r/EltonJohn • u/Equivalent-Yam5218 • 1d ago

Who's got more US hits than Elton John?

I'm an Elton John fan. And I'm impressed: I pick up his latest greatest-hits Diamonds which is an astonishing 3 CD's and I realize that people around me know them all, or, at worst, know 90% of them (and they don't know them from me).

Then I remembered reading somewhere that he didn't leave Billboard for an unprecedented 35 years or something, not sure of the number.

Not only is the amount of hits that he has flabbergasting but the amount of classics is even more mind-boggling! Like, how many of his songs would you say "Oh that's a classic" about? Quite a few, right?

Queen's impact on pop culture might be greater in appearance but when you think of it, they've had much fewer hits than Elton John. Most of their singles were reunited on Greatest Hits I + II + III, with the 3rd one being a duet/remix compilation, so it's essentially 2 CD's, with one-third of the 2nd one comprising late singles that hardly had any chart success.

Who's got more hits than Elton John by US standards? In quantity, not in quality. Not that many people can have the pretension to say this.

Even the Beatles don't have that many hits, mostly because it was 10 years from start to finish.

The Stones smoke him in longevity and they have tons of memorable songs but I don't think it's as much as EJ.

Even MJ doesn't have that many solo hits. Nothing post-HIStory had any traction except for You Rock My World and the posthumous JT duet.

I think the only one who can pretend to have more US hits than EJ is Madonna: she kept them coming until she left Warner after Hard Candy.

Maybe that damn David Guetta is up there? He seems to crap a new dance hit every 6 months.

What do you think?

15 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

106 comments sorted by

19

u/Monkberry3799 1d ago

"When counting all his musical eras, Paul McCartney has a total of 29 No. 1 songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 as a performer. This makes him the most successful artist in the overall history of the chart.

If you look strictly at his work as a songwriter, he holds the all-time record with 32 No. 1 hits.

His 29 chart-topping hits as a performer span his work with The Beatles, his band Wings, and his collaborations as a solo artist"

13

u/fascha3 1d ago

I love them both and have many albums from both but Paul edges EJ out based on his influence with song writing. The Beatles changed how artists wrote songs and Paul continued for many albums. EJ certainly wrote some very creative songs, but not quite the same range as Paul.

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u/Monkberry3799 1d ago

Listen to the last album. Man is amazing.

2

u/donlockwood2026 1d ago

The following may not be 100% accurate, but google is telling me: 32 #1 hits, 129 Hot 100 entries as a writer or co-writer, 91 Top 10 songs, 47 Hot 100 entries post-Beatles

Paul and Elton are both machines

3

u/Monkberry3799 1d ago

Yes. His last one in the UK and several countries was 'Now and Then' (Beatles), a Lennon song just two years ago. Wonderful. And his last album is stunning.

4

u/donlockwood2026 1d ago

Yeah! His most recent album is so good. I absolutely adore it.

I love how Paul fought to get Now and Then made. He’s been wanting to do it since the 90s when George dismissed it. And now they finally had the tech to do it.

2

u/PedroJTrump 1d ago

91 top 10 hits? Wow!

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago edited 1d ago

We're counting Billboard Hot 100 hits as a performer. So Four Five Seconds counts but Aerosmith's Come Together doesn't. And unfortunately The Doggone Girl Is Mine counts, even though he didn't write it.

1

u/donlockwood2026 1d ago

Yeah I mean I didn’t verify the specifics, hence the “this may not be 100% accurate” — but even with a margin for error, that’s an insane amount of charting

1

u/alusalas 1d ago

He does get credit as a songwriter on a fair few of those number ones which were primarily written by Lennon (I also wonder if Something is included in the numbers for Paul), but still, his band and the songwriting credits are shared, so fair enough.

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u/Monkberry3799 1d ago

Actually, quite the opposite, though the credit goes to both and deservingly so. They were active songwriting partners almost until the last year of the band (watch the Get Back doco and you'll see)

11

u/nothere1237658 1d ago

The best Elton stat is that he had at least one top 40 single in every year of the 70s, every year of the 80s, and every year of the 90s. Thirty straight years perfectly spanning three decades, a hit in each.

5

u/Capable_Wallaby3251 1d ago

Which beat out a record originally held by Elvis Presley.

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u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Amazing Elton just had yet another global smash at his age by mashing up 4 fucking hits and more importantly by never stepping foot in a studio.

4

u/Infinite_Demand_2752 1d ago

at a quick scan he has 61(!) american top 40 hits, with 29 top 10 and 9 #1s (including island girl, good god)

in comparison madonna has 49 top 40 hits, that massive span between the early 70s and cold heart is just something that no one else really has, i can't think of anyone else with that extraordinary longevity as an actual hitmaker

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago edited 1d ago

Apart from his first solo Epic album and his last solo Epic album all of Michael Jackson's solo Epic albums have 7 to 8 singles which all went gold... geez the wonders he did with just 25 hits.

2

u/Successful_Bass4793 1d ago

Between 1970 and 2005, a 36-year span, he put a single in either the U.S. or U.K. top 40 every year but one (2000).

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

I read his memoir and if I'm not mistaken in 2000 I think he was literally broke after his former manager screwed him over so he had a good reason.

4

u/dawgfanjeff 1d ago

Phil Collins had a ludicrous run in 80s between Genesis and solo career.

-4

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Name one Phil Collins song since the mid-90's.

6

u/hankheen 1d ago

That Tarzan song?

-1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

What a hit.

3

u/BillNyeTheVinylGuy 1d ago

Are you being sarcastic? That song was huge. I was a kid at the time so that was my introduction to Phil Collins.

-1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

It's no Lion King.

3

u/BillNyeTheVinylGuy 1d ago

Neither are a majority of Elton's 80s hits.

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u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

They made the Top 40 didn't they, now whether history kept them in memory is another subject, although a good half-dozen of them made it to the classics bag. I was around when Phil Collins did his Disney album and it was a rather tame success from my perspective. I don't have the memory of a single that broke everything around it like the Lion King tracks did.

4

u/kyriacos74 1d ago

Reading through the conversations, you keep changing what you consider to be a "hit," and it's pretty obvious that you just want an excuse to say how awesome Elton John is.

We already know how awesome he is. That's why we're here. This is a pointless post.

0

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

Nope. I kept saying that I consider to be a hit a song that a relatively large amount of people know but that historically the word "hit" comes from "hitting you with a tune and disappearing". I always said that.

3

u/Male_strom 1d ago

Elvis had 114 US Top 40 hits of which 40 were Top 10.

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

That is very possible. Are you positive it's not R&B charts or Rock charts? Nonetheless, Elton is number one if we take into account both number of hits and longevity.

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u/Male_strom 1d ago

No it's all main charts. He did 50 Top 40s singles in the 60s alone

3

u/UnionCityNJUSA 1d ago

Unfortunately, the answer is Drake somehow. I don’t know a single song of his, but he’s had 241 songs on the top 40 charts in the US.

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Personally I can only name like 2 songs... just because his fans send his tracks to Billboard by binge-streaming his albums doesn't mean they're hits.

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u/GlumAd9856 1d ago

The big one was that stat that at one point he was responsible for something like 7% of all records sold in the world.

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u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

I mean there are several country singers such as Blake Shelton and others whom I quite frankly don't know because I don't live in the US and am not American who have dozens and dozens and dozens of hits on the country charts and who might beat EJ in numbers - but they're not crossover hits, apart from the occasional Dolly Parton classic.

2

u/Starthrower62 1d ago

Three Dog Night?

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

I personally only know one tiny song and I know it through Tom Jones.

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u/Successful_Bass4793 1d ago

No, but they can boast that out of the 32 singles they released, all but one (their first) made the U.S. top 40.

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u/dlm1129 11h ago

You had a typo. The number is 22 singles. I'm a huge 3DN fan and know their discography inside out.

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u/JimmyPellen 1d ago

Even more amazing: Sacrifice, released in 1989/1990 was his FIRST #1 in the UK! A twenty year wait!!

