I maintained a Top Ten singles chart from November 1983 to April 2001. Over the course of seventeen and a half years 258 songs hit number one. If an artist accumulated at least five Top Ten hits, that artist made my “honour roll”. The first artist to accumulate five Top Tens was Duran Duran, and the last (the 58th) was the Finnish band Värttinä. In my first post My Music Charts–The Singles part 1 I listed the artists that had the most Top Ten hits without ever reaching the summit. That list was incomplete as I only stopped at artists that had at least six Top Ten hits. The full list is here:

Number of Top Tens / Artist (Highest Position the Artist Achieved)

9 / Def Leppard (2)
8 / Sting (3)
7 / Culture Club (2)
7 / Eurythmics (3)
7 / Alanis Morissette (3)
6 / Men Without Hats (2)
6 / Spice Girls (2)
5 / Electronic (2)
5 / Real McCoy (3)
5 / Oasis (2)

What I find more interesting are the artists who are the antitheses of honour roll artists in that they had multiple number ones yet fewer than five Top Ten singles. The following artists eluded the honour roll:

Number of Top Ten Hits — Artist
(peak position) Song Title

4 — RuPaul
(1) Supermodel (You Better Work)
(1) Back to My Roots
(1) Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (with Elton John)
(4) A Shade Shady (Now Prance)

4 — Bon Jovi
(1) Livin’ on a Prayer
(1) Wanted Dead or Alive
(1) Bad Medicine
(8) Born to Be My Baby

4 — Donna Summer
(1) Melody of Love (Wanna Be Loved)
(1) love is the healer
(2) This Time I Know it’s for Real
(2) I Will Go With You (Con Te Partiro)

3 — John Lennon
(1) Nobody Told Me
(1) I’m Stepping Out
(1) Borrowed Time

3 — Nirvana
(1) Smells Like Teen Spirit
(1) Come as You Are
(2) Lithium

3 — Terence Trent D’Arby
(1) Wishing Well
(1) This Side of Love
(3) Sign Your Name

3 — Ricky Martin
(1) Livin’ La Vida Loca
(1) She Bangs
(4) Shake Your Bon-Bon

3 — Traveling Wilburys
(1) Handle with Care
(1) End of the Line
(6) She’s My Baby

3 — Natalie Cole
(1) Pink Cadillac
(1) Unforgettable
(10) I Live for Your Love

2 — The Beatles
(1) Free As A Bird
(1) Real Love

I have long thought about writing a post about statistics and oddities within my twenty-year-long Top Ten Albums chart, including the basics such as the artists with the most Top Ten albums, the most number one albums, and the rare occurrences of album artists that entered my Top Ten chart for only one week, and then never appeared on my Top Ten Albums chart ever again.