What is the only album to remain top of the charts for a whole year?
Scoring a number one album in the charts is undoubtedly a phenomenal achievement, and even if you’re only able to stay on the top of the pile for a week, that’s something you can still claim for the rest of your career.
For some artists, this is routine stuff, and almost a given thing considering their already overwhelming levels of popularity. For example, you wouldn’t expect Taylor Swift to release an album that didn’t get to number one, regardless of whether she exploits a loophole by releasing 20 versions of it simultaneously or not, and that’s because she’s of a level of popularity that gives her the ability to outperform all of her competitors whenever she’s released something new.
Staying at number one is another thing entirely. Of course, in the example of Swift, she might be able to remain at the top of the charts for a few weeks until another major release dethrones her, but having a multi-week stint only goes to prove just how much your work has connected with people and shows that the buzz surrounding your efforts isn’t just a fleeting thing.
But staying on top for an entire calendar year? That seems almost impossible, considering how frequently new music is being released and how the attention span of the consumer is bound to divert its focus onto the next big thing when it arrives. This is especially true in the modern age, when people are able to so easily track new releases and be fed their new obsessions through streaming platforms and social media.
What is the only album to stay at number one for an entire year?
Written as a Broadway musical in 1949 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, South Pacific is one of the most successful musicals of all time, and its film adaptation in 1958 was only ever going to succeed given the popularity of its source material, but very few could have predicted that the official soundtrack album would manage to spend so long at the top of the charts.
Released in March 1958, the soundtrack album didn’t immediately head to number one in the UK, but did manage to spend 27 weeks inside the top five before it finally took its place at the top of the podium in November of the same year, and while it may have taken its time to reach this level, once it arrived there, it proved to be immovable, remaining at the top of the charts for the whole of 1959.
It’s run at the top of the albums chart lasted for a total of 70 consecutive weeks, only for its streak to be broken by Freddy Cannon’s The Explosive Freddy Cannon in March 1960. However, after just one week, South Pacific returned to the top for another 19 weeks, and would repeatedly trade places with other new releases until late 1961, allowing it to spend a staggering 115 weeks at number one in total, and 214 weeks in the top five.
It may have been a roaring success in the UK, but on home soil in the US, it only managed to stay at number one for seven months, with two other albums, the West Side Story soundtrack and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, having achieved longer spells at the top, and tying with Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Harry Belafonte’s Calypso.
