Guest Post
Today, many music industry people, chart fans, and music fans read charts in a very typical way: a list. Many of these people read the number-one songs of these charts in another particular way: a simple number-one songs list, like the lists and tables made by Wikipedia editors.
There is one relatively uncommon way of listing a year’s number-one’s though: a calendar. K-pop fan forums seem to have already been on this wave, with a calendar showing the daily, weekly, and monthly number-one singles of MelOn, which is considered to be the most popular digital service provider of music in South Korea. These charts are spread across K-pop fan forums and K-pop music chart accounts on Twitter, particularly @yg_sales.
Seeing this calendar chart of sorts really allowed me to realize a new perspective of analyzing charts, more particularly analyzing the number-one songs of those charts, and a newer way of presenting this data.
Enter the Spotify Global Daily Number-Ones Calendar Chart.
All of the data that you see presented here is courtesy of Spotify’s publicly available website, Spotifycharts.com. I have also used Kworb.net for easier tracking of other stats.
Assorted statistics (for the year so far)
Biggest…
Biggest days at #1
#1 – XXXTentacion – “SAD!” – 19 June 2018 (10,415,088 streams)
#2 – Drake – “In My Feelings” – 16 July 2018 (9,665,341 streams)
#3 – Drake – “In My Feelings” – 17 July 2018 (9,580,274 streams)
Biggest weeks at #1
#1 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – Week ending 1 March 2018 (54,891,573 streams)
#2 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – Week ending 1 February 2018 (54,061,893 streams)
#3 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – Week ending 22 February 2018 (53,416,337 streams)
Biggest months at #1
#1 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – February 2018 (198,032,086 streams)
#2 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – March 2018 (196,235,674 streams)
#3 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – April 2018 (151,036,185 streams)
Biggest daily #1 debuts
#1 – Drake – “Nonstop” – 29 June 2018 (9,298,297 streams)
#2 – The Weeknd – “Call Out My Name” – 30 March 2018 (6,473,226 streams)
#3 – Kanye West – “All Mine” – 2 June 2018 (4,536,998 streams)
Biggest weekly #1 debuts
#1 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – Week ending 25 January 2018 (45,168,581 streams)
#2 – Drake – “Nonstop” – Week ending 29 June 2018 (43,697,135 streams)
#3 – Post Malone – “Better Now” – Week ending 3 May (40,788,286 streams)
Longest… (and one “shortest” stat…)
Longest-running stays at #1 (daily)
#1 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – 74 non-consecutive days (21 Jan to 29 March, 31 March, 1 April, 5 to 8 April 2018)
#2 – Post Malone – “Better Now” – 37 non-consecutive days (30 April to 8 May, 18 to 20 May, 21 to 25 May, 29 May to 1 June, 3 to 18 June 2018)
#3 – Drake – “Nice for What” – 18 consecutive days (9 to 26 April 2018)
Longest-running stays at #1 (daily) (debuts only)
#1 – The Weeknd – “Call Out My Name” – 4 non-consecutive days (30 March, 2 to 4 April 2018)
#2 – Drake – “Nonstop” – 3 consecutive days (29 June to 1 July 2018)
#3 – Kanye West – “All Mine” – 1 day (2 June 2018)
Longest-running stays at #1 (weekly)
#1 – Drake – “God’s Plan” – 11 non-consecutive weeks (25 January to 29 March, 2 April 2018)
#2 – Post Malone – “Better Now” – 6 non-consecutive weeks (3 to 10 May, 24 May to 14 June 2018)
#3 (tie) – Post Malone – “rockstar” (f/ 21 Savage) – 2 consecutive weeks (4 to 11 January 2018); Drake – “Nice for What” – 2 consecutive weeks (19 to 26 April 2018); XXXTentacion – “SAD!” – 2 consecutive weeks (21 to 28 June 2018)
Shortest-running stays at #1 (daily)
#1 – Kanye West – “All Mine” – 1 day (2 June 2018)
#2 (tie) – Post Malone – “Psycho” (f/ Ty Dolla $ign) – 3 consecutive days (27 to 29 April 2018); Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa – “One Kiss” – 3 consecutive days (26 to 28 May 2018); Drake – “Nonstop” – 3 consecutive days (29 June to 1 July 2018)
#3 – The Weeknd – “Call Out My Name” – 4 non-consecutive days (30 March, 2 to 4 April 2018)
Questions that I expect one to wonder to themselves:
Why start the week on Monday? Why not on Sunday (the first day of the week in the United States), Thursday (the last day of the industry-standard tracking week), or Friday (the first day of the industry-standard tracking week)?
This is because I decided to follow ISO 8601. ISO 8601 is the international standard from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) pertaining to covering dates and times. ISO 8601 declares Monday as the start of the week with Sunday being the seventh, ergo the last, day of the week. I just prefer to use ISO standards. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How did you decide the color-code for the number-ones?
I basically picked a random colour from the cover art for the song if there is one. If there is no available cover art, the colour is arbitrary. I aim to pick colours that aren’t too harsh on the eye and won’t mask away the text.
How did you find out the monthly number-one songs?
I basically just calculated it myself. I took the weeks that don’t go into any other months (such as the week ending 24 May 2018) and then added every other day that falls outside of the weeks that fit that category together. Along with this I track songs that were formerly #1, especially when the #1 songs in particular don’t have large margins.
There’s an error on the chart? (i know this technically isn’t a question)
Well, I’m only human. There’s a great chance that I’ll notice it while making the next update and correct it in time. And if there happens to be an error in grammar somewhere, that might just be my thinking in a different language while typing in English.
Future updates to the calendar can be found here.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter: @bisged
CHART DATA 
Where’s Cardi B????
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Hi thanks for the comment. Cardi B does not have a global Spotify #1 this year.
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