Thirty years ago, the same class of hit in the U.S. The staying power of “Despacito” and “Old Town Road” defies one of the most profound changes in the music industry over the last 20 years: Individual songs and albums don’t stay popular for very long (a dynamic that at the moment also seems true of our culture more broadly).Ī hit album today spends less than five consecutive weeks in the Top 40 on average, according to a new study published Tuesday in Royal Society Open Science. In 2017, the Puerto Rican club jam by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee tied the longest-running streak set by “One Sweet Day.” Two years later, the record was broken by the breakout country rap single by Lil Nas X (though his streak was snapped on Monday when Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” took No.1).īoth “Despacito” and “Old Town Road” came from artists who were relatively unknown on the global stage, but that wasn’t what made them surprising. Then “Despacito” and “Old Town Road” arrived. From December 1995 to March 1996, their ballad “One Sweet Day” spent 16 weeks at the top of the charts, setting a record that outlasted the megahit-makers that came after them: Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce, Outkast, Green Day, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Adele. For more than two decades, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men could not be knocked off their U.S.
