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A “free-for-all” after Disco implodes and Studio 54 shuts down! Michael Jackson spectacularly survives “Disco Sucks,” but The Bee Gees and Chic have to retreat behind the glass to the producer’s booth. New Wave isn’t the next big thing (yet), but Queen and Pink Floyd are charting #1 singles, John Lennon is back in the studio, and Adult Contemporary continues to thrive.

#1 Song of the Year   The top song according to our Chartcrush ranking of all Hot100 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year

Artists of the Year   The top three artists based on all charted songs during the calendar year

1. Kenny Rogers
2. Air Supply
3. Queen

Artist with Most Charting Songs   Artist(s) with the most Hot100 charting songs during the year (song count in parentheses)

• 7-WAY TIE: Kenny Rogers/Billy Joel/Pat Benatar/Bob Seger/Anne Murray/Dionne Warwick/Journey (4)

Average #1 Artist Age   The average of how old artists who scored #1 Hot100 hits during the year were when their songs first reached #1

• 33.8 years

#1 Songs   List of Hot100 #1 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year, and (in parentheses), the month the song first hit #1 and the total number of weeks it was #1

1. Michael Jackson – Rock with You (January, 4 wks)
2. Captain & Tennille – Do That to Me One More Time (February, 1 wk)
3. Queen – Crazy Little Thing Called Love (February, 4 wks)
4. Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) (March, 4 wks)
5. Blondie – Call Me (April, 6 wks)
6. Lipps, Inc. – Funkytown (May, 4 wks)
7. Paul McCartney & Wings – Coming Up (Live at Glasgow) (June, 3 wks)
8. Billy Joel – It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me (July, 2 wks)
9. Olivia Newton-John – Magic (August, 4 wks)
10. Christopher Cross – Sailing (August, 1 wk)
11. Diana Ross – Upside Down (September, 4 wks)
12. Queen – Another One Bites the Dust (October, 3 wks)
13. Barbra Streisand – Woman in Love (October, 3 wks)
14. Kenny Rogers – Lady (November, 6 wks)

Things are unraveling in America but great sound and new ways to listen have made music a true, immersive sanctuary like never before—in the car on eight-track tapes or at home on headphones. Country is surging, Singer-Songwriters are charting massive hits, and Rock and Soul artists are expanding music’s horizons on sprawling albums.

#1 Song of the Year   The top song according to our Chartcrush ranking of all Hot100 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year

Artists of the Year   The top three artists based on all charted songs during the calendar year

1. Gladys Knight & The Pips
2. Elton John
3. Stevie Wonder

Artist with Most Charting Songs   Artist(s) with the most Hot100 charting songs during the year (song count in parentheses)

• James Brown (6)

Average #1 Artist Age   The average of how old artists who scored #1 Hot100 hits during the year were when their songs first reached #1

• 29.0 years

#1 Songs   List of Hot100 #1 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year, and (in parentheses), the month the song first hit #1 and the total number of weeks it was #1

1. Carly Simon – You’re So Vain (January, 3 wks)
2. Stevie Wonder – Superstition (January, 1 wk)
3. Elton John – Crocodile Rock (February, 3 wks)
4. Roberta Flack – Killing Me Softly with His Song (February, 5 wks)
5. The O’Jays – Love Train (March, 1 wk)
6. Vicki Lawrence – The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (April, 2 wks)
7. Dawn feat. Tony Orlando – Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree (April, 4 wks)
8. Stevie Wonder – You Are the Sunshine of My Life (May, 1 wk)
9. Edgar Winter Group – Frankenstein (May, 1 wk)
10. Paul McCartney & Wings – My Love (June, 4 wks)
11. George Harrison – Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) (June, 1 wk)
12. Billy Preston – Will It Go Round in Circles (July, 2 wks)
13. Jim Croce – Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (July, 2 wks)
14. Maureen McGovern – The Morning After (August, 2 wks)
15. Diana Ross – Touch Me in the Morning (August, 1 wk)
16. Stories – Brother Louie (August, 2 wks)
17. Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On (September, 2 wks)
18. Helen Reddy – Delta Dawn (September, 1 wk)
19. Grand Funk – We’re an American Band (September, 1 wk)
20. Cher – Half-Breed (October, 2 wks)
21. The Rolling Stones – Angie (October, 1 wk)
22. Gladys Knight & The Pips – Midnight Train to Georgia (October, 2 wks)
23. Eddie Kendricks – Keep On Truckin’ (Part 1) (November, 2 wks)
24. Ringo Starr – Photograph (November, 1 wk)
25. Carpenters – Top of the World (December, 2 wks)
26. Charlie Rich – The Most Beautiful Girl (December, 2 wks)

Woodstock galvanizes the Boomer-Hippie counterculture with three days of peace, music and good vibes while NASA astronauts walk on the moon, Doomsday Folk and Cartoon Bubblegum Pop top the charts in the Summer, and Black artists score the top two songs of the year for the first time ever. Anxiety and paranoia simmer through the year, though, and the Altamont Festival disaster sets the stage for the ’70s.

