With Feb. 29 a leap day, let’s celebrate by looking at the songs that have made the biggest leaps on the Billboard Hot 100 over the chart’s history.
Taylor Swift’s “Me!,” featuring Brendon Urie, holds the distinction of having made the greatest vault on the Hot 100: 98 spots, from No. 100 to No. 2, on the chart dated May 11, 2019. The song debuted from initial radio exposure before its full first-week airplay, streaming and sales totals propelled it to the runner-up spot (below Lil Nas X’s Billy Ray Cyrus-featuring “Old Town Road,” which logged the fifth of its eventual record 19 weeks at No. 1).
“Me!” was released as the lead single from Swift’s album Lover – which currently boasts its latest Hot 100 top 10: the revived “Cruel Summer,” at No. 7 on the March 2, 2024-dated chart following four weeks at No. 1 beginning last October.
The 98-position flight for “Me!” on the Hot 100 surpassed Kelly Clarkson’s 96-spot surge with “My Life Would Suck Without You.” The latter leapt 97-1 on the Feb. 9, 2009, chart – the biggest jump ever to No. 1.
Giant steps up the Hot 100 have become fairly common since the chart adopted electronically-derived Luminate data in 1991, often sparked since the 2000s by the likes of video premieres, award show spotlights and the arrival of releases, including remixes, for purchase, along with, as with “Me!,” songs’ complete first weeks of tracking.
Meanwhile, on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the biggest bound (since the survey became a combined stereo and mono listing in August 1963) belongs to Eminem’s Music To Be Murdered By. The set soared 196 spots, from No. 199 to No. 3, on the Jan. 2, 2021-dated chart following the surprise release of its deluxe edition; the album had debuted at No. 1 nearly a year earlier.
(As for another leap day feat, only one song has risen to No. 1 for a first week atop the Hot 100 dated Feb. 29: Mr. Big’s “To Be With You,” which began a three-week command on the chart dated Feb. 29, 1992.)
Below, leap into a list of the songs that have jumped the highest in a single week on the Hot 100.