Record Run (Up That Hill): Meg Myers Breaks Record Atop Alternative Songs Chart
The Kate Bush cover took 42 weeks, smashing the previous mark.
Meg Myers earns her first No. 1 on Billboard's Alternative Songs airplay chart in record fashion.
Her cover of Kate Bush's 1985 classic "Running Up That Hill" rises 2-1 in its 42nd week on the list (dated Feb. 1), rewriting the mark for the longest trip to the top in the chart's three-decade history.
It passes the 33-week journey of Fitz and the Tantrums' "Out of My League" in 2013.
Longest Rises to No. 1 on Alternative Songs
42 weeks, "Running Up That Hill," Meg Myers (Feb. 1, 2020)
33 weeks, "Out of My League," Fitz and the Tantrums (Oct. 12, 2013)
32 weeks, "Mountain at My Gates," Foals (March 19, 2016)
32 weeks, "Animal," Neon Trees (Oct. 2, 2010)
31 weeks, "1901," Phoenix (Feb. 20, 2010)
"Running Up That Hill" mingled with similar company on the all-rock-format Rock Airplay list, where it took 29 weeks to reach No. 1 (Jan. 25), tying for the third-longest trip to the top; "Out of My League" holds that mark with its 33-week ascent. The song rules Rock Airplay for a second week, up 9% to 9.1 million audience impressions, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.
Myers' new leader is far and away her highest-charting on Alternative Songs dating to her first entry in 2014, surpassing her prior No. 16 best, set with "Sorry" in June 2015.
"Running Up That Hill" also marks the first remake to rule Alternative Songs since Lana Del Rey's update of Sublime's "Doin' Time" for three weeks last fall.
Myers is the second artist in a row to score a first No. 1 on Alternative Songs, following Absofacto with "Dissolve."
Bush's original hit No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Nov. 30, 1985, and remains her highest-charting single among four career Hot 100 entries. After Alternative Songs launched in 1988, she scored four top 10s on the survey through 1993.