| Artist | No of Hits | New Hits | Year of Last Hit | |
| 1 | Elvis Presley | 124 | 2007 | |
| = | Cliff Richard | 124 | 2009 | |
| 3 | Elton John | 69 | 2009 | |
| 4 | Madonna | 68 | 2015 | |
| 5 | David Bowie | 58 | 2013 | |
| = | Status Quo | 57 | 2010 | |
| 7 | Queen | 53 | 2009 | |
| 8 | Michael Jackson | 51 | 2014 | |
| 9 | Kylie Minogue | 50 | Santa Baby | 2017 |
| 10 | Paul McCartney | 49 | 2015 | |
| 11 | Rihanna | 48 | Loyalty, Wild Thoughts, Lemon | 2017 |
| 12 | Rod Stewart | 45 | 2001 | |
| 13 | Pet Shop Boys | 44 | 2009 | |
| 14 | Diana Ross | 43 | 2005 | |
| = | Rolling Stones | 43 | 2005 | |
| = | Depeche Mode | 43 | 2009 | |
| 17 | Stevie Wonder | 41 | 2005 | |
| = | U2 | 41 | 2009 | |
| 19 | UB40 | 40 | 2005 | |
| = | Justin Bieber | 40 | Despacito, I'm the One, 2U, Friends | 2017 |
| 21 | Mariah Carey | 39 | 2013 | |
| = | Jay-Z | 39 | 2013 | |
| 23 | Prince | 38 | 1997 | |
| = | R Kelly | 38 | 2014 | |
| 25 | Janet Jackson | 37 | 2006 | |
| = | Bon Jovi | 37 | 2013 | |
| 27 | Tom Jones | 36 | 2009 | |
| = | George Michael | 36 | 2012 | |
| = | Ed Sheeran | 36 | Shape of You, Castle on the Hill, How Would You Feel (Paean), Galway Girl, Perfect, New Man, Happier, Dive, Supermarket Flowers, What Do I Know, Barcelona, Nancy Mulligan, Eraser, Hearts Don't Break Round Here, Bibia Be Ye Ye, Save Myself, River | 2017 |
| = | Eminem | 36 | Revenge,Walk on Water, River, In Your Head | 2017 |
| 30 | Robbie Williams | 35 | 2016 | |
| = | Kanye West | 35 | 2016 | |
| = | Beyonce | 35 | Walk on Water | 2017 |
| 33 | Erasure | 34 | 2007 | |
| = | Manic Street Preachers | 34 | 2010 | |
| 35 | Frank Sinatra | 33 | 1993 | |
| = | Shakin Stevens | 33 | 2005 | |
| = | Morrissey | 33 | 2009 | |
| = | David Guetta | 33 | Shed a Light, 2U, Dirty Sexy Money | 2017 |
| = | Drake | 33 | Passionfruit, KMT, Blem, No Long Talk, Get It Together, Portland, Madiba Riddim, Gyalchester, Skepta Interlude, Teenage Fever, Free Smoke, 4422, Signs | 2017 |
| 40 | Iron Maiden | 32 | 2007 | |
| = | Simply Red | 32 | 2007 | |
| = | Whitney Houston | 32 | 2009 | |
| 43 | Roy Orbison | 31 | 1992 | |
| = | Bee Gees | 31 | 2001 | |
| = | REM | 31 | 2005 | |
| = | Chris Brown | 31 | Questions | 2017 |
| = | Pink | 31 | What About Us, Revenge, Beautiful Trauma | 2017 |
| 48 | Lonnie Donegan | 30 | 1962 | |
| = | Beatles | 30 | 1996 | |
| = | Tina Turner | 30 | 2004 | |
| = | Duran Duran | 30 | 2005 | |
| = | Paul Weller | 30 | 2010 | |
| = | Mary J Blige | 30 | 2010 | |
| = | Glee Cast | 30 | 2011 | |
| = | Britney Spears | 30 | 2015 | |
| = | Calvin Harris | 30 | Slide, Heatstroke, Feels | 2017 |
Rihanna joins Abba and the Spice Girls on 9 number ones, Calvin Harris scores his 8th and Justin Bieber and Sam Smith score their 6th number ones:
| Artist | No of #1s | New #1s | |
| 1 | Elvis Presley | 21 | |
| 2 | Beatles | 17 | |
| 3 | Cliff Richard | 14 | |
| = | Westlife | 14 | |
| 5 | Madonna | 13 | |
| 6 | Take That | 12 | |
| 7 | Abba | 9 | |
| = | Spice Girls | 9 | |
| = | Rihanna | 9 | Wild Thoughts |
| 10 | Rolling Stones | 8 | |
| = | Oasis | 8 | |
| = | Eminem | 8 | |
| = | Calvin Harris | 8 | Feels |
| 14 | George Michael | 7 | |
| = | Michael Jackson | 7 | |
| = | Kylie Minogue | 7 | |
| = | U2 | 7 | |
| = | Elton John | 7 | |
| = | McFly | 7 | |
| = | Robbie Williams | 7 | |
| = | Tinie Tempah | 7 | |
| 22 | Slade | 6 | |
| = | Rod Stewart | 6 | |
| = | Boyzone | 6 | |
| = | Blondie | 6 | |
| = | Queen | 6 | |
| = | Sugababes | 6 | |
| = | Britney Spears | 6 | |
| = | David Guetta | 6 | |
| = | Justin Bieber | 6 | I'm the One, Despacito |
| = | Sam Smith | 6 | Too Good At Goodbyes |
No hits from Kanye West in 2017, so the act with the longest streak of consecutive years of hits is Rihanna which stretches back to 2005:
| Artist | Hits Every Year Since | |
| 1 | Rihanna | 2005 |
| 2 | Chris Brown | 2006 |
| 3 | Calvin Harris | 2007 |
| 4 | Jason Derulo | 2009 |
| = | David Guetta | 2009 |
| 6 | Drake | 2010 |
| = | Ellie Goulding | 2010 |
| = | Nicki Minaj | 2010 |
| = | Olly Murs | 2010 |
| = | Tinie Tempah | 2010 |
| 11 | Little Mix | 2011 |
The year began with "Rockabye" by Clean Bandit still at number one. After 9 weeks at the top though Ed Sheeran was back with two new singles, "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill". The inevitable happened and Ed Sheeran knocked Clean Bandit off the top with "Shape of You" reaching number one. He also made number two with "Castle on the Hill" making him the first act to go straight in at both number one and number two at the same time.
