base talk Billboard: 13/30 of Beyonce's biggest Hot 100 songs are not solo

[Comedor]

2 hours ago, NEX said:

So what I got from this thread title is that the majority of Beyonce's 30 biggest hits are indeed SOLO 

You better do the math for them.

[Marla Singer]

1 hour ago, hawx23 said:

So you didn't actually read the article. They ranked her songs based on how high / how long it was on the charts. It says her ten biggest hits are:

 

1. Irreplaceable: 2006

2. Baby Boy: 2003

3. Crazy in Love: 2003

4. Check on It: 2006

5. Single Ladies: 2008

6. Naughty Girl: 2004

7. Bonnie & Clyde: 2002

8. Me Myself & I: 2003

9. Savage: 2020

10. Telephone: 2010

 

If you don't collabs (Savage and Telephone), then all her of ten biggest hits are from before 2010.

So the commercial prime of her career, when she used to frequently release and promote singles, is also the part of her career with the biggest chart hits?

 

Well, I'll be-

[sparrowblue]

well if you was old enough to see it, the cosign from hottest rapper shawn carter definitely helped in the beginning considering work it out (flopped planned lead) - bonnie & clyde - crazy in love. the rest is history.

[Rotunda]

9 minutes ago, sparrowblue said:

well if you was old enough to see it, the cosign from hottest rapper shawn carter definitely helped in the beginning considering work it out (flopped planned lead) - bonnie & clyde - crazy in love. the rest is history.

You do realize that Beyoncé had already had more chart success than Jay  through Destiny's Child by the time Bonnie & Clyde came out right?

[trainsskyscrapers]

1 hour ago, Burn said:

Also OP @hawx23 - just a minor correction it's 13/30 collabs not 14/30, I guess you possibly miscounted when titling the thread? I'm sure you'll be so kind to update your thread title.

 

Using the source you provided I've bolded the collab songs:

 

"Ego"

"Love in This Club Part II" (Usher feat. Beyoncé & Lil Wayne)

"Partition"

"Ring the Alarm"

"Sorry"

"Diva"

"Until the End of Time" (With Justin Timberlake)

"Best Thing I Never Had"

"7/11"

"Déjà Vu" (feat. Jay-Z)

"Beautiful Liar" (With Shakira)

"Cuff It"

"Mi Gente" (J Balvin & Willy William feat. Beyoncé)

"Sweet Dreams"

"Perfect" (Ed Sheeran feat. Beyoncé)

"Texas Hold 'Em"

"Break My Soul"

"Drunk in Love" (feat. Jay-Z)

"If I Were a Boy"

"Halo"

"Telephone" (Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé)

"Savage" (Megan Thee Stallion feat. Beyoncé)

"Me, Myself and I"

"03 Bonnie & Clyde" (Jay-Z feat. Beyoncé)

"Naughty Girl"

"Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"

"Check on It" (feat. Slim Thug)

"Crazy in Love" (feat. Jay-Z)

"Baby Boy" (feat. Sean Paul)

"Irreplaceable"

@hawx23 Isn't it wild that records like Countdown (3x Platinum), Formation (Top 10 Single), Love On Top (5x Platinum), II Most Wanted (Top 10 Single - only collab in this set of 8 honorable mentions), Flawless (3x Platinum), Jolene (Top 10 Single), Hold Up (3x Platinum), and Run The World (Girls) (5x Platinum) didn't even make the cut? I feel like Beyonce was the wrong artist to go after. The chart depth of her catalog is surpassed only by Taylor and Rihanna. 

Edited Friday at 09:30 PM by trainsskyscrapers

[sparrowblue]

42 minutes ago, Rotunda said:

You do realize that Beyoncé had already had more chart success than Jay  through Destiny's Child by the time Bonnie & Clyde came out right?

Im not even getting into his street credibility and influence in music, but yeah she was seen as beyonce of destiny's child. Even Kelly's biggest hit was with Nelly who was outselling everybody. It's okay to admit she didn't just come out swinging solo since she followed up the hit collab with her new lead being another hit collab.

[50thStateofMind]

3 hours ago, sparrowblue said:

well if you was old enough to see it, the cosign from hottest rapper shawn carter definitely helped in the beginning considering work it out (flopped planned lead) - bonnie & clyde - crazy in love. the rest is history.

 I was old enough to "see it" and no....stop rewriting history  

[RoseBud]

 

Nothing but solo's

 

[ImpressMeMuch]

18 hours ago, Homebrand said:

Her name is still on those songs & nobody outside of atrl gives af about this topic either

 

Idk why some of ya'll are still bent on this ''solo'' thing  

That's the OPs point lol

[sparrowblue]

46 minutes ago, 50thStateofMind said:

 I was old enough to "see it" and no....stop rewriting history  

she flopped out the gate till he came around. you can argue with billboard.

