Here is this week’s installment in my “peak music year” discovery project. Recall that I am reviewing the BillBoard Hot 100 charts from 1965 to 1975 to determine the group or artist that had the most #1 songs during those periods. If you’d like to review quickly, you can read my previous posts here:
Music Friday – 1966 BillBoard Hot 100 Edition
Music Friday 1965 – BillBoard Hot 100 Edition
OK. All caught up? Good. Now on to 1967. Before I unveil the group that had the most #1 songs on the BillBoard Hot 100 chart that year, I have an observation to make. In 1967, there were several songs that had long stretches at the #1 position, so while the “winner” this year again had the most songs to hit #1, there were other artists that had fewer songs hit #1, but their songs held more weeks at #1 than the winner. I’ll explain further at the end of the post.
The envelope please….and the winner is…The Beatles! I told you last week that I sensed a pattern, and it continues this year too. The Beatles had three #1 songs in 1967: Penny Lane, All You Need Is Love and Hello Goodbye, the most of any group or artist that year. Each song was at the #1 position for one week, a total of three weeks. Here they are:
Penny Lane, #1 the week of March 18th, 1967
All You Need is Love, #1 the week of August 19th, 1967
And finally we closed the year out with Hello Goodbye, #1 the week of December 30th 1967
I mentioned there were songs by other artists that spent longer at the #1 position than the three Beatles songs combined. The longest running #1 song that year was six weeks at #1, and another song sat at #1 for five weeks. Not only that, there were five different songs that held #1 for four week stints and a smattering of songs that stayed at #1 for three weeks apiece. What were those songs? I’ll tell you…in the next installment. You won’t want to miss it so stay tuned!