, and to avoid unenlightening or misleading characterizations. Throughout the history of the Hot 100 and its predecessor charts, many songs have set records for longevity, popularity, or number of hit singles by an individual artist. Among these records is the longest-running number one single "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X, which spent 19 weeks at that position. The Beatles have the most number one hits on the chart, with 20 songs having reached that position.

In 2008, for the 50th anniversary of the Hot 100, Billboard magazine compiled a ranking of the 100 best-performing songs on the chart over the 50 years, along with the best-performing artists.[1][2] In 2013, Billboard revised the rankings for the chart's 55th anniversary edition.[3] In 2015, Billboard revised the rankings again.[4] In 2018, the rankings were revised again for the Billboard chart's 60th anniversary.[5] In 2021, Billboard revised the rankings again upon the ascendance of "Blinding Lights" to the top spot on the list.[6] Shown below are the top 10 songs and top 10 artists over the 63-year period of the Hot 100, through November 2021. Also shown are the artists placing the most songs on the overall "all-time" top 100 song list.

Below are songs not connected to Christmas or the holiday season. (A special section for the holiday songs is below, as a few of those songs set higher records for dropping off the Hot 100 in early 2019 and 2020.)

Prior to 2008, the biggest drop off the Hot 100 was "Nights in White Satin" by The Moody Blues, which ranked at No. 17 in its final week on the chart in December 1972. This high drop-off position was matched in January 1975 by "Junior's Farm" by Paul McCartney and Wings. The record descent held for over three decades. With the exception of "Calm Down", each song above dropped off the Hot 100 upon four or fewer weeks; "Nights in White Satin" and "Junior's Farm" dropped off after 18 and 12 weeks, respectively.

During November and December beginning some time in the 2010s, these songs have regularly appeared on the Hot 100, generally departing from the chart once the holiday season ends in January. More recently, they have reached into the top ten, and in 2019, for only the second time ever on the Hot 100 (the first since 1958), made it to number one. This has led to all-time records for dropping off the Hot 100, including from number one, as the songs depart regardless of their final chart positions during the season. Only the highest drop-off position per song is listed and its most recent date if achieved more than once, such as "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which first dropped off the Hot 100 from number one on January 11, 2020, and did so again in 2022 and 2023.

There have been a handful of songs that charted more than 52 weeks throughout their runs, but only four songs have managed to chart on the Hot 100 every week within a given calendar year. The first to accomplish such milestone was Jewel's "You Were Meant for Me" charting each week of 1997.

At the start of 2015 only two videos could boast having over a billion views. By the end of the year, ten more had crossed the threshold. Flash-forward a few more years, and several pop songs 2021 offered were rapid hits that accelerated to a billion and beyond also.

Probably, but for the sake of it, here are the 16 most popular songs in the world according to YouTube. And while they may not be the best songs of all time, they certainly shine a light on what floats our boat in this day and age.

An artist who appears twice in this list, Ed Sheeran has swept the world since emerging with his debut EP in 2011. His biggest hit remains Shape of You, released in 2017. The incredible music video that accompanies it is one of the hottest youtube videos of 2017 by far.

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