[ImpressMeMuch]

5 hours ago, Burn said:

Also OP @hawx23 - just a minor correction it's 13/30 collabs not 14/30, I guess you possibly miscounted when titling the thread? I'm sure you'll be so kind to update your thread title.

 

Using the source you provided I've bolded the collab songs:

 

"Ego"

"Love in This Club Part II" (Usher feat. Beyoncé & Lil Wayne)

"Partition"

"Ring the Alarm"

"Sorry"

"Diva"

"Until the End of Time" (With Justin Timberlake)

"Best Thing I Never Had"

"7/11"

"Déjà Vu" (feat. Jay-Z)

"Beautiful Liar" (With Shakira)

"Cuff It"

"Mi Gente" (J Balvin & Willy William feat. Beyoncé)

"Sweet Dreams"

"Perfect" (Ed Sheeran feat. Beyoncé)

"Texas Hold 'Em"

"Break My Soul"

"Drunk in Love" (feat. Jay-Z)

"If I Were a Boy"

"Halo"

"Telephone" (Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé)

"Savage" (Megan Thee Stallion feat. Beyoncé)

"Me, Myself and I"

"03 Bonnie & Clyde" (Jay-Z feat. Beyoncé)

"Naughty Girl"

"Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"

"Check on It" (feat. Slim Thug)

"Crazy in Love" (feat. Jay-Z)

"Baby Boy" (feat. Sean Paul)

"Irreplaceable"

Not 5 of them being "feat. Beyoncé" too

 

the way those would be excluded entirely from the list for that reason in half of the arguments on here which is redic

[PerfectCure]

12 hours ago, HeavyMetalAura said:

Sometimes when I read these threads I remember most of yall are in your mid 20s and it makes me laugh but also makes me sad  

Thank you  Grown people complaining about these pathetic stats no one cares about like it's paying their bills

[50thStateofMind]

16 minutes ago, sparrowblue said:

she flopped out the gate till he came around. you can argue with billboard.

she was a massive success before Work it Out  YOU CAN ARGUE WITH BILLBOARD  

[sparrowblue]

38 minutes ago, 50thStateofMind said:

she was a massive success before Work it Out  YOU CAN ARGUE WITH BILLBOARD  

re the OP and my comment: and SHE ALONE STILL flopped out the gate till he came around. so continue to argue with billboard hoping they change it.

[Erotica]

1 hour ago, sparrowblue said:

she flopped out the gate till he came around. you can argue with billboard.

No one listens to CIL because they want to listen to the Jay-Z part of it. This is Beyoncé's song. 

[hawx23]

3 hours ago, Erotica said:

No one listens to CIL because they want to listen to the Jay-Z part of it. This is Beyoncé's song. 

CIL is a Beyonce song through and through. I don't think anyone has ever once thought it was a Jay-Z song, or that "it shouldn't count as a Bey song because it's not solo"

 

...which is precisely why the "solo hits" argument needs to die.

Edited 21 hours ago by hawx23

[trainsskyscrapers]

9 hours ago, hawx23 said:

CIL is a Beyonce song through and through. I don't think anyone has ever once thought it was a Jay-Z song, or that "it shouldn't count as a Bey song because it's not solo"

 

...which is precisely why the "solo hits" argument needs to die.

Y'all (Lady Gaga's trolls - going trolls over monsters because y'all have zero to intimidate or cause fear to anyone about) created that argument in 2017/2018 when it looked like Beyoncé would never receive a solo #1 single again. 2 multi-platinum, multi-week, solo #1 hits later, and you're having buyer's remorse.

 

Ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun.

[Triton]

Not the title change! Illiterate, wrong and bitter?  Pick a struggle. 

[swissman]

It's very strange, I think, to single out ONE person in trying to stop people from using "solo song" as shade. In doing so, you've provided a framework on which others will come in and make this a stan-war, not a global understanding about what you want to say about this topic.

 

BUT SINCE YOU MADE IT ABOUT BEYONCÉ ALONE LET'S CLEAR SOME THINGS UP.