#1 Song of the Year   The top song according to our Chartcrush ranking of all Hot100 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year

Artists of the Year   The top three artists based on all charted songs during the calendar year

1. Creedence Clearwater Revival
2. Diana Ross & The Supremes
3. The Beatles

Artist with Most Charting Songs   Artist(s) with the most Hot100 charting songs during the year (song count in parentheses)

• James Brown (8)

Average #1 Artist Age   The average of how old artists who scored #1 Hot100 hits during the year were when their songs first reached #1

• 29.6 years

#1 Songs   List of Hot100 #1 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year, and (in parentheses), the month the song first hit #1 and the total number of weeks it was #1

1. Marvin Gaye – I Heard It Through the Grapevine (December ’68, 7 wks)
2. Tommy James & The Shondells – Crimson and Clover (February, 2 wks)
3. Sly & The Family Stone – Everyday People (February, 4 wks)
4. Tommy Roe – Dizzy (March, 4 wks)
5. The 5th Dimension – Aquarius/Let the Sunshine in (The Flesh Failures) (April, 6 wks)
6. The Beatles with Billy Preston – Get Back (May, 5 wks)
7. Henry Mancini, His Orchestra & Chorus – Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet (June, 2 wks)
8. Zager & Evans – In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus) (July, 6 wks)
9. The Rolling Stones – Honky Tonk Women (August, 4 wks)
10. The Archies – Sugar, Sugar (September, 4 wks)
11. The Temptations – I Can’t Get Next to You (October, 2 wks)
12. Elvis Presley – Suspicious Minds (November, 1 wk)
13. The 5th Dimension – Wedding Bell Blues (November, 3 wks)
14. The Beatles – Come Together (November, 1 wk)
15. Steam feat. Garrett Scott – Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye (December, 2 wks)
16. Peter, Paul & Mary – Leaving on a Jet Plane (December, 1 wk)

Beatlemania, “Louie Louie” and The Supremes signal the Baby Boom generation’s arrival as a cultural force after the surreal shock of the Kennedy assassination. Motown, the British Invasion and the previously nonexistent concept of the “Rock band” permanently reshape the American Pop landscape.

#1 Song of the Year   The top song according to our Chartcrush ranking of all Hot100 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year

Artists of the Year   The top three artists based on all charted songs during the calendar year

1. The Beatles
2. The Dave Clark Five
3. The Four Seasons

Artist with Most Charting Songs   Artist(s) with the most Hot100 charting songs during the year (song count in parentheses)

• The Beatles (28)

Average #1 Artist Age   The average of how old artists who scored #1 Hot100 hits during the year were when their songs first reached #1

• 27.3 years

#1 Songs   List of Hot100 #1 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year, and (in parentheses), the month the song first hit #1 and the total number of weeks it was #1

1. Bobby Vinton – There! I’ve Said It Again (January, 4 wks)
2. The Beatles – I Want to Hold Your Hand (February, 7 wks)
3. The Beatles – She Loves You (March, 2 wks)
4. The Beatles – Can’t Buy Me Love (April, 5 wks)
5. Louis Armstrong & The All Stars – Hello, Dolly! (May, 1 wk)
6. Mary Wells – My Guy (May, 2 wks)
7. The Beatles – Love Me Do (May, 1 wk)
8. The Dixie Cups – Chapel of Love (June, 3 wks)
9. Peter & Gordon with Geoff Love’s Music – A World Without Love (June, 1 wk)
10. The Beach Boys – I Get Around (July, 2 wks)
11. The 4 Seasons feat. the Sound of Frankie Valli – Rag Doll (July, 2 wks)
12. The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night (August, 2 wks)
13. Dean Martin – Everybody Loves Somebody (August, 1 wk)
14. The Supremes – Where Did Our Love Go (August, 2 wks)
15. The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun (September, 3 wks)
16. Roy Orbison & The Candy Men – Oh Pretty Woman (September, 3 wks)
17. Manfred Mann – Do Wah Diddy Diddy (October, 2 wks)
18. The Supremes – Baby Love (October, 4 wks)
19. The Shangri-Las – Leader of the Pack (November, 1 wk)
20. Lorne Greene – Ringo (December, 1 wk)
21. Bobby Vinton – Mr. Lonely (December, 1 wk)

