All week on Billboard.com, we’ve been celebrating the canon of No. 2 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — the songs that came as close as they could to ruling the chart, but for one reason or another couldn’t quite make that final leap. On Tuesday (Aug. 11), we published a list of our staff’s 100 favorite such hits, including some signature hits by some of the greatest hitmakers in chart history, as well as some songs that serve as their respective artists’ lone legacy, and plenty of songs in between that we’ve loved for decades, and best capture to us what a No. 2 hit is and should be.
On this week’s episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, we discuss the art of the No. 2 hit, and whether there is something meaningful or maybe even a little mystical to peaking at the runner-up spot on the chart. Host Andrew Unterberger is joined by regular guest Eric Frankenberg of the Billboard charts team to break down the top 10 of our list, as well as sharing some personal picks for songs that could have stood to be a little higher or lower on the list — or that should’ve made the list at all, or not — as well as some favorite No. 2-related quirks in chart history.
Along the way, we discuss all the most pressing questions about No. 2 hits: Does Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” feel more or less like an appropriately representative No. 2 hit for the fact that it took 17 years to get there? Is it a poetically brutal insult for a song to finish second on a list of the best No. 2 hits — or somehow the ultimate compliment? When did “Purple Rain” become the most celebrated Prince hit? How did the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” get held at No. 2 by a song virtually no one remembers? Should Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” get more credit as an all-timer? Do we actually care about the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” as a song? And perhaps most importantly: Does a No. 2 hit still mean the same thing it used to, when such hits are less automatically ubiquitous than they used to be, and when pushing a song that final top spot up the chart seems more achievable for properly motivated artists than ever?
Check it out above, along with a Spotify playlist of all 100 of our favorite No. 2 hits, and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!
And find links to some of our No. 2 articles this week here:
The 100 Best No. 2 Hits: Staff List
15 Amazing Facts & Feats About No. 2 Hot 100 Hits
These 12 Artists Reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 With Their First Hit — Then Never Made the Chart Again
How Three Artists Scored No. 2 Hot 100 Hits Without Doing Anything on the Songs
And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:
Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe
Human Rights Campaign – In Your Area