“‘Flowers’ is one of those songs that has stood the test of time at multiple formats,” says Jon Zellner, iHeartMedia president, programming operations/digital music, of Miley Cyrus’ smash single. “It’s a mass-appeal song with a very strong hook and sounds like a song you already knew the first time you heard it.”
A year and a half after its release, “Flowers” upped its count to 57 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart — and reigns as the sole longest-leading hit ever on a Billboard radio airplay ranking.
“Flowers” already claimed the record for the most weeks on all of Billboard’s airplay charts combined, as it also ran up reigns of 18 weeks on the all-format Radio Songs chart, 17 weeks on Adult Pop Airplay, 10 weeks on Pop Airplay and four weeks on Dance/Mix Show Airplay.
The song additionally crowned the multimetric Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks beginning in January 2023. In February 2024, it won the Grammy Award for record of the year. (“It’s fun to be nominated & exciting to win but having my music be loved around the world is the real trophy,” Cyrus posted in reaction to the six Grammy nominations that she received in November.)
Muses Zellner further, “Flowers” is among “songs that will be part of radio station libraries and streaming playlists for many years and likely played by classic hits stations 20 years from now.”
Below, browse the songs that became ubiquitous on airwaves and topped each of Billboard’s 25 currently-published weekly airplay rankings the longest, reflecting a wide variety of radio formats, and enduring earworms.