The ubiquitous hit song Despacito has tied Mariah Carey’s 16-week record at No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Billboard announced on Monday that Luis Fonsi’s song and Carey’s duet with Boyz II Men, One Sweet Day, are the longest-running No. 1 songs in the 59-year history of the charts.
Carey’s song reigned at the top spot in 1995 and 1996.
Fonsi’s Despacito features Daddy Yankee, while Justin Bieber appears on the remix. The song’s video — the original not the remix — became the first video in YouTube history to reach 3 billion views.
“This is a historic day for Latin music! I’m incredibly thankful for all of my fans and their amazing support. Feeling very blessed right now,” Fonsi said in a statement on Monday.
Despacito has a chance to log 17 weeks at No 1 on the Hot 100, but will have stiff competition when Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do debuts on the chart next week.
Despacito has become an international success and is the year’s biggest hit, but the song has also been overlooked. The music video did not receive any nominations at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards. MTV, which has not played the video on its main channel or MTV2, said the song’s record label never submitted the video. Universal Music Latin Entertainment said MTV didn’t ask the label to send in the clip in time for its nominations.
Weeks after MTV released its VMA nominees, the network announced its song of summer category, where the Despacito remix received a nomination. But the song lost to XO Tour Life, the Top 10 hit by rapper Lil Uzi Vert.
Despacito has been played on MTV Tres, the company’s Latin channel, but MTV didn’t explain why it wasn’t playing the video on MTV or MTV2. Representatives for the network didn’t respond to emails from The Associated Press when asked if Despacito would be added to MTV or MTV2.
Nielsen Music said the song has sold 2.239 million digital tracks. It has more than 513 million on-demand video streams and 464 million on-demand audio streams.
Despacito, released in January, continues its streak as the longest-running No 1 song on Billboard’s Hot Latin songs chart, where it has been on top for 30 weeks.
