Charlie Puth's Biggest Songs, and the One That Made Him

Charlie Puth’s biggest song is See You Again, the Wiz Khalifa track he co-wrote, produced and sang the hook on. It held No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 non-consecutive weeks and is certified diamond.

Nothing else in his catalogue is close.

The songs, by what they actually did

Song	Peak (Hot 100)	Year
See You Again (Wiz Khalifa ft Charlie Puth)	1 (12 weeks)	2015
Attention	5	2017
We Don’t Talk Anymore (ft Selena Gomez)	9	2016
One Call Away	12	2016

Marvin Gaye, with Meghan Trainor, also topped charts internationally, including the UK.

Why See You Again is a different kind of hit

Most artists who feature on a monster record get a credit and a bump.

Puth co-wrote it and produced it. The piano line, the structure, the hook, all his. So when the song became the Furious 7 memorial for Paul Walker and went diamond, he did not merely appear on the biggest song of 2015. He built it.

The RIAA certified it diamond on 6 December 2018, representing 10.3 million units. It was the first diamond single for both Wiz Khalifa and Puth, and it arrived more than three years after the track first went platinum, which is a useful measure of how long it kept selling.

That distinction is what turned a featured vocal into a career. It also earned him three nominations at the 58th Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and Best Song Written for Visual Media.

Attention is the real solo benchmark

See You Again is his biggest record. Attention is the one that proved he could do it under his own name.

No 5 on the Hot 100, a bassline that sounds nothing like the piano ballad that made him, and no featured artist carrying it.

We Don’t Talk Anymore did well partly on Selena Gomez’s audience. Attention did not have that support.

The training people overlook

He graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2013 with a degree in music production and engineering. Before that, from seventh grade, he attended Manhattan School of Music Pre-College as a jazz piano major.

That background is unusual for a pop artist of his profile and it shows up in the records. He engineers his own material. The production choices on Attention and How Long are the work of someone who understands the desk, not someone directing an engineer.

Two details that explain more than the chart data

He was discovered through YouTube covers. After performing Someone Like You with Emily Luther on Ellen DeGeneres’s show, Ellen signed him to her label eleveneleven in 2011.

And the scar through his right eyebrow, which fans ask about constantly, is from a dog bite at age two. The attack was nearly fatal.

What I make of the catalogue

His biggest song is a memorial ballad for an actor, released as a rap feature, on a film soundtrack.

That is an almost unrepeatable set of circumstances, and he has spent the decade since building a body of work that does not depend on it. Attention at No 5, without a feature, is the more impressive number of the two.

For the money, see Charlie Puth’s net worth.