Ask Billboard: Ariana Grande & Beyoncé’s Matching Hot 100 Math & Other Chart Feats for the Ages

Submit questions about Billboard charts, as well as general music musings, to askbb@billboard.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as your city, state and country, if outside the United States.

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Let’s open the latest mailbag.

Identical Chart ‘Positions’

Hi Gary,

Isn’t it interesting that while we’re in this Eternal Sunshine/pre-Cowboy Carter period, Ariana Grande and Beyoncé have exactly the same tallies of No. 1s, top 10s and overall Billboard Hot 100 entries (as of the chart dated March 23)?

Best,

Pablo Nelson
Oakland, Calif.

Hi Pablo,

Fun observation that the two superstars are neck-and-neck when it comes to career Hot 100 stats, reflecting each’s sustained chart success.

(Déjà vu, to quote Beyoncé.)

Meanwhile, both Grande and Beyoncé have siblings who have hit Billboard’s charts, and each has family members from different generations who have reached rankings – and made history regarding their ages.

First, Frankie Grande, Ariana’s brother, and Solange, Beyoncé’s sister, have each made surveys.

Plus, Grande’s grandmother, Nonna, 98 years young, this week becomes the oldest living artist ever to have hit the Hot 100. Conversely, Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, became the youngest artist ever billed on a Billboard chart when Jay-Z’s “Glory,” featuring a then-minutes-old “B.I.C.” debuted on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs in 2012.

Among other coincidences, Grande and Beyoncé have each charted Hot 100 hits consisting of numbers and no words: Grande with “34 + 35” and Beyoncé with both “1+1” and “7/11.”

Further, and fittingly, given their numerous accomplishments, Beyoncé sent “Run the World (Girls)” onto the Hot 100 in 2011. In 2019, Grande charted as featured on 2 Chainz’s “Rule the World.”

(To get extra playful, both Grande and Beyoncé have hit the Hot 100 with songs named after games. Grande boarded the chart with “Monopoly” in 2019, while Beyoncé buzzed in with “Family Feud,” the survey said in 2017.)

As for another chart-topping achievement on the Hot 100 for Beyoncé, prior to Grande’s latest coronation, and spotlighting other acts with impressive longevity …

No. 1, Topped 40

Hi Gary,

Beyoncé led the Hot 100 for two weeks beginning on the chart dated March 2 with “Texas Hold ‘Em,” at age 42. A week later, Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) reached No. 1 with his collaborative hit “Carnival,” at age 46.

In the youth-centered music industry, it’s rare for artists to rule the Hot 100 in their 40s, or later. Billboard has previously covered some of the few that have achieved the feat, including such legends as Louis Armstrong, Cher, Eminem, Aretha Franklin, Madonna and Paul McCartney.

Has an artist 40 or older ever replaced another at No. 1 on the Hot 100 before this week?

(That’s excluding the recent holidays, when Mariah Carey and Brenda Lee twice switched off atop the Hot 100, with “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” respectively. Both are over 40 now, but were well under that age when those songs were originally released.)

Thanks,

Jesse Rifkin
Washington, D.C.

Thanks, Jesse.

Beyoncé and Ye – and Ty Dolla $ign – mark just the third set of soloists over age 40 (again, not counting the holiday hits above, given when they were recorded) leading the Hot 100 back-to-back.

Here’s a look at all three such instances.

Ye, Ty Dolla $ign and Beyoncé, thus, mark the first grouping of as many as three solo artists all over 40 topping the Hot 100 consecutively.

With age comes invaluable experience and perspective. In unveiling the cover art for her new LP, Cowboy Carter, on Instagram March 19, Beyoncé shared, “This album has been over five years in the making. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.

“I feel honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart,” she added. “That would not have happened without the outpouring of support from each and every one of you. My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant.”

Bubbling Under the Hot 100 (and Bubbling Under the Bubbling Under Chart)

Hi Gary,

I’ve noticed a few current songs that haven’t made the Hot 100 yet – or even the Hot 100’s Bubbling Under chart. Some are on American Top 40 With Ryan Seacrest and SiriusXM’s Hits 1 The Weekend Countdown, as I follow those charts closely.

Among them:

Hope to see them on the Hot 100, as well!

Thanks,

Robert Wien

Thanks, Robert.

Two of those songs are currently on the Hot 100’s Bubbling Under chart, which ranks the top 25 tracks yet to make the all-genre, multimetric Hot 100: “Not My Fault,” at No. 19 (after reaching No. 2), and “Make You Mine,” at No. 24 (after hitting No. 9). Plus, “Kissing Strangers” rose to No. 5 in February.

Per your musical tastes, all seven songs above have either hit Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart or made inroads at top 40 radio, on which the list is based. “Not My Fault” ascends to No. 16 on the latest chart, followed by “Not the 1975” (No. 25), “Kissing Strangers” (No. 32) and “Make You Mine,” a debut No. 36. “Yes I’m a Mess” reached No. 24 in January, while “Pick Up the Phone” and “Paradise” – the latter newly released (March 15) on Justin Timberlake’s album Everything I Thought It Was – are building support.

Says Larry Blackford, who discovered Knox on Instagram, noting the opening line in “Not the 1975,” “With lyrics like ‘Vodka soda and baggy jeans/ Using none of that art degree,’ how could [radio] not love it?”