 

• If 13/30 of her biggest Hot 100 hits aren't solo that means 17/30 are, which means THE MAJORITY of her hits are solo.
• Her biggest Hot 100 Hit of her entire career IS a solo song.
  • It stayed at #1 for ten weeks. This should mean something if you think having non-solo songs means something here.
• Beyoncé literally came up collaboratively as part of a girl group in a Hip-Hop/R&B industry. The fact that she's *gasp* collaborated should be of no surprise and very little consequence as it's both baked into her workflow since she was a child, AND an common and iconic part of the genre(s) she functions within.
• If Beyoncé's biggest hits are all pre-2010, but what does that tell you?
  • Could there have been a differing approach she took in the 2010s than in the 2000s when it relates to getting "hits"?
  • Did she famously become her own manager or something, putting her artistic goals above commercial ones?
  • Was there anything notable she did in the 2000s that has inhibited her hit making?
    • Has she ever launched an album without a lead single?
    • Has she ever put out a lead single and then not release it to streaming, radio, or for sale?
    • Has she ever withheld her new album from streaming platforms for three years?
    • Does she seem to focus any meaningful promotion towards the attainment of hits

 

 

I understand the intention behind this case study, but I also think that on ATRL you need to make more than one case if you want to get anywhere. Using Beyoncé alone when she's not even a very good example of "only has solo hits" seems unnecessarily pointed and unproductive.

[hawx23]

7 minutes ago, trainsskyscrapers said:

Y'all (Lady Gaga's trolls - going trolls over monsters because y'all have zero to intimidate or cause fear to anyone about) created that argument in 2017/2018 when it looked like Beyoncé would never receive a solo #1 single again. 2 multi-platinum, multi-week, solo #1 hits later, and you're having buyer's remorse.

 

Ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun.

I don't know who y'all is lmao I'm fairly new to the site. It doesn't really matter who came up with the argument, if only solos count, then I guess you can't count CIL or Baby Boy as Beyoncé hits. Which would be weird for anyone. 
 

3 minutes ago, swissman said:

It's very strange, I think, to single out ONE person in trying to stop people from using "solo song" as shade. In doing so, you've provided a framework on which others will come in and make this a stan-war, not a global understanding about what you want to say about this topic.

 

BUT SINCE YOU MADE IT ABOUT BEYONCÉ ALONE LET'S CLEAR SOME THINGS UP.

 

• If 13/30 of her biggest Hot 100 hits aren't solo that means 17/30 are, which means THE MAJORITY of her hits are solo.
• Her biggest Hot 100 Hit of her entire career IS a solo song.
  • It stayed at #1 for ten weeks. This should mean something if you think having non-solo songs means something here.
• Beyoncé literally came up collaboratively as part of a girl group in a Hip-Hop/R&B industry. The fact that she's *gasp* collaborated should be of no surprise and very little consequence as it's both baked into her workflow since she was a child, AND an common and iconic part of the genre(s) she functions within.
• If Beyoncé's biggest hits are all pre-2010, but what does that tell you?
  • Could there have been a differing approach she took in the 2010s than in the 2000s when it relates to getting "hits"?
  • Did she famously become her own manager or something, putting her artistic goals above commercial ones?
  • Was there anything notable she did in the 2000s that has inhibited her hit making?
    • Has she ever launched an album without a lead single?
    • Has she ever put out a lead single and then not release it to streaming, radio, or for sale?
    • Has she ever withheld her new album from streaming platforms for three years?
    • Does she seem to focus any meaningful promotion towards the attainment of hits

 

 

I understand the intention behind this case study, but I also think that on ATRL you need to make more than one case if you want to get anywhere. Using Beyoncé alone when she's not even a very good example of "only has solo hits" seems unnecessarily pointed and unproductive.

I picked this article because it just happened to be there. I've also referred to Taylor and Post multiple times. 

[swissman]

14 hours ago, sparrowblue said:

she flopped out the gate till he came around. you can argue with billboard.

But Jay-Z, while commercially impactful was never the real reason any of his songs went #1. (And his #1s in order were collabs with Mariah, Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Alicia). He helped these songs commercially, but to cite his involvement as the reason Beyoncé's Crazy in Love was a hit at least more than her own involvement is wrong. In all cases, the song (mainly the melody and production) was what made them hits. His legendary rap verses gave them cross-over appeal but there is a reason why none of his purely rap-based collaborations went #1 while his pop ones did, and why all of the artists he worked with on his #1s have had solo number ones of their own, and that's because the crossover factor was cherry-on-the-cake, not the sole reason for them even being a confection. Though rap was HUGE in the 2000s and certainly "pop", a pure rap crossover hit generally had a sense of pop appeal baked into it.

