Collider has published a ranked list of the ten best songs to have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, the weekly US chart that has tracked the country's most popular songs since 1958. With nearly 1,200 songs having topped the chart over that period, the article's author, Jeremy Urquhart, frames the selection as a personal, subjective attempt to highlight standout chart-toppers rather than a definitive ranking, acknowledging that omissions are inevitable given how few songs can be featured.

The list spans several decades, opening with Del Shannon's "Runaway" (1961), praised for its melancholic, eerie tone that the author considers ahead of its time, and including Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right" (2006) from her album Loose. The author notes a deliberate lack of songs from the 1990s, arguing it was a stronger decade for non-pop genres, and mentions other near-miss tracks from the same eras, such as "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes and "Stand by Me" by Ben E. King, which reached high positions without hitting number one.