Before the days of streaming and downloads, the singles chart made for weekly compulsory engagement. Growing up, Boomers, Gen Xers and even Millennials would know who was number one this week.
For some, it was listening to the radio, fingers poised to record particular favourites. For others huddling around the TV screen for the weekly chart show gave a chance to see what their favourite artists were wearing. Those of a more dedicated bent would pore over the pages of the then-hugely popular weekly print music press.
But despite its cultural importance, that coveted number one spot eluded many of the most iconic, influential and flat-out beloved artists in music history. Not even once.
But does that stop them being cool? In many cases, quite the opposite. For many of the artists listed below, they didn’t gauge their success – or even popularity – on sales of 7” records, cassingles or CDs. For them, it was always the pursuit of artistic endeavour and critical success that mattered. Albums and live shows allowed them to demonstrate that their art – for art it surely is – remained above such passing frivolities.
So here we explore 11 legendary artists who prove that sometimes, being number two (or five, or 51) is to be celebrated.
One note of clarity, all figures here refer to the Billboard Hot 100 chart unless stated otherwise.
The 11 greatest artists who never had a number one hit single
1. Bob Dylan
The idea of Bob Dylan not having a number one hit feels a bit like Shakespeare never winning a Pulitzer. But it just doesn’t matter. Dylan wrote and rewrote the songwriting rule book, with many of his songs defining the 1960s, and his albums doing the same for the 1970s. Even today, he continues to perform sell-out tours around the world and release critically acclaimed albums.
Ironically, 1965's ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ is often cited as a candidate for the greatest single of all time, yet even that was held from the top spot by The Beatles’ Help!.
It’s hard to imagine that Dylan particularly cares. His career has been very much built of a steadfast insistence on doing things his way, and failing to win a popularity contest kind of misses the point of what he’s all about.
2. Bruce Springsteen
He may be ‘The Boss’, but when it comes to chart positions, he’s never made it to the top of the heap. Known for relentless touring, and albums that allow his storytelling to explore characters over a long listen, Bruce Springsteen creates entire worlds. But these slowly unfolding works perhaps don’t translate so well to the three-minute radio format.
Having said which, plenty of his 76 singles (and counting!) have been huge – ‘Hungry Heart’, ‘Born In The USA’, ‘Glory Days’, ‘Tunnel Of Love’ and ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’, among others, have all registered in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The closest he’s come to chart topping is ‘Dancing In The Dark’, from his 1984 Born In The USA album – that one stalled at number two.
In today’s streaming era obsessed with quick hits, Springsteen shows that sometimes, it’s slow and steady that wins the race, with over 140 million record sales worldwide as well as 20 Grammy Awards and an Oscar.
3. James Brown
The Godfather of Soul is one of the most influential artists of all time, his funky rhythms and tight performances laying the groundwork for funk, disco and hip-hop. He’s credited as being the most-sampled artist of all time, meaning that indirectly, he’s contributed to smash hits by the likes of Public Enemy, Blackstreet and Beastie Boys.
Perhaps it was Brown’s signature style of hitting a groove and working it to a frenzy that cost him – mainstream radio tends to favour more traditional pop structures with catchy hooks. He came close many times – ‘Papa's Got a Brand New Bag’, ‘I Got You (I Feel Good)’ and ‘It's a Man's Man's Man's World’ were all top 10 in 1965, while 20 years later, ‘Living In America’ went to number 4.
Known as the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business, Brown died on Christmas Day 2006, after a career that spanned 50 years and included the unlucky record of having the most singles on the Billboard Hot 100 without having a number one. He did, however, top the Billboard R&B chart a whopping 17 times.
4. Nirvana
It seems hard to believe that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ didn’t top the charts, given how huge a deal it seemed in 1991. The Seattle group refused to play ball – when they performed the song on the BBC’s long-running tea-time music show Top Of The Pops, singer Kurt Cobain delivered the song in the style of Morrissey, and changed the opening line from “Load up on guns, bring your friends” to “Load up on drugs, kill your friends”. They weren’t invited back.
The song became an instant anthem, and its influence was huge. After ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, labels changed who they signed, radio changed what it played, and listeners changed what they listened to. Nirvana shook up a system in desperate need of fresh blood, and in doing so, showed that being number one in something you didn’t respect was pointless anyway.
5. The Who
One of the biggest bands of the 1960s and 70s, The Who were always somehow bigger than the charts. They boasted a string of catchy singles from 1964 into the early 1980s – ‘I Can't Explain’, ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’, ‘My Generation’, ‘Substitute’, ‘I Can See For Miles’, ‘Pinball Wizard’, ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, ‘5:15’, ‘Who Are You?’, ‘You Better You Bet’, among many others – and yet never hit the top either in their native UK or on the Billboard Hot 100.
