Prince: All Number 1 Songs Ranked Worst To Best

Music history has graced us with many legendary acts that have gone on to become tantamout to royal figures in their fields -- from the King and Queen of Pop, Michael Jackson and Madonna, to Aretha the Queen of Soul, and, of course, the King himself, Elvis Presley. Ironically, Prince, whose name actually means royalty, was never given such an honorific title - other than His Royal Badness.

But for many years, Prince ruled over the music charts with an iron fist, every single era of his becoming a commercial and cultural phenomenom. Irreverent through and through, the Purple One kept his relevance in the face of constant backlash and reductive criticism, such as the comments from those who consistently compared him to MJ. His dominion over the pop landscape was even undermined by Billboard, which credited the Artist with five number one hits (granted, nothing to scoff at), and yet Cash Box, the rival chart at the time, gave him twice as many!

In this article, we rank down all ten of Prince's number-one hits, including some of the most iconic songs in his discography, to determine which of them is most deserving of at least being knighted.

6th number one, 1989

Number-one hits are often disregarded as disposable pop music with no cultural value. Yet it's hard to find better representatives of any one era's cultural zeitgeist than the songs which ruled the charts at the time. There's a reason why any movie or TV show set in the '80s is sure to feature big hits by Springsteen or Duran Duran. Twenty years from now, believe it or not, Despacito will be revered as a classic, one that will have many a millennial telling their descendants 'they don't make music like this anymore.'

Prince's Batdance is a perfect example of how one song can speak volumes about the cultural landscape surrounding its release. It came at a time when Prince could do no wrong and when Batman was experiencing a major resurgence due to the Tim Burton film. On a more sour note, however, it also fits the consumer-ready profile of disposable mainstream music that people love to rip on. Batdance, which sounds like a copy-and-paste project mixing a rock instrumental and soundbites from the movie, belongs to a certain moment in time, it's true; but it stays trapped in that moment, having little to no nostalgic value beyond that.

Fun Fact: Adding to the copy-and-paste argument, Prince used up ideas from seven different unreleased songs of his to make Batdance, all of which had been refused inclusion in the soundtrack by Tim Burton. Funner still is that Batdance itself isn't featured anywhere in the movie.