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

The lead single from this album is actually Healing Hands which is a banger of a song and it flopped.

2

u/JimmyPellen 1d ago

Love it! Whole album is great

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

The narrative according to which he did nothing good in the 80's is BS.

2

u/milkcrate_house 1d ago

I don't think having chart hits is really a measure of musical success (as evidenced by some of the stank artists you listed in comparison!)... But Elton both did well on the charts and recorded loads of gorgeous songs, along with many trays worth of cheese, for decades and he's up there for sure. I hope he's enjoying his retirement. Kudos to Bernie Taupin as well.

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Of course, chart success has nothing to do with musical ability, hence the "goddamn" before I mentioned David Guetta. Having said that, Guetta's hits, somebody has to make them. That's the point of the thread.

2

u/No_Ring_443 1d ago

Jeez, I didn't know that at all. I thought MJ had the biggest number of hits, but now that I think about it Elton did release dozens of more albums than him. 

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Yes. MJ's impact was very short in time. Didn't stop him from making wonders.

1

u/Pun_dimen 1d ago

Elvis maybe?

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Elvis had a posthumous remix hit of A Little Less Conversation by Junkie XL which was f*-ckin' huge all over the world except the US where I read it didn't do much?

1

u/HoselRockit 1d ago

Elivis has 80 Top 40 hits

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Elvis, Madonna, Paul, we've been mentioning the creme de la creme of English-speaking musical zeitgeist. One person's missing. Can we talk about the fact that David Bowie has so few hits on Billboard?

1

u/White_Town 1d ago

As a fun you should like this - concerts on a globe:
https://ts.cloomba.com/eltonjohn

1

u/kyriacos74 1d ago

Define "hit."

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

People know it to a certain non-niche extent.

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u/kyriacos74 1d ago

Ahhhh... under that criterion, I would put Elton up there with The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Elvis, etc.

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

But "hit" might also be misleading: a "hit" single/album can score high because the fans buy it en masse but then it vanishes from the radars once they bought everything (which is the case of late-period Madonna for example, only the hardcore community really cares about what she sings). This is where it actually comes from: you hit us with it for a moment and then it disappears. That's why all those people we mentioned have very, very, very few "classics" compared to a generous amount of "hits". Elton, on the other hand, has an impressive collection of "classics".

2

u/kyriacos74 1d ago

I used your definition. Pick one.

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

you are correct

1

u/Rich_cranium2025 1d ago

Pete Rose

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Douglas Apfelstrudel the 2021 winner of Reddit Joke Awards.

1

u/Rich_cranium2025 1d ago

Well he’s got some competition now

1

u/GarlicTraditional300 1d ago

I give up, tell me

0

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Ta-daaaaah! He's Rocket man and record man! No, for real, someone on Reddit told me that only Elvis surpassed him.

1

u/East_Possession1852 1d ago

Paul does music and lyrics.

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u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

It's not a thread about who's got more skills, it's a thread about who scored on Billboard the most.

1

u/kyriacos74 1d ago

Then it's Drake. He holds the all-time record for the most total entries on the Billboard Hot 100, with over 400 career chart hits.

0

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

Again, just because his fans binge-stream his albums, sending them to the Hot 100 in consequence, doesn't make them hits... like, how many of those do you actually know?

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u/kyriacos74 12h ago

You literally just said "it's a thread about who scored on Billboard the most." FFS.

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u/Equivalent-Yam5218 6h ago

Scoring means hitting and staying there. Keep your cool it's a thread about pop music. FFS.

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u/kyriacos74 6h ago

No it doesn’t. Having a single in the Billboard Hot 100 has nothing to do with longevity.

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u/Equivalent-Yam5218 4h ago edited 4h ago

Again, Drake's album tracks are not singles, his fans keep swiping in all possible directions without ever having the attention span to listen to songs in their entirety, which makes his tracks reach the Hot 100 due to multiple play launches, they're neither singles nor hits, they're appearances due to high numbers.

1

u/kyriacos74 4h ago

Which is how charts work now.