The Rock Era begins with “Rock Around the Clock” hitting #1 on the Pop charts and upstart labels scoring with “whitewashed” covers of R&B hits. TV passes two-thirds of households and Disney sparks a mass-cultural hysteria with Davy Crockett. Meanwhile, grownups are gearing up at hi-fi shops, buying Easy Listening records and dancing to Mambo, fresh-faced collegiate-styled Male Vocal quartets are all the rage, and Sinatra is back, baby!

#1 Song of the Year   The top song according to our Chartcrush ranking of all songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year

Artists of the Year   The top three artists based on all charted songs that spent most of their chart runs in the year

1. The Four Aces
2. The McGuire Sisters
3. Al Hibbler

Artist with Most Charting Songs   Artist(s) with the most charting songs during the year (song count in parentheses)

• TIE: The McGuire Sisters/Bill Haley & His Comets (7)

Average #1 Artist Age   The average of how old artists who scored #1 hits during the year were when their songs first reached #1

• 32.9

#1 Songs   List of #1 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year, and (in parentheses), the month the song first hit #1 and the total number of weeks it was #1

1. The Chordettes – Mr. Sandman (December ’54, 5 wks)
2. Joan Weber – Let Me Go, Lover! (January, 4 wks)
3. The Fontane Sisters – Hearts of Stone (February, 1 wk)
4. The McGuire Sisters – Sincerely (February, 8 wks)
5. Bill Hayes – The Ballad of Davy Crockett (April, 4 wks)
6. Perez “Prez” Prado & His Orchestra, trumpet Billy Regis – Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White (May, 9 wks)
7. Bill Haley & His Comets – (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock (July, 8 wks)
8. Mitch Miller Orchestra & Chorus – The Yellow Rose of Texas (September, 7 wks)
9. Four Aces feat. Al Alberts – Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (October, 6 wks)
10. “Tennessee” Ernie Ford – Sixteen Tons (December, 6 wks)

Records are sounding much, much better thanks to vinyl and the brand new LP and 45 formats, and recordings are getting more sophisticated thanks to another innovation: the record producer! Big Band Swing is extinct and Jazz is off into Bebop-land, but “Sweet Bands” are making good-timey records, emotive Crooners and Pop Singers are making waves, and Country-Western is breaking through.

#1 Song of the Year   The top song according to our Chartcrush ranking of all songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year

Artists of the Year   The top three artists based on all charted songs that spent most of their chart runs in the year

1. Perry Como
2. Russ Morgan & His Orchestra
3. Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra

Artist with Most Charting Songs   Artist(s) with the most charting songs during the year (song count in parentheses)

• Perry Como (12)

Average #1 Artist Age   The average of how old artists who scored #1 hits during the year were when their songs first reached #1

• 36.4

#1 Songs   List of #1 songs that earned the majority of their chart ranking points in the year, and (in parentheses), the month the song first hit #1 and the total number of weeks it was #1

1. Evelyn Knight & The Stardusters – A Little Bird Told Me (January, 7 wks)
2. Blue Barron & His Orchestra, vocal Ensemble – Cruising Down the River (March, 6 wks)
3. Russ Morgan & His Orchestra, vocal The Skylarks – Cruising Down the River (April, 3 wks)
4. Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra, vocal Vaughn Monroe & Quartet – Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend) (May, 13 wks)
5. Russ Morgan & His Orchestra, vocal The Skylarks – Forever and Ever (May, 1 wk)
6. Perry Como – Some Enchanted Evening (August, 4 wks)
7. Vic Damone – You’re Breaking My Heart (August, 5 wks)
8. Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra, vocal Vaughn Monroe & The Moon Men – Someday (You’ll Want Me to Want You) (September, 1 wk)
9. Frankie Laine with Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires – That Lucky Old Sun (October, 8 wks)
10. Frankie Laine & The Muleskinners – Mule Train (December, 6 wks)
11. The Andrews Sisters – I Can Dream, Can’t I? (January ’50, 4 wks)