It can be tough to identify an artist’s greatest hit, and there’s certainly no one definitive way to measure a song’s success around the entire world. But in America, the Billboard Hot 100 has long been the main way musical success is ranked and measured, at least in terms of sales and popularity.

Success on the Billboard charts—and in general—can be a fickle thing. Yet especially before the streaming era, the Billboard Hot 100 was one of the primary ways to measure an artist’s success in the music industry. Can you guess which songs by classic rock legends performed best on it?

The History of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart

The Billboard Hot 100 was launched in 1958, and the first-ever No. 1 song featured on the chart was Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool.” Well over half a century later, the chart remains an influential metric in the music industry, having long outlasted vinyls, CDs, and countless defunct music platforms. In general, if you hear anyone calling something a “top 40 hit” or referring to chart success in the United States, they’re likely referring to the Billboard Hot 100.

Billboard began ranking musical success long before 1958. In 1913, they published “Last Week’s Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs,” which documented sheet music sales. In 1955, the company had three different charts: “Best Sellers in Stores,” “Most Played by Jockeys,” and “Most Played in Jukeboxes.” All three of these charts were combined to create the original Billboard Hot 100.

Today, obviously, things have changed a bit. Modern Billboard charts deliver their rankings based on a blend of streams, radio airplay, digital sales, and an ever-rotating collection of other factors that Billboard keeps somewhat under wraps.

As of 2026, the song that has lasted the longest at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” which spent 22 weeks at No. 1 over the course of several years. Yet long before Carey and other pop artists were topping the charts, the Beatles were breaking records. The group had 64 songs on the Hot 100 between 1964 and 1970, and 20 went No. 1—a record for the most No. 1 hits on the chart that still holds.

Naturally, chart success is only a small fragment of what defines an artist’s legacy and impact. If you took the quiz above, you might have been surprised to find that some of the songs that topped the charts weren’t necessarily the tracks that have come to define some of these artists’ catalogues.

Greatness can’t be defined by chart positions or sales figures; it’s subjective, personal, and ever-changing. But in an industry built around fame, success, and money, of course chart success matters. Still, it will always be up to us to decide which songs top the Hot 100 charts in our hearts.

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