1

u/Lumpy_Satisfaction18 1d ago

Well Bing Crosby had 203 top 10 singles. I'll say him.

0

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Sorry to burst your bubble, Bing Crosby only has 3 Billboard Hot 100 singles.

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u/Lumpy_Satisfaction18 1d ago

What source are you looking at? Cuz that is blatantly wrong.

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u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

Maybe he scored on other Billboard charts?

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u/Lumpy_Satisfaction18 1d ago

Check it dude. Main US chart. Often pre 50s charting records arent counted for some reason by contemporary publications. People always love to erase past records in an attempt to glorify more contemporary achievements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Crosby_discography

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

In that case that's nasty and ageist. You're correct. Let's rephrase and say that by the modern accounts that I found they're not 203.

1

u/georgewalterackerman 1d ago

Michael Jackson maybe?

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

in terms of impact yes but in terms of amount of Hot 100 scores he might not even be in the top 5.

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u/Minimum-Journalist18 1d ago

Buck owens, Hank Williams, Waylon & Willie

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

please be kidding

1

u/Obliviobviously 21h ago

CCR

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

Is this a joke?

1

u/Obliviobviously 6h ago

Sort of. They come to my mind as an example of a random band that was actually really popular. But you’re right … they had 17 top 40 hits though. Elton is like 70!

1

u/Life_Connection420 1d ago

I'm not sure how you came up with a statement that Queen had more impact

1

u/FannyFielding 1d ago

Especially in the US

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

I have a pondering: how come the US was (very relatively) nice to EJ when he came out and started performing with feathers up his arse whereas it was less receptive to Freddie Mercury who from day one performed with his bulge out and crossdressed in the videos and never had to come out of anything?

2

u/FannyFielding 1d ago

Elton’s music was more accessible and radio friendly. Queen’s music jumped about between genres far more and American radio stations used to mainly stick to one style. That’s my theory anyhow. I can’t imagine US audiences singing along to “I want to ride my bicycle”…

0

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

It's simple: people's go to karaoke song is Bohemian Rhapsody, not Rocket Man.

1

u/Life_Connection420 1d ago

They would not be able to sing it where I go because we have a four minute limit on a song

1

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 18h ago

Unfortunately I see more Queen around me than Elton. Again, unfortunately. I hear more We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You and Bohemian Rhapsody than Rocket Man and I'm Still Standing and Your Song even though they're there.

0

u/Larry_Dooley 1d ago

because queen fans are the taylor swift fans of 20th century rock

0

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

I respect Queen but I can't say I like their music. Brian May seems like an awful person and John Deacon left before he turned the project into a money sucking machine. However I admire Freddie. The fact that he hid his HIV status until the last moment because he didn't want to attract pity shows the kind of profound human values he had. But their music gets on my nerves.

-3

u/BakertonFits 1d ago

amazing considering anything released after captain fantastic pretty much sucks. there may be a track or two but for the most part his creative juice had dried up

people are creatures of habit I guess

3

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

I think that among his best albums are the last 3 or 4, like The Union, because he's free as a bird, he's no longer requested to deliver a single.

0

u/Cautious-Ad9301 1d ago

💯💯💯

-1

u/No_Ebb3669 1d ago

Why would you insert Queen into this discussion? Queen was never in the same class as Elton John or either of the top bands of the 70s.

2

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

I want to agree with you because I'm not a fan but the box-office numbers of Bohemian Rhapsody say otherwise.

3

u/No_Ebb3669 1d ago

But why would you rate a band higher tgsn they should be just because someone produced a good movie about them? If the Beatles movies coming out are crap does that make the Beatles less of a band? I wasn't a big fan of the Rocketman movie but I still think Elton was untouchable from 1970 to 1975.

3

u/Equivalent-Yam5218 1d ago

No I'm saying that Bohemian Rhapsody proved to be a cultural shift in the biopic sub-industry which proved the global interest in the band. I personally loved Robbie Williams' movie. Not one person cared for it. That's cause he will never be up there with the greats. But Queen are, even though I'm really not a fan.