“I was going through a lot when I wrote it, and I just sat down and then scribbled down those thoughts,” Chayce Beckham told American Songwriter of crafting his breakthrough country radio hit, “23,” in 2020. “I wrote that song in about 15, 20 minutes. There’s no magic formula to that. It’s just my thoughts in the structure of a song, and people connected with it.”
“23” ascends to No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart dated April 6 – marking the list’s first leader by an artist that solely wrote it and recorded it in over 11 years, since Taylor Swift’s “Ours” topped the March 31, 2012, tally.
Since Country Airplay began with the chart dated Jan. 20, 1990 (as Billboard’s first airplay survey based on electronically-monitored data, which is now provided to Billboard by Luminate, as measured by Mediabase), 938 songs have hit No. 1. Only 38 – or 4% – have been solely written by the soloists who recorded them. When including eight more No. 1s by duos or groups penned by one member of those acts, the share bumps to a still exclusive 5%.
Comparatively, of the five songs other than “23” to spend their first weeks at No. 1 on Country Airplay in 2024, an average of 3.8 writers have authored them.
Only five solo acts have notched multiple such No. 1s, while one duo or group has done so via one its members. Another 12 soloists have earned one each and three other groups have led with one song apiece written by one of their members.
Breaking down the stat by decade, 24 of the 46 Country Airplay No.1s solely written by acts that performed them ruled in the 1990s; 17, in the 2000s; four, in the ‘10s; and now, one, in the ‘20s.
“That song has changed my life in so many ways,” Beckham mused further of “23” to American Songwriter. “It’s such a cool thing. I need to get back to that scribble, scribble songwriting sometimes and just put my thoughts down. Sometimes the best stuff comes when you’re not trying too hard.”
Which artists boast the most solely self-written Country Airplay No. 1s over the chart’s 34-year history? Browse the list below, spanning from the ranking’s first leader, Clint Black’s “Nobody’s Home,” through the latest.
