Thanks to “Cold Heart,” Elton John officially marks 50 years in the ‘Billboard’ Hot 100’s Top 40

Thanks to “Cold Heart,” Elton John officially marks 50 years in the ‘Billboard’ Hot 100’s Top 40
EMI/Interscope

Happy Golden Anniversary to Elton John, who can now officially brag that he’s been scoring top 40 hits for 50 years.

Cold Heart,” his Dua Lipa collaboration that’s a mashup of four of his past songs, has jumped from #36 to #32 on the Billboard Hot 100.  It’s the first time he’s been in the top 40 of the chart since “Written in the Stars,” his 1999 duet with LeAnn Rimes.

According to Billboard, that means Elton’s top 40 hits now span 50 years and 10 months — his first top 40 hit, “Your Song,” charted in December of 1970.  Not including holiday songs, this is the longest span for any artist in Billboard history. Michael Jackson previously held the record at 46 years, eight months and three weeks.

Elton recently told Billboard that he credits “Dua Lipa’s popularity” with a lot of the song’s success, as well as the “brilliant” remix that the Australian dance act Pnau did in mashing up the songs.  However, he notes, “I feel very, very content and happy that I’m relevant. I’ve always tried to be relevant.”

Billboard also points out the mind-blowing fact that the week in 1970 when Elton scored his first top 40 hit, the artists in the top five were Smokey Robinson, Santana, George Harrison, The Fifth Dimension and The Partridge Family.  Now, it’s the likes of Drake, Justin Bieber, Lil Nas X and Ed Sheeran.

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