André 3000 has surpassed Tool for the longest Hot 100 hit of all time. As Billboard reports, his track “I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time” charted at #90 on the Hot 100 this week — it’s the first song on his new instrumental album New Blue Sun. It clocks in at 12 minutes and 20 seconds, longer than Tool’s “Fear Inoculum,” which is 10 minutes and 21 seconds and debuted at #93 back in 2019. André 3000’s track notched 5.8 million streams over the past week.
Fair, I can definitely see it in that context. When I’m in the mood for an hour long atmospheric meandering background noise journey, I find the Shenzhou album by Biosphere a good bet, amongst others of his work. (I seem to have a thing for Arctic Circle rural desolate ambient soundscapes?) It’s repetitive enough to be unobtrusive, but I don’t feel like I’m listening as much to modern elevator music like I did with the other track.