Just out of interest I have a copy of Billboard Hottest Hot 100 Hits by Fred Bronson (2007) and it has a list of cumulative charts for the Hot 100 chart (Pop music, not Black, Dance or any other chart, but the big kahuna basically). Basically I have found Billboard's attitude towards Prince dismissive, they always downplay his achievements and avoid him. It is also only singles not albums.

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The main part of the book is Top 100, 50, 30, 20 or 10 songs of certain groups, artists, labels, writers and producers. Prince only has a list of 30 songs written by him and no surprises that WDC is #1 and Nothing compares 2 U is #2. The list is further fudged by including Prince and The Revolution and Prince and the NPG as separate entities to Prince!!!

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The list of 100 Warners Hits only includes Purple Rain Hits and Batdance as none of his other tracks hit their Top 100 and that all the 1985 -1988 and 1990 - 1994 stuff is not included as "Paisley Park was a separate label only distributed by WB, hence Invalid. When Doves Cry is WB's 6th biggest song of the pre 2007 period. Incredibly most lists are topped by Shit hop acts. It does not help that Prince had no real hits after The Most Beautiful Girl, although I hate you makes #30 on the Prince writes list.

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Anyway the meat of the book is the Top 100 charts of each year from 1955 to 2006 and it is a fairer system to judge the merits of a song's performance. Songs are awarded points for each week on the chart in a system of 1 point per place per week, so a #1 hit gets 100 points and #2 99 points and so on down to a #100 placing gaining one point. This is better for songs that spends weeks in the Top 10 never getting pass #5 or #2, whereas songs mainly by Idol and Shit hop acts that are released at #1 or ligged up there quickly fall off and their overall point count drops. For most years, the first 20 songs will be #1's and of course the occasional #2 was stuck behind a series of one off shit hop or novelty hits at #1 will score high too. Generally most years, anything that hit the Top 10 will reach the Top 100 for the year. Sometimes a lead balloon #1 say like a chart run of (18, 2, 1, 4, 12, 29, 58, off the chart) will score less points than a song like this (58, 44, 30, 17, 11, 8, 7, 7, 7, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 19, 12, 15, 22, 33, 45, 90).

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An example are Prince's first 2 big hits I wanna be your lover only got to #11 but spent 7 weeks in the Top 10 and Little Red Corvette spent 3 weeks at #6 its peak and 4 more in the Top 10, so their impact was larger than say "Icnttpoym" from 1987 which spent one week at #10 and dropped like a lead balloon.

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Here's his placings for biggest songs of the year charts, some years songs that reached #7 fail the cut, other years songs at #13 can make the cut.

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1978 - None (Soft and wet got to #92 only)

1979 - I wanna be your lover was released but not counted until 1980)

1980 - I wanna be your lover #91

1981 /82 Nothing

1983 - Little Red Corvette 47, Delirious 72 (1999 Rereleased finished outside the 100)

1984 - When Doves Cry 1, Lets Go Crazy 19, Purple Rain 24, (A good year, as before, I would die 4 u got to #8 but must have had a brief chart run as it missed out on a Top 100 placing)

1985 - Raspberry Beret 29, Pop Life 92 (A lot of big hits in 1985, Pop Life's #7 peak barely got it in) - Oh Sheila was 32, so Prince beat his imitators with their #1 hit which had a brief stay there.

1986 - Kiss 5, no others but Manic Monday got number 39

1987 - U Got the look 40, Sign o the Times 58

1988 - None, the #8 placing of Alphabet Street was not strong enough to guarantee Top 100 glory

1989 - Batdance 29 (Only other hit Partyman bombed in the mid teens, outside the Top 100)

1990 - Thieves in the Temple 100 (Just made it!!!)

1991 - Cream 17, D and P was included in 1992

1992 - Diamonds and Pearls 30

1993 - 7 (Seven) 49

1994 - Most Beautiful Girl 19, Under name Symbol

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Nothing after 1994, so overall a limited impact here 17 songs in all. The R and B stats would be very different though. But I think Billboard does not treat him with much respect.

[Edited 1/18/15 17:48pm]

And these songs also made the "5000 biggest hits of all time" of course the list only goes up to early 2007 and is no doubt out of date, so all these tracks are probably slightly lower on the list now, since then.

