The No. 1 slot of the coveted Billboard Hot 100 chart hosted new faces and established forces alike throughout 2022. The final Hot 100 No. 1 of this year is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” a perennial holiday hit that also topped the charts dated December 25, 2021, and January 1, 2022. Carey was the bookend, as she’s been for the past four years, but there were 13 other songs that went No. 1 in between.
Every #1 song on the Hot 100 in 2022:
Easy On Me
We Don’t Talk About Bruno
Heat Waves
As It Was
First Class
WAIT FOR U
Jimmy Cooks
About Damn Time
BREAK MY SOUL
Super Freaky Girl
Bad Habit
Unholy
Anti-Hero
All I Want for Christmas Is You— chart data (@chartdata) December 29, 2022
By mid-January, Adele’s “Easy On Me” reclaimed the No. 1 crown from Carey. The 30 single debuted at No. 1 in October 2021 and spent 10 non-consecutive weeks there. The chart dated February 5 found “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Disney’s Encanto making history with its No. 1 bow, and it stayed there before Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves,” an all-time Hot 100 record-holder, made its No. 1 debut.
But once Harry Styles decided to drop “As It Was,” it was virtually game over for everyone else. (Jack Harlow snuck in a No. 1 in April with “First Class,” though.) “As It Was,” the lead single from Harry’s House, became Styles’ second-career No. 1 on the Hot 100 but by far the longest-charting No. 1 at 15 total weeks — a record for a song with no features. Later in the year, Steve Lacy fulfilled his wish of dethroning “As It Was,” as Lacy’s “Bad Habit” hit No. 1 in early October.
Before Lacy, Future interrupted Styles’ historic reign in mid-May with “Wait For U” featuring Drake and Tems, followed by Drake and 21 Savage’s “Jimmy Cooks” and Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” in July. Lizzo was even rewarded with a bouquet of flowers from Styles.
Of course, Beyoncé’s Renaissance return netted a No. 1 with “Break My Soul” in August, her eighth career solo No. 1 and first No. 1 without a featured artist since 2008. “Break My Soul” enjoyed a two-week stint before Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” blew in for a quick one-and-done debut at No. 1 in late August.
All of September featured “As It Was” back on top until Lacy’s upset, and after three weeks of “Bad Habit,” October ended with Sam Smith becoming the first publicly non-binary artist and Kim Petras becoming the first publicly transgender artist to earn a Hot 100 No. 1 with their collaborative single “Unholy.”
Taylor Swift released her 10th studio album, Midnights, on October 21, and by November 5, Swift became the first-ever artist to occupy every top-10 spot on the Hot 100. “Anti-Hero” was No. 1, where it has logged six total weeks.
That brings us back to Carey. The 2022 “All I Want For Christmas” run began with the Hot 100 chart dated December 17 and is holding strong through this week. Which song will dethrone it in January and restart the cycle for 2023?
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.