Rihanna has beaten the Beatles’ tally for the total number of weeks spent at No 1 in the US.
Combined sales of Work, the singer’s first single from her most recent album Anti, have scored the singer her ninth week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
This contributes to an overall total – from 14 songs – of chart-toppers spending 60 weeks at No 1, scraping past the Beatles by one place.
Rihanna is yet to eclipse Mariah Carey, whose record stands at 79 weeks. However, key to the Barbadian singer’s Hot 100 success is that her guest vocals and collaborations with other artists – all of which contribute to her overall score. The TI-led Live Your Life spent six weeks at No 1 in 2008, while Monster and Love the Way You Lie, which spent a combined total of 11 weeks at No 1, were both performed by Eminem featuring Rihanna on the choruses.
The Billboard Hot 100 was set up in August 1958 –and had sales data been collected before this cutoff, Elvis Presley would have shared the No 1 mantle with Carey.