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When Doves Cry - 222 (#1)

Purple Rain - 1112 (#2)

I Wanna be your lover - 4210 (#11)

Little red corvette - 2575 (#6)

I could never take the place.... 4237 (#10)

Lets go crazy - 729 (#1)

Kiss - 760 (#1)

Cream - 776(#1)

Most beautiful girl - 808(#3)

Raspberry Beret - 1336 (#2)

Batdance - 1354 (#1)

Diamonds and Pearls - 1480 (#3)

U Got the Look - 1929 (#2)

7 - 2239 (#7)

Sign o the Times - 2576 (#3)

Delirious - 3469 (#8)

Pop Life - 4077 (#7)

Thieves in the Temple - 4500 (#6)

Alphabet St. - 4651 (#8)

1999 - 4694(#12 rereleased in 1983, originally #45 in 1982)

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The last 2 were not in the Top 100 lists for their years, indicating how close they were. Not surprisingly WDC was his biggest ever hit followed by lets go Crazy, Kiss and Cream. Surprisingly the other #1 was a smaller hit overall than the #3 Most Beautiful girl and #2 hit Raspberry Beret.

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Other Prince penned hits to make the List are

Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead O'Connor - 354

I Feel for you , Chaka Khan - 1169

Manic Monday, Bangles - 1800

Pray, MC Hammer (Probably for the LRC sampling, his version of Soft and Wet was not released as a single or not successful enough) - 2061

Round and Round - Tevin Campbell - 3778

A Love Bizarre -Sheila E - 4842

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Also that should be included but is not credited to Prince here is "The Glamorous life" by Sheila E the song was #2629 overall and the #42 song of 1984. Prince had it credited to Sheila E on her first album, but it is well known Prince wrote the song.

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Out of interest the Top 10 songs of the Pop era to 2007

1. Smooth, Santana featuring Rob Thomas

2. We Belong together - Mariah Carey

3. Un break my heart - Toni Braxton

4. Macarena - Los Del Rio (I mean really...!!!)

5. Yeah - Usher feat Lil Jon and Ludacris

6. One Sweet day - Mariach and Boyz 2 men

7. I'll make love to u - Boyz 2 lips

8. I will always love you - Whitney Houston

9. Candle in the Wind 97 - Elton John

10. How do I live - Le Ann Rimes.

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Since then I can only think of Lady Gaga and Black eyed Peas getting on this list.

[Edited 1/18/15 17:49pm]

[Edited 1/18/15 17:57pm]

Please bear in mind, this is just one chart - The Billboard Hot 100, and does not include the Black/RB chart or any other of their myriad of charts. The Billboard website says Prince songs have appeared on 27 of their charts.

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For example Smooth is the biggest ever hit on the Hot 100, but #2 overall. The biggest on all the charts combined is The Twist by Chubby Checker from 1960. It must have cleaned up on the Dance and Black charts as its only ranked at #24 on the Hot 100 list in 2007 (So it will be lower now).

1999 didn't make the top 100 of a year end chart, only because it was released at the end of the 1982 year.

That's the problem with these year end charts, it's not really accurate, because some songs that have a decent chartrun between two years may not appear at all on the year end charts.

But some songs can make the YEC within two different years.

For the record, but it's another story, 1999 is paradoxally the only physical single to have made the top 40 during 3 different years (1982, 83 and 99)

Even though I prefer these rankings from Fred Bronson's Hottest Hot 100 Hits book, they are not the official published Billboard end of the year rankings.

1980: I Wanna Be Your Lover #95

1983: Little Red Corvette #25

1983: 1999 #41

1984: When Doves Cry #1

1984: Let's Go Crazy #21

1985: Raspberry Beret #51

1986: Kiss #19

1987: U Got The Look #38

1987: Sign 'O' The Times #60

1989: Batdance #44

1990: Thieves In The Temple #98

1991: Cream #66

1992: Diamonds And Pearls #25

1993: 7 #52

1994: The Most Beautiful Girl In The World #19

Yes, Purple Rain was not listed as one of the top 100 singles of 1984.

cryndove said:

Even though I prefer these rankings from Fred Bronson's Hottest Hot 100 Hits book, they are not the official published Billboard end of the year rankings.

1980: I Wanna Be Your Lover #95

1983: Little Red Corvette #25

1983: 1999 #41

1984: When Doves Cry #1

1984: Let's Go Crazy #21

1985: Raspberry Beret #51

1986: Kiss #19

1987: U Got The Look #38

1987: Sign 'O' The Times #60

1989: Batdance #44

1990: Thieves In The Temple #98

1991: Cream #66

1992: Diamonds And Pearls #25

1993: 7 #52

1994: The Most Beautiful Girl In The World #19

Yes, Purple Rain was not listed as one of the top 100 singles of 1984.

Those are likely the combined scores from all of the Billboard charts, not just the Pop one, just wish you people could actually read.

Adorecream said:

Those are likely the combined scores from all of the Billboard charts, not just the Pop one, just wish you people could actually read.

These are the Billboard end of the year Hot 100 rankings, and you can verify them yourself at:

www.billboard.com/magazine-archive

Additionally, Wikipedia has pages dedicated to gather this information.

Sample for Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1984:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bil...es_of_1984