This 'Greatest Pop Stars' podcast episode looks at our staff's recently published 100 Best No. 2 Hits list.
By Andrew Unterberger
All week on Billboard.com, we’ve been celebrating the canon of No. 2 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — the songs that came as close as they could to ruling the chart, but for one reason or another couldn’t quite make that final leap. On Tuesday (Aug. 11), we published a list of our staff’s 100 favorite such hits, including some signature hits by some of the greatest hitmakers in chart history, as well as some songs that serve as their respective artists’ lone legacy, and plenty of songs in between that we’ve loved for decades, and best capture to us what a No. 2 hit is and should be.
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On this week’s episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, we discuss the art of the No. 2 hit, and whether there is something meaningful or maybe even a little mystical to peaking at the runner-up spot on the chart. Host Andrew Unterberger is joined by regular guest Eric Frankenberg of the Billboard charts team to break down the top 10 of our list, as well as sharing some personal picks for songs that could have stood to be a little higher or lower on the list — or that should’ve made the list at all, or not — as well as some favorite No. 2-related quirks in chart history.
