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The worlds greatest song chart act
As the site generation page explains the list of songs does not reflect the most popular songs of all time since there are variable levels of charts for different historical periods. However, there are a number of reasonable ways to compare artists of different periods, one is by listing the top artists of each year and tallying up the number of years each artist held the top slots.
| # | Artist | Years as Number 1 Artist | Years as Number 2 Artist | Years as Number 3 Artist | Years as Number 4 Artist | Years as Number 5 Artist |
| 1 | Elvis Presley | 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962 | 1964 | 1959, 1969, 1970 | 1955 | |
| 2 | The Beatles | 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 | 1970 | |||
| 3 | Madonna | 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1998 | 1984, 1995 | 1987, 2000 | ||
| 4 | Paul Whiteman | 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1932 | 1933 | |||
| 5 | Louis Armstrong | 1926, 1928, 1929 | 1927, 1930 | 1932, 1938 | 1931, 1933 | |
| 6 | Duke Ellington | 1933, 1934 | 1941, 1931, 1937, 1943 | 1932 | 1928, 1929, 1930, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1939 | |
| 7 | Hank Williams | 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952 | 1947 | 1953 | ||
| 8 | Glenn Miller | 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 | ||||
| 9 | Frank Sinatra | 1945, 1946 | 1955 | 1944 | 1953 | 1943 |
| 10 | Bing Crosby | 1943, 1944 | 1933 | 1934, 1942 | 1932 |
With seven years as the top song artists The Beatles and Elvis Presley both have a clear claim to the title, Elvis has the slight edge since he had more years of worldwide success at lower positions. If the entries for John Lennon and Paul McCartney's groups were to be included The Beatles would clearly be top.
The charts for the 1920s are much less certain than later ones, so maybe Paul Whiteman does not deserve his position. However these results clearly show that, for this measure, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra are certainly not in the top five for worldwide chart success.
In the greatest album act chart The Beatles are a clear winner. So any combination of the two charts should come to the conclusion that The Beatles were the greatest overall chart act of all time.
Here are the top five song artists for each year from 1920 to 2006.