Hit songs are generally quick – Billboard Hot 100 top 10s run an average of three minutes and 15 seconds in 2023, according to Hit Songs Deconstructed – but the three longest Hot 100 hits by run time have all charted since 2019, with a new record-breaker debuting on the latest, Dec. 2-dated survey.
André 3000’s “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time” has, fittingly given its title, a lengthy run time: 12 minutes and 20 seconds. As it enters the Hot 100 at No. 90, it becomes the longest-running song ever to have hit the chart, surpassing Tool’s “Fear Inoculum,” at 10:21 in length. André 3000’s track – an instrumental, also atypical for a modern Hot 100 hit – additionally bests the No. 93 peak of Tool’s track in August 2019.
Now in third place among the longest-running Hot 100 hits to date, Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” is 10 minutes and 13 seconds in length (in its longest version). The song launched at No. 1 in November 2021, becoming the longest leader by run time in the chart’s archives.
André 3000’s track is from the former OutKast member’s debut, all-instrumental LP New Blue Sun, which arrives at No. 1 on the New Age Albums chart with 24,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in its first week (Nov. 17-23), according to Luminate. The song starts with 5.8 million official streams (and 22,000 in radio audience, including exposure on adult alternative stations KEXP Seattle and WXPN Philadelphia).
OutKast – André 3000 and Big Boi – charted 19 Hot 100 hits in 1994-2007, including three No. 1s: “Ms. Jackson” (one week at No. 1, 2001); “Hey Ya!” (nine weeks, 2003-04); and “The Way You Move” featuring Sleepy Brown (one week, 2004). The pair also scored five No. 1s on the Hot Rap Songs chart.
André 3000 adds his seventh solo Hot 100 entry, having reached a No. 24 high in 2008 as featured on John Legend’s “Green Light.”
Echoing the title of his new Hot 100 hit, the 48-year-old recently told NPR, “In my mind, I really would like to make a rap album. So, maybe that happens one day, but I got to find a way to say what I want to say in an interesting way that’s appealing to me at this age.”
Below, take a quick look at the five longest Hot 100 hits by run time over the chart’s history (with assistance from Paul Haney at Joel Whitburn’s Record Research).
