10 years of Drake in the UK Top 40

In July 2010, the 10 acts who had the most Top 40 hits were as follows:

Elvis Presley - 124
Cliff Richard - 124
Elton John - 69
Madonna - 66
David Bowie - 57
Status Quo - 56
Queen - 53
Michael Jackson - 49
Paul McCartney - 47
Rod Stewart - 45

That list probably won't surprise too many people. These are names known to many and all have multiple well known songs. The newest act on that list is Madonna who was 26 years into her Top 40 career by this point.

10 years later, here's how the Top 10 looks now:

Elvis Presley - 124
Cliff Richard - 124
Elton John - 69
Madonna - 68
David Bowie - 58
Status Quo - 57
Drake - 57
Queen - 53
Michael Jackson - 52
Kylie Minogue - 51

Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart have been pushed out by Drake and Kylie Minogue. In 2010 if I was to pick anyone to be in this Top 10 then Kylie would have probably been it given the longevity of her career and the fact she was still having hits. I certainly wouldn't have predicted Drake would be in there.

It was in July 2010 when Drake made his Top 40 debut with "Find Your Love" which made number 24. It's taken him just 10 years to find himself joint 6th in terms of most Top 40 hits. It took Status Quo 42 years to reach the same number.

However, Drake isn't the quickest act to reach 57 hits. Elvis beat him by a month scoring his 57th Top 40 hit 9 years 11 months into his Top 40 career. With the rest of the acts to achieve that number we have Cliff Richard (13 years), Madonna (19 years), Elton John (27 years) and David Bowie (33 years).

Whilst Elvis starting clocking up the hits from the word go, it took Drake a bit more time to get going. He had 11 hits to his name after the first 5 years, 6 of which were as featured artist. He started to gain momentum in 2016 when he had 8 Top 40 hits including "One Dance" which spent 15 weeks at number one. In 2017 he had 13 Top 40 hits and the same again in 2018. Last year was a bit more low key with 4 and so far this year he's had 7.

The question is how many more Top 40 hits does he have in him?

With a new album apparently on the way it's almost inevitable he'll overtake David Bowie. I did think that Madonna would overtake Elton John but with just 2 Top 40 hits in the last decade and a number of singles that never made the Top 40 in that time, it seems more likely she'll be caught by Drake now.

In 10 years time I fully expect Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber to be in the Top 10 acts with most hits, but who else?

Well this month we had the Top 40 debut of Jack Harlow who's reached 25 with "What's Poppin". A remix exists which features Lil Wayne, who's record label signed Drake. Therefore I'm going to predict Jack Harlow will have lots of hits in the next decade. You heard it here first.