She’s the Queen of Pop and royalty on the Billboard charts. To celebrate Madonna‘s career, we’ve compiled an exclusive ranking of the diva’s 40 biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit singles. (Incidentally, Madonna was born the same month as the Hot 100, in August 1958.)
Since arriving on the Hot 100 the week of Oct. 29, 1983, with “Holiday,” she has earned a total of 58 chart hits, including 38 top 10s. Plus, she’s logged top 10s in the 1980s, ’90s, 2000s and ’10s.
Madonna earned her first top 10 hit on the Hot 100 with “Borderline” in June 1984, beginning a streak of 17 consecutive top 10 hits on through 1989’s “Cherish.” The diva’s first Hot 100 No. 1 came in December of 1984, when “Like a Virgin” began its six-week reign atop the list dated Dec. 22, 1984. She’s collected a total of 12 No. 1s in her career thus far, reaching the top seven times in the ’80s (“Virgin,” “Crazy for You,” “Live to Tell,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Open Your Heart,” “Who’s That Girl” and “Like a Prayer”), four times in the ’90s (“Vogue,” “Justify My Love,” “This Used To Be My Playground” and “Take a Bow”) and once in the ’00s (“Music”).
Notably, all 32 of her official singles from “Holiday” (1983) through “Take a Bow” (1995) reached the top 40 of the Hot 100.
Madonna’s 40 Biggest Billboard Hits is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from each era, certain time frames were weighted to account for the difference between turnover rates from those years.
