Welcome to this week’s Music Friday installment in the project to determine my peak music year.  We are in the home stretch, since starting at 1965 we are now up to the year 1973 with only two more years to go after this.  An initial observation – as we plow forward from the 60’s into the 1970’s, I’m feeling less personal attachent to the music in the BillBoard Hot 100 chart.  One reason for this may be that at this time in my life I was in high school and though I was still exposed to the popular music through the magic of AM Radio (what we had in cars in those days), most of my serious music fare was consumed through my (and my friends’) growing personal music collections and the burgeoning free form FM radio format.  There was little common ground between the AM and FM playlists of the day, and the culture I was part of at that time was more in touch with the FM genre.  So, like I said – an observation.

Here we go: the 1973 BillBoard Hot 100.  This year is similar to 1972 in that it’s a bit of a smorgasbord, though lighter on the bubblegum and with only a little weirdness.  And still, three solo Beatles managed to crack #1 – Paul McCartney with My Love, George Harrison with Give Me Love and Ringo Starr with Photograph.  Another interesting tidbit is that with the exception of only five songs, none of the #1’s spent more than two consecutive weeks at the top spot.  And of those five songs, three spent 4 weeks apiece at the top, and two spent three weeks apiece there.  And finally, no artist or group had multiple #1 songs that year.  So there was no easy obvious runaway “winner” this year, and I could easily call it a three way tie much like I called 1972 a four way tie.  Perhaps we’ll take a poll of the comments?  Of course that would require you, dear reader, to leave a comment.

Here I will present the three songs that spent four weeks apiece at #1, and you can choose your favorite from among them.  First is by Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly:

Next is the bubblegum entry, Tony Orlando & Dawn with Tie A Yellow Ribbon:

And finally, we have Paul McCartney & Wings with My Love:

Nice mullet, McCartney.  The last offering is the only song of the three that I could say I really like, being a Beatle and McCartney fan.  But it’s nowhere near my favorite McCartney tune.  Even the other songs aren’t horrible, they just aren’t for me.  Safe Bet:  1973 is NOT my peak music year.  That’s all for now – thanks for watching…err…reading.  Listening!  Yeah, that’s the ticket.  See  you soon!