"Shape of You" remained at number one for 13 weeks until it was knocked off by the solo debut hit from One Directions Harry Styles, "Sign of the Times". A week later "Shape of You" was back at number one for another week before Clean Bandit got their revenge by knocking Ed Sheeran off the top with "Symphony".
During Ed Sheerans time at number one, he released his new album from which all 16 tracks made the Top 20 at the same time. One of these tracks, "Perfect", would go on to become the Christmas number one.
We also had multiple tracks in the Top 40 following album releases from Stormzy, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, but a new rule change in the middle of the year meant no more than 3 tracks from the same album were eligible to chart at the same time.
Another rule which came in at the same time was that streams would get down weighted after 9 weeks, a rule which made it unlikely for a record to be at number one for more than 9 weeks again.
The first victim of this new rule was the second longest running number one of the year, "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi ft Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber. This knocked another hit to feature Justin Bieber off the top, "I'm the One" by DJ Khaled, and remained there for 6 weeks. Then it was knocked off by the Grenfell fundraising record "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Artists for Grenfell, but was back at number one the following week for 3 weeks. Then DJ Khaled was back at the top for a week with "Wild Thoughts". Then "Despacito" was back at number one for a further 2 weeks before being knocked off by Calvin Harris with "Feels", but under the old rules it would have remained at number one. Ironically a week later the record which knocked Calvin Harris off number one was called "New Rules" by Dua Lipa.
For the first time since the first winners number one in 2005, we had a year without any X Factor number ones. The winners of 2017 were Rak Su who got to number two with their winners song "Dimelo". 2009 contestant Olly Murs collaborated with 2015 winner Louisa Johnson on "Unpredictable", previous years winner Matt Terry collaborated with Enrique Iglesias and Sean Paul on "Subeme la Radio" and we also had hits from Little Mix and James Arthur.
Former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello started her solo career on a collaboration with rapper Machine Gun Kelly with "Bad Things" and had a total of four hits in 2017, the final one being the number one "Havana" which featured Young Thug.
Tropical House had a quieter year in 2017, as did Deep House and Future House and there was no Drum & Bass in the charts at all.
The "tropical" sound had made it's way into Dancehall inspired Pop music which included the number ones "Shape of You", "Despacito" and "Feels". There was still plenty of EDM music in the charts though from people like Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Axwell Λ Ingrosso and Avicii amongst others.
The big music genre of the year though was Rap. It helped that both Drake and Kenrick Lamar had lots of hits alone, but it would have still been the biggest genre if you took them out of the equation. Amongst the big Rap records was the number one "Rockstar" by Post Malone ft 21 Savage, who were both chart debutants in 2017.
The new Eminem album produced the maximum 3 hits in the Top 40 at the end of the year which included the closest rival to Ed Sheeran for Christmas number one, "The River", which featured Ed Sheeran himself.
Although we had an R&B number one in "Wild Thoughts" by DJ Khaled ft Rihanna & Bryson Tiller, it was a pretty quiet year for R&B. It was the genre of choice for the solo debut of One Direction member with "Strip That Down" featuring Quavo. We also had the debut of Neneh Cherry's daughter Mabel with "Finders Keepers" featuring Kojo Funds. The only other R&B hits of the year were "That's What I Like" by Bruno Mars, "Young Dumb & Broke" by Khalid (different to DJ Khaled) and a couple from Craig David, including "I Know You" which featured Indie band Bastille.
The only Indie music of the year came from the Gallagher brothers. Liam Gallagher made his solo debut with "Wall of Glass" and followed up with "For What It's Worth" whilst Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds had a hit with "Holy Mountain".
It was 2017 when I started paying attention to the charts again courtesy of my Top of the Pops features on this blog so I'm back to writing from memory. There are differences between the charts in 2017 and at the start of the decade when it all seemed to be Electropop which had died down a lot by this point.
Thanks to my Top of the Pops posts I've heard every Top 40 hit of 2017, but despite this I do still feel my knowledge of the 2017 charts is lacking somewhat. I have read many people say the modern charts is basically Drake and Ed Sheeran, given they had 30 hits between them in 2017 out of around 200 they certainly make up a good chunk of the charts for 2017.
The problem is that I looked at the list of all the Drake hits of the year and tried to recall how they all went, but I couldn't remember any of them. On the other hand "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran is a song I don't think I'll ever forget given the number of times I've heard it. Most of the big hits of 2017 are ones you just don't hear though, particularly the Rap ones.
Another observation is that every week before Popmaster on Radio 2 a Record of the Week is played which is a brand new single. Throughout 2017 only 8 of those made the Top 40. That said, just because someone who works at Radio 2 thinks it's good doesn't mean the general buying public do.
We have just one year to go in this series before we've caught up with the present day, what will the charts have in store?
