This Is the Artist With the Most No. 1 Hits

Ladies and gentlemen… The Rolling Stones! From their origins as a blues-influenced garage band to their current status as the Elder Statesmen of Rock, The Stones have had a career unlike any other. They’ve had eight No. 1 hits over their nearly 60-year reign, starting with what’s still their most enduring smash, 1965’s “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” A ride through their catalog of chart-toppers, which includes “Brown Sugar,” “Paint It, Black,” and the disco-infused “Miss You,” reveals true musical chameleons who’ve changed with the times but have never left their rockin’ roots far behind.

Bruno Mars (né Peter Hernandez) is one of this era’s finest showmen, an insanely good singer and dancer, and a master of musical styles from rock to R&B to disco. He’s been rewarded with eight No. 1 hits for his efforts, starting with “Just the Way You Are” and “Grenade” off his 2010 debut album, “Doo-Wops & Hooligans.” Other chart-toppers include “Locked Out Of Heaven” and one of the aughts’ biggest boppers, “Uptown Funk,” which spent a whopping 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100.

Toronto-born rapper Aubrey Drake Graham first gained some recognition acting on the TV show “Degrassi,” but today he’s one of the world’s most successful artists, with 170 million records sold and counting. Believe it or not, in 2018 he was reportedly responsible for a full 5% of all of Toronto’s tourism income. Even though he burst onto the scene with his debut studio album “Thank Me Later” in 2010, he didn’t have a No. 1 single until 2016’s “One Dance.” He’s had seven more chart-toppers since then, most recently 2021’s “What’s Next.”

Even though most people only know Bee Gees as the white-suit-sporting disco gods who made the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack one of the best-selling albums in history, brothers Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb actually began making music together back in the late ’50s, and they had their first minor hit, “Wine and Women,” in 1965. It wasn’t until releasing their ninth album, in 1971, however, that they got their first chart-topper, the lovely “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart.” They moved to Miami in 1975, started experimenting with dance music with “Jive Talkin'” (which also reached No. 1), and the rest is gold lamé-jacketed history.

One of the biggest influences on the 2010’s power-pop revival, Katy Perry exploded onto the scene in 2008 with her controversial hit “I Kissed a Girl.” Her third album, 2010’s “Teenage Dream,” spawned an astonishing five U.S. number one hits — “California Gurls”, “Teenage Dream”, “Firework”, “E.T.”, and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” — the first solo female album to ever do so. Her most recent No. 1, “Dark Horse,” topped the charts in 2014, bring her grand total of No. 1s to nine.