Published: August 16, 2026 · 6:26 PM EDT
The Disney and Pixar soundtrack single pushes Swift past Maroon 5 for the most No. 1 songs in the nearly 30-year history of Billboard’s Adult Pop Airplay chart after already reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100
Taylor Swift has set another Billboard record as “I Knew It, I Knew You”, her original song for Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story 5, rises to No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Airplay chart dated August 22, 2026.
The song becomes Swift’s 16th No. 1 on the radio ranking, giving her the most chart-toppers in Adult Pop Airplay history and moving her ahead of Maroon 5, which previously shared the record with 15. P!nk follows with 10 No. 1s, while Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have eight each.
The achievement extends a commercial run that began in June, when “I Knew It, I Knew You” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Swift’s 15th leader on that chart. The song also made history as the first Hot 100 No. 1 connected to a Pixar movie.
For Rockum, the milestone is less a pop release story than a music-industry and radio story: a soundtrack single has moved from an immediate streaming and sales-driven Hot 100 debut into sustained U.S. radio performance strong enough to break a three-decade chart record.
Adult Pop Airplay measures a different part of the U.S. music market from the Billboard Hot 100.
The chart tracks weekly radio plays on approximately 80 U.S. adult top 40 stations, with airplay monitored by Mediabase and data provided to Billboard by Luminate.
That makes Swift’s latest achievement particularly relevant from an industry perspective.
The Hot 100 combines multiple forms of song consumption, while Adult Pop Airplay focuses specifically on how frequently participating U.S. radio stations are programming a recording.
“I Knew It, I Knew You” reaching the top of both rankings therefore documents two different stages of the same commercial cycle: an immediate No. 1 launch followed by continuing radio adoption.
The Adult Pop Airplay chart first appeared in Billboard in 1996, meaning Swift’s 16th leader gives her the highest total accumulated by any act across nearly 30 years of the ranking.
Before the latest chart, Swift and Maroon 5 shared the Adult Pop Airplay record with 15 No. 1 singles each.
“I Knew It, I Knew You” breaks that tie.
Swift’s history on the chart stretches back to “I Knew You Were Trouble”, which reached No. 1 in 2013, and includes songs from multiple stages of her transition from country into pop and adult radio.
Her latest leaders include “The Fate of Ophelia” in 2025 and “Opalite” earlier in 2026 before the arrival of the Toy Story single.
The record is especially notable because Adult Pop Airplay has historically been a major format for artists with long-running mainstream radio catalogs. Maroon 5 held the outright record of 15 leaders for years before Swift first caught the group and now moved ahead.
TAYLOR SWIFT’S 16 ADULT POP AIRPLAY NO. 1s
Billboard’s current count of Swift’s Adult Pop Airplay leaders is:
1. I Knew You Were Trouble - 2013
2. Shake It Off - 2014
3. Blank Space - 2014-15
4. Style - 2015
5. Bad Blood - 2015
6. Wildest Dreams - 2015
7. Delicate - 2018
8. Willow - 2021
9. Anti-Hero - 2022-23
10. Karma - 2023
11. Cruel Summer - 2023
12. Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) [From The Vault] - 2024
13. Fortnight featuring Post Malone - 2024
14. The Fate of Ophelia - 2025
15. Opalite - 2026
16. I Knew It, I Knew You - 2026
The list also demonstrates how Swift’s radio catalog has continued accumulating No. 1s across more than a decade rather than being concentrated within a single album cycle.
The scale of the chart achievement also expands the music story surrounding Toy Story 5.
Disney announced “I Knew It, I Knew You” on June 1 as an original song written and produced by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff for the fifth film in the Pixar franchise.
The recording was inspired specifically by Jessie and her continuing story, which began with the character’s introduction in Toy Story 2.
The single was released on June 5, ahead of the movie and soundtrack on June 19.
Disney also positioned the song as a musical connection to Swift’s country roots, creating an unusual crossover between one of the largest pop artists in the world and a character whose identity is built around western and cowgirl imagery.
That association gives the single reach across several markets simultaneously: Taylor Swift listeners, mainstream pop radio, country-connected audiences, Disney viewers and the global Pixar franchise.
The commercial path of “I Knew It, I Knew You” is particularly notable because its two major Billboard milestones measure different forms of success.
In June, the song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1.
That achievement made it only the third Hot 100 No. 1 originating from an animated Disney film and the first associated with a Pixar production.
Two months later, the recording has now reached No. 1 at Adult Pop Airplay.
That progression matters in the music business because a major first-week chart launch does not automatically guarantee sustained radio programming.
The new Adult Pop Airplay record shows that the Toy Story 5 single continued developing after its initial release period and established a separate presence within U.S. adult top 40 radio.
Movie songs have traditionally provided labels and artists with opportunities to reach audiences outside a conventional studio-album campaign.
“I Knew It, I Knew You” demonstrates how large that opportunity can become when a major recording artist and a major film property intersect.
The song began as an original composition tied directly to Jessie and Toy Story 5, but its chart performance has extended beyond the movie itself.
Disney reported in July that the track had become a multi-week Hot 100 No. 1 and incorporated its music video into the broader Toy Story promotional ecosystem across Disney platforms.
Now its Adult Pop Airplay performance adds another stage to that cycle.
For Disney and Pixar, the recording extends the film into mainstream radio.
For Swift, the film provides another No. 1 recording outside the traditional framework of one of her own studio albums.
And for radio programmers, the song operates independently as a current adult-pop title.
Taylor Swift’s 16th Adult Pop Airplay No. 1 matters because it represents more than another weekly chart position.
It establishes a new all-time record on a Billboard radio ranking that has existed since 1996, moving Swift beyond Maroon 5 after the two acts had shared the lead.
It also shows the commercial reach of “I Knew It, I Knew You” across multiple measurements.
The song debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100, became the first Hot 100 leader associated with a Pixar movie and has now developed enough sustained radio activity to become Swift’s record-breaking 16th Adult Pop Airplay No. 1.
For the music industry, that progression is the larger story: streaming, sales, film synchronization and radio airplay all converging around the same recording.
Across more than a decade of U.S. radio hits, Taylor Swift has moved from her first Adult Pop Airplay No. 1 with “I Knew You Were Trouble” to an all-time record with “I Knew It, I Knew You.” The Disney and Pixar Toy Story 5 single now gives Swift 16 leaders on the Billboard ranking, moving her past Maroon 5 while adding another commercial milestone to a song that already debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100. What began as an original soundtrack recording inspired by Jessie has developed into a cross-platform music release spanning Pixar, Disney, streaming, sales and U.S. radio.
Written by Gino Alache – Music Journalist
SOURCE: Billboard (Gary Trust) / The Walt Disney Company / Disney and Pixar
IMAGE CREDIT: Taylor Swift photo by Raph_PH / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0; Toy Story 5 promotional image courtesy of Disney/Pixar. Composite by Rockum.
Listen to Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” from Toy Story 5 below:
