Lil Wayne is one of the best-charting artists of all time. (Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images)
We’d like Elvis to be the #1 best charting artist in the history of pop music but, sad to say, a revisionist reading of Fame soaked in soap-opera suds has replaced him at the top. Herein lie the Top 10 best-charting artists to hit the US charts.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Warner Bros., 1991)
One of the most influential albums of the 1990s, Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Blood Sugar Sex Magik proved to be the band’s creative and commercial breakthrough.
Roget Waters in 2005 (MJ Kim, Getty Images)
Haunting and despairing, Pink Floyd’s 1979 song “Hey You” opened the second disk of their landmark double album, The Wall. Though not heard in the movie version of The Wall, it is one of the more often-played Pink Floyd songs on the radio. Give it a listen …
The Strokes - Is This It (RCA, 2001)
It’s a stylized nod to Helmut Newton or a sarcastic homage to Smell the Glove, depending on your point of view. Either way, the cover of the Strokes‘ highly anticipated debut, Is This It, sparked some controversy.
Vangelis - "Chariots of Fire" (Polydor, 1982)
We’ve all done it: run in faux slo-mo down the driveway to the sounds of “duh-da-da-da-dah-dah” in our minds. (That would be the theme to “Chariots of Fire”.)
Florence Ballard of the Supremes, From the Cover of the Album "Meet the Supremes"
The tale of Motown singer Florence Ballard was tailor-made for one of those Behind the Music shows, full of long odds, great songs, and soaring success, with a tragic ending. Read More
Andy Gibb grabbed a few #1's with the production talents of Albhy Galuten and Karl Richarson. (YouTube)
A classically-trained Brit born of the white-coated recordists of the 1950s, a pair of kids who defined ’80s R&B and one, just one, woman appear in our list of the Top 10 Producers of #1 Records.
Detail From the 45 Picture Sleeve of "Waiting for a Girl Like You"
A couple of weeks ago, our Never Number One feature about Gerry Rafferty‘s “Baker Street” noted that the song spent six weeks at #2 without ever getting to #1. But that’s not the longest stretch.
Guns N' Roses - "Use Your Illusion I" (Geffen, 1991)
After rocketing onto the rock-and-roll scene with their gorgeously-bluesy Appetite for Destruction, Guns N’ Roses took three years to release their million-selling duo of sophomore records, Use Your Illusion I and II.
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