The only five albums that spent more than ten weeks at number one in the 1970s
As music turned into what should have been an exciting new era – the 1970s – it quickly found itself in a state of mourning.
What had been unthinkable for a large part of the decade thus far had finally happened. The Beatles were breaking up, and with it came the finale of music’s greatest ever songwriting duo, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Who would take music into the brave new future if not for the Liverpool partnership?
Of course, a generation of new solo artists were willing and ready. Their old bandmate George Harrison proved his songwriting worth and then some with All Things Must Pass, in 1970, and that’s not mentioning the work of David Bowie, Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye, who all pioneered new sounds in that era.
But the hole in our hearts, left by Lennon and McCartney, was achingly clear. For some reason, we had become conditioned to the idea of songwriting being at its very best when shared through a partnership – the intimacy of two minds converging over music may have made us feel a little less alone, as we vicariously lived through the artistic companionship they shared.
Luckily, in 1970, one new partnership stepped into the vacant limelight and delivered a record that filled that void and then some. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were the new songwriting partnership to take notice of, with their delicate brand of acoustic folk paired with the cutting edge of classic rock, regaining the world’s faith in musical partnerships.
Their record that year, Bridge Over Troubled Water, was a masterpiece on many levels, but more importantly, it introduced the world to the pair’s deeply personal songwriting that, like Lennon and McCartney, addressed both the love and hatred that existed between them.
“I like the first lines of a song to be truthful, and those were,” Simon said of the record’s seminal title track. “I was feeling weary because of the problems with Artie and other things. I was also feeling small.”
But the brilliance of the record was rooted in how the pair then transformed that, from something intimate and personal, into the universal, where the world could gather around it and treat it as a record for the collective human experience. Simon added, “But then the song goes away from memoir. It comes from my imagination.”
The title track was merely a blueprint for an album that followed suit and absolutely dominated the album charts that year, sitting pretty at the top for 13 weeks. Simon and Garfunkel had added to what The Beatles had started and triumphantly kicked off what would soon be known as the decade of the album. Or was it?
Albums that spent more than 10 weeks at the top in the 1970s
It felt promising in 1970. The craft of the album was being celebrated, and there were plenty of other artists in the slipstream of Bridge Over Troubled Water willing to prove that to be true. Think of all the albums that came out that decade: Dark Side Of The Moon, What’s Going On, Hotel California.
All these records crafted detailed narratives just like Bridge Over Troubled Water, yet none of them managed to hold the top spot for anywhere near as long as Simon and Garfunkel. Instead, that right was reserved for a selection of compilation records and soundtracks which, rather depressingly, do away with the entire idea that the ‘70s were the era of the album.
In ‘74, The Carpenters spent 11 weeks at number one with their compilation, The Singles: 1969–1973, joined later that year by Elton John with his Greatest Hits record which, too, spent 11 weeks at number one. In then ‘76, The Beach Boys followed suit with 20 Golden Greats, which held the top for 10 weeks.
But later that decade, two behemoths of cinema came in and proved that the soundtrack was still one of the most lucrative record choices, as the original soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever held the number one spot for 18 weeks in ‘78, followed closely by the soundtrack to Grease, which did 13 weeks.
While the numbers put all five of those in the same category, I’m willing to confidently say that Simon and Garfunkel’s effort was the most worthy.