 

• Before '03 Bonnie and Clyde his highest peaking (solo or collab) singles (using only Top 20s) were #7, #19, #15, #1 #18, #11, $6, #8. For an average peak of #10.
• Comparatively, Beyoncé's highest peaking (collab, via Destiny's Child) singles (using only Top 20s) were #3, #1, #1, #3, #1, #2, #1, #10. For an average peak of #2-3.
• And Jay-Z released about 3x as many singles as Destiny's Child had.

 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by swissman

[swissman]

19 minutes ago, hawx23 said:

I don't know who y'all is lmao I'm fairly new to the site. It doesn't really matter who came up with the argument, if only solos count, then I guess you can't count CIL or Baby Boy as Beyoncé hits. Which would be weird for anyone. 
 

I picked this article because it just happened to be there. I've also referred to Taylor and Post multiple times. 

And I'm saying that there needed to be more than just one article picked in order to have a well-rounded, sound point that doesn't merely continue the same stan-war back-and-forth that your post intended to stop. There very much has been a Monster/Hive back-and-forth regarding "solo hits" (first lobbied against Beyoncé, I might add) which this thread only serves to continue by presenting (intentional or not) the tired and always riling, "What about YOUR FAVE!" type of defence.

 

I see your edit note about Taylor and Post Malone, but as an afterthought that doesn't do much to steer the conversation nor is it at all represented in the title.

 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by swissman

[swissman]

This whole circling of the "solo hit" shade back to Beyoncé as a means of "defence" for Gaga is a hilarious example of the toxicity, immaturity and pettiness of stan culture.

 

The insult used against one artist is, when eventually applied to the fave of the fans who used it, then once more redirected back onto that former artist, not as a reminder of history, but forgetting it. How many people have we seen claiming this term was invented just to shade Gaga?

 

This ignorant victimhood only makes things worse, but it's also important to remember that ignorance is sometimes just a lack of knowledge, not just hate or stupidity.

 

And  the cycle will not stop as long as both sides play into it. The Hive too (not just the Monsters) need to stop weaponizing "solo hit". Just because we received it before them doesn't make it better for us to now hold onto it. It's a needless, unfair and unproductive thing to do.

[swissman]

On 1/17/2025 at 2:13 AM, zoldyck said:

Beyonce went without solo #1 from 2009 to 2022, then return to #1 with weak song like break ny soul.

 

...

So yes anyone CAN get #1 including Gaga, it just depends on timing.

For Beyoncé I don't think it was just timing.

 

BREAK MY SOUL, as "weak" as you think it was, managed to go #1 because it was her first lead single since 2011 that was actually released BEFORE the album came out, that had a proper release, with notice beforehand.

 

It wasn't just "timing" it was also "circumstance", ie. what Beyoncé actually did that would set it up for success. She only put out two solo albums between 2012 and 2021, BEYONCÉ had no lead single upon release and videos for every song, making no song the focus for the public. The solo single she did release soon after ("XO") was overshadowed by the other single, and the hit of the album (a collab, "Drunk in Love" which was promoted in America at the Grammys) after which promo for any subsequent singles (solo or not) was basically non-existent until "7/11" which had a lil video and that's it and peaked at #13 as a moderate hit. Lemonade's first single was launched under wonderful circumstances but then wasn't officially released for three months during which time it was given away for free. No subsequent singles were given any meaningful attention, and the album remained off streaming for the entirety of its run.

 

So BREAK MY SOUL wasn't just the right timing, it was the first occurrence in 10 years that Beyoncé actually set her lead single up for success by doing the bare minimum (the lack of performances and music video is another story, and one I think contributes to the perception of it being a "weak #1" or whatever). It also was boosted to #1 by the album's release, something none of her singles had ever benefited from, as the last time she had a lead single before her solo album came out was 2011, a time when streaming did not count towards the Hot 100. This has to do with time to an extent, the chart rules/methodology at the time of its release, but moreso this relates to the circumstance of the era it was released in, not just that it was the right moment for it to be a hit, implying it was more or less a random thing.

 

 

People think that Beyoncé just wasn't commercially viable from 2009-2022 because she lacked solo #1s. Even for 4 this isn't the case, but especially after it, it was more due to her own self-sabotage and disregard for charts than anything else. She may not have gotten hits of the same scope and frequency as she did in the 2000s, but certainly one cannot argue that had Beyoncé put any meaningful interest behind setting up her singles for success, that in that time period where she turned herself into a legend, a moniker for excellence, that she couldn't have scored a solo #1. "Formation" was almost a guarantee, but she said a resounding, "no thanks."

 

 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by swissman

[Keeandga]

She didn't call them quick little singles for nothing, as long as she's shifting albums and tickets better than the peers and some artists that came over a decade later than her.