Like many other acts on this list, The Who were probably most celebrated for involved long playing records and epic live shows. The London Mods’ rock opera Tommy (1969) and concept album Quadrophenia (1973) saw them hit their peak, with the band’s sprawling, sometimes messy, and always far-reaching sound more focused on blowing minds (and speakers) than commercial success.
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6. Journey
Some songs have ‘number one’ written all over them, and Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ might be the ultimate example of this. Certified Platinum for one million physical sales, this 1981 banger from the San Francisco supergroup made it only as far as number nine on its original release.
Today it’s one of the most-streamed songs from the 20th century (awarded 18x platinum for downloads!), and is a mainstay of karaoke, sports events, TV shows – you name it, it’s there. And you can bet they never stopped believin’.
7. Jimi Hendrix
Few musicians sailed as close to the sun as Jimi Hendrix, an American who came to the UK in 1966 seeking fame and fortune – and the hope that his unique and game-changing style of guitar playing would find the audience it lacked at home.
After serving a worth apprenticeship playing for the Isley Brothers, Little Richard and Curtis Knight, Hendrix burst out on his own, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the ultimate power-pop trio completed by Noel Redding on bass and the explosive Mitch Mitchell on drums. And despite being today recognised as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, Hendrix failed to ever trouble the upper reaches of the Hot 100 – 1968’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ peaked at number 20. He did score a short string of hits in the UK, with ‘Hey Joe’, ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘The Wind Cries Mary’, but his remarkable legacy only goes to show that for some acts, innovation takes time to be acknowledged.
8. Creedence Clearwater Revival
It’s time now for the band that hold the record for five number two hits, but no number ones. Indeed, nobody has ever had more top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100 without topping the list. Consistency seems to have been Creedence's watchword, as their tight, rootsy brand of Southern rock delivered time and again with songs that, in the US at least, came to define rock at the end of the 60s.
‘Proud Mary’, ‘Bad Moon Rising’, ‘Green River’, ‘Travelin’ Band/Who'll Stop the Rain’ and ‘Lookin' out My Back Door’ all got within a whisker of the top, and remain classics in the cannon of US rock to this day.
It just goes to show that it’s not always who finishes first that wins.
9. The Cure
Hailing from Crawley on the edge of London, The Cure have enjoyed top 40 singles both in the UK and US since the late 1970s. Their greatest hits collection would rival anyone of a similar vintage, with such timeless classics as ‘Friday I’m In Love’, ‘Close To Me’, ‘The Lovecats’, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘In Between Days’ and ‘Just Like Heaven’ – one of the finest pop singles of the 1980s.
And yet, perhaps due to their alternative, quirky image, they’ve never been a band that seems comfortable in the mainstream – perhaps this explains why they’ve never managed a chart topper.
Despite this, they’ve sold over 30 million records worldwide and their concerts are legendary for their intensity, variety, commitment and sheer length (at a show in Mexico on singer Robert Smith’s birthday in 2013, four encores took the show to four hours and 16 minutes).
10. Bob Marley
The greatest hits collection, Legend, by Bob Marley & the Wailers, was released in 1984 and would go on to become the biggest-selling reggae album of all time. It has spent over 1,000 weeks on the UK top 100 albums chart and is within spitting distance of four figure on eth US Billboard 200 chart.
It seems strange then that such a hugely popular hits collection wouldn’t feature a single number one hit. Even with singles that are universally loved as ‘Stir It Up’, ‘Get Up Stand Up’, ‘Is This Love’, ‘Three Little Birds’ and ‘One Love’, the highest he ever achieved in his lifetime was a UK number five for ‘Could You Be Loved’.
11. Led Zeppelin
And who can forget Led Zeppelin’s steadfast refusal to buy into the singles game? Given that they actively refused to release singles in their UK homeland, and tried their hardest not to have any issued or promoted in other countries, it’s not hugely surprising that British rock legends Led Zeppelin never had a number one. As guitar player Jimmy Page told Total Guitar in 2020, “I wanted to stay clear of that market and keep it as an albums thing. Right in the early stages, I demanded – after having done all the Mickie Most stuff – that we didn’t want to be a band that was known for singles. It was albums that we were going to be known for.”
It was somewhat ironic, then, the BBC’s weekly singles TV show, Top of the Pops featured a cover of Led Zep’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ as its theme tune for most of the seventies.
A final thought
What can we learn from all this? Perhaps that charts measure popularity in a moment, but an artist’s true legacy is measured over time. And as these artists prove, sometimes the ones who never quite hit the top end up defining music history anyway.
Pics Getty Images
