Elton John at 70 (Top 40 hits)

Elton John scored his 70th Top 40 hit on Friday after a 12 year hiatus. We may be somewhat stretching the definition of an Elton John single here, it's basically some EDM crap that samples Elton John songs sung by him and Dua Lipa. But it is credited to Elton John and Dua Lipa so it counts. It goes to show you never truly know when someone's Top 40 career is over.

Back in 1989 my chart knowledge was more or less limited to what had happened in the couple of years prior. Then Cliff Richard had his 100th hit single. A landmark yes but I also thought it may have been a landmark many would have already reached.

I also learned that Queen had been around for a long time and wondered whether they had reached 100 yet. When I discovered later on in 1989 that Queen had just reached 35 hits it sounded quite pathetic.

Then came my first British Hit Singles book which went to the end of 1990 and Cliff Richard was listed as having 99 hit singles and he'd had a few since his 100th. Basically they hadn't included collaborations but it also counted Top 75 singles rather than Top 40. Incidentally including collaborations and just the Top 40 Cliff Richard was still stuck on 99. He would reach 100 in 1991 though.

At the time the only act to pass the 100 mark was Elvis Presley. Over 30 years later the only 2 acts to have passed the 100 mark are Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard.

Although Queens 35 Top 40 hits didn't sound impressive, they were actually 8th overall for most Top 40 hits at the time. In 3rd place was David Bowie with 44, but throughout the 90s the person who looked most likely to be next to hit the 100 mark was Elton John who was in 4th place at the end of 1990 with 41 and in 3rd place at the end of the decade with 58.

The reality is that Elton John was old hat by the 90s, but he still kept having Top 40 hits so there seemed no reason why he couldn't continue to have them into the 21st century. If he kept having Top 40 hits at the same rate he did in the 90s then we would have been talking about his 100th Top 40 hit around about now.

He had 3 Top 40 hits from his "Songs From The West Coast" album in 2001 and 2002, but since then his ability to have a Top 40 hit of his own accord seems to have faded away. 

He's had a total of 9 since but in addition to his latest effort they include a rerecording of "Your Song" as a duet, featuring on Blue's cover of "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word", an Ashley Beedle remix of 70s flop single "Are You Ready For Love?", having "Indian Sunset" sampled on "Ghetto Gospel" by 2Pac and having "Tiny Dancer" sampled on "Tiny Dancer" by Ironik ft Chipmunk. 

Only 3 of them have been what I would call proper Elton John releases, the last of which came in 2005 which was a year that seemed to have several older artists back for one final hit. 

After it looked a question of when rather than if Madonna overtakes Elton John into 3rd place he's now got a bit of breathing space by being 2 ahead of her. With just 2 Top 40 hits in the last decade and the last coming 6 years ago it's not looking like Madonna will have another Top 40 hit, but you never know.

It does however seem almost inevitable that he will get caught by Drake who currently sits on 65.