Top Ten Artists With At Least 16 Top Ten Hit Songs in Austria

What does a music artist need to truly be more than just a one hit wonder, more than a current trend that soon will be forgotten? Right, a whole bunch of hits. There are many musicians with one or two well known songs, maybe even a number 1 hit, that never deliver anything to keep up with that success. Of course, only songs can’t measure the full impact of an artist, albums are important as well. Some of the decade's most famous musicians have extremely strong album sales, while the single tracks rarely rank highly on the charts. But for most music celebrities, high chart positions of their songs indicate the dimension of their popularity.

So, for the newest installment of my series of lists about artists with many top ten hits we go beyond a specific decade and look at artists that had so many hits overall in their career that they ultimately cemented their status as the biggest stars of all time. Only a handful artists had 8 top ten hits in a decade, but how many had 16 hit songs in their entire career? We’ll see.

For my list, I compiled every top ten hit of the respective artist on the official Austrian charts that has them credited as either the main artist or a feature guest. I decided to include the latter because many songs became so popular specifically due to the featured musician's participation, and often their contribution to the track is equal or even more than the main artist’s. What does not count is if the artist is otherwise involved in a song (e.g. as a songwriter). Also, groups and solo projects of individual members count as two separate discographies - if the lead singer of a band had 4 solo top ten hits and 4 with his band, they won’t qualify for the list. Charity projects are a special case - they will appear on the listing of the hits, but to be included on the list, the artist must have had at least 8 top ten hits without that song.

This time we have to face a problem caused by the huge amount of time that passed between the careers of the individual artists on the list, regarding a debate of “single vs. song”.

In times before digital downloads, the only opportunity for a song to chart was being released as a single, which was then bought. When vinyl records were the foremost format, it wasn’t unusual to release double A-Side singles. Sometimes both of these songs were well known and popular, sometimes only one was, which also pulled the other song up the charts along with it. Very rarely, this also occurred when CDs took over.

So we could say that this list isn’t as much about songs that entered the top ten as it is about singles, right? Unfortunately it is not as easy. Because when downloads became a thing, it was also possible for any other song on an album to chart highly, even if it has neither an individual single release nor had any notable promotion.

For example: most of the hits by The Beatles were double A-Side singles. Sometimes both songs became popular (e.g. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), sometimes only one did (“All You Need is Love” is far more famous than “Baby You’re a Rich Man”). On the other hand, a large part of Raf Camora’s top ten songs were not even singles at all, including his third number 1 hit, “Nummer unterdrückt”, which was simply one out of 15 songs from the album “Palmen aus Plastik 2” that just happen to appeal to many more people than any other then-current single, and didn’t even have a music video when it topped the charts.

We won’t nitpick here, though: double A-Side singles count as one song (although the number of overall songs will be mentioned in my listing of hits that I will add in the comments), as do songs that were not released as singles but reached high chart positions through digital distribution. Counting them all together, there have to be at least 16 top ten songs - e.g. if one double A-Side single, one regular single and one non-single entered the top ten, it counts as 3 top ten songs.
The Top Ten
1 Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone, known professionally as Madonna, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. She influenced a lot of singers such as: Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Beyonce Knowles and Britney Spears. She is known as Queen of Pop and at modern pop culture specifically ...read more.
2 ABBA ABBA are a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
3 The Beatles The Beatles were an English pop rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The members consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They were soon known as the foremost and most influential act of rock era. Rooted in skiffle, beat, and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later ...read more.
4 Falco Johann "Hans" Hölzel, better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian singer, songwriter and rapper.
5 Michael Jackson Michael Jackson (Michael Joseph Jackson; August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, dancer, and songwriter. He passed away from cardiac arrest caused by a propofol and benzodiazepine overdose on June 25, 2009. He donated (at least) a remarkable 500,000,000 dollars to charity. Michael is also known as The King of Pop (a title given to him by Elizabeth Taylor) or under the initials MJ. Dubbed the King of Pop, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. ...read more.
6 P!nk Alecia Beth Moore known professionally as P!NK, is an American singer, songwriter, dancer and actress.
7 Bee Gees The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their line-up consisted of brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb.
8 Rihanna Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a Barbadian-American pop singer. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, she first entered the music industry by recording demo tapes under the direction of record producer Evan Rogers in 2003. She ultimately signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings after auditioning ...read more.
9 Christina Stürmer Christina Stürmer is an Austrian alternative rock singer that was born on June 9, 1982 in Linz. ...read more.
10 Peter Alexander Peter Alexander Ferdinand Maximilian Neumayer, going only by Peter Alexander as his stage name, was an Austrian actor and singer from Vienna who was born on Juny 30, 1926 and died on February 12, 2011. ...read more.
The Contenders
11 David Guetta Pierre David Guetta is a French DJ, songwriter, record producer and remixer who has sold over nine million albums and thirty million singles worldwide. In 2011, Guetta was voted as the number one DJ in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs poll.
12 Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears, born on December 2, 1981, is an American former singer and actress. She was born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana. As a child, she performed acting roles in stage productions and television shows, such as "The Mickey Mouse Club," before signing with Jive Records in 1997... read more
13 Raf Camora
14 Scooter Scooter are a German dance group founded in Hamburg, who have sold over 30 million records and earned over 80 Gold and Platinum awards.
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