Will Taylor Swift Pass The Beatles for the Most Hot 100 No. 1 Hits?
Categoria: Musica
This week's Five Burning Questions looks at Swift inching ever-closer to the Beatles' benchmark of 20 Hot 100-toppers with this week's "Patient Zero."
Por Billboard | 06/10/2026
With the release of the new quartet of Encore bonus tracks to her 2025 blockbuster The Life of a Showgirl , Taylor Swift picks up another four top five hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — including her 16th career No. 1 on the chart, with the single “Patient Zero.” “Zero” — which also received a star-studded music video debuted by Swift on MTV, while picking up the first-ever Artist Director award at September’s Video Music Awards — marks her third new No. 1 of the 2026 calendar year (after “Opalite” and “I Knew It, I Knew You”), as well as her fourth total to spend a week atop the chart (also including “The Fate of Ophelia,” in the last two of its 10 weeks at No. 1). Four is also the number by which Swift now trails The Beatles for the all-time record of Hot 100-toppers, with The Beatles’ benchmark of 20 No. 1s having stood unequaled for 56 years. How does “Patient Zero” fit with Swift’s 15 other No. 1s? And will she pass The Beatles’ historic mark soon enough? Billboard staffers answer these questions and more below. 1. Taylor Swift scores four of the top five spots on the Hot 100 this week with her four new Encore bonus tracks, reaching No. 1 with “Patient Zero” and Nos. 3-5 with the other three tracks. Is this a particularly big deal for Taylor Swift, or just kinda business as usual for the biggest pop star in the world? Katie Atkinson: Can’t it be both? This is definitely what we’ve come to expect when Taylor puts out new music, but at the same time, we keep talking about how static the Hot 100 top 10 has been lately – so yes, it took a superstar of her caliber to occupy four of the top five spots, but it’s still change! It would be a bigger deal if she didn’t debut directly into the top five with new music like this, so I’m sure Taylor and her team consider every blockbuster release like this as a win. Hannah Dailey : Definitely business as usual. It’s certainly a major feat for a set of bonus tracks to an album that came out a year ago, but again, there was no reason to expect at this point in Taylor’s career that they wouldn’t chart so highly. Kyle Denis : Business as usual. It’d be a big deal if “Patient Zero” didn’t debut at No. 1. Chris Eggertsen : It’s a testament to just how huge Taylor is that this news gets the equivalent of a shrug from me. With the possible exception of BTS, she has the most loyal fanbase of any pop act going, and anything she puts out — even a collection of lackluster bonus tracks, which is what I think these songs amount to — is all but guaranteed to explode on impact. Frankly, it would have been a shock if all four new tracks hadn’t debuted in the top 5. Andrew Unterberger : It’s business as usual, and business is good. 2. The No. 1 is the third new Hot 100-topper Swift has scored this calendar year, and fourth total (counting the final two weeks to date at No. 1 for ̶