What was the best-selling song of 1956?
There are certain years in history that feel like turning points. Looking back, it can seem as though culture suddenly shifts, when in reality a slow change finally gathers momentum and pushes everything forward. For rock and roll, 1956 was one of those years.
Attempting to pinpoint the start of the rock and roll era is not only impossible, but ignorant. There is no rock and roll without Black musical pioneers who were, and still remain, consistently whitewashed out of the story. There is no rock and roll without the anguish blues first, or the guitar stylings of people like Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker. Really, there is no rock and roll without facing up to the disgusting history of slavery, the mass movement of people, the pain and passion in the songs they wrote, and the way those songs were passed from person to person.
By the time rock and roll began reaching the radio, much of it had already been appropriated. As soon as Black artists started building followings, playing their songs in bars, clubs, and on smaller radio stations, white performers began copying the sound, repackaging it for wider audiences and often profiting more from it. From there, the pattern repeated across the genre’s history: The Rolling Stones drawing from Chuck Berry, The Beatles borrowing from Fats Domino and Berry as well. But a true turning point arrived in 1956, when rock and roll suddenly burst onto mainstream radio and established itself as the next big thing.
After previously being demonised and sensationalised by parents who truly seemed to believe that an electric guitar would send their children down a path of sin, the start of the late 1950s opened up doors, letting rock and roll in as a serious new phenomenon that wouldn’t be going away.
Sometimes, when reflecting on cultural shifts like this, though, it only happens amongst the youth culture or the left-field counterculture, and is blown up in hindsight into a huge thing. However, in this case, the dawning of rock and roll was genuinely a huge deal, and the charts reflected it.
So, what was the top song of 1956?
During a year when the gates flew open to allow rock and roll into popular culture, the best-selling song is the ultimate proof of this shift. Elvis Presley had been around for a while now, releasing a good few singles that grew him a cult following but still kept him far from the masses.
Then, in 1956, that changed when Sun Records sold Presley to RCA, a move that would mark this complete cultural shift as suddenly a rock and roll artist was being backed by the big leagues, who were keen to go all in on delivering him as the next big star. With his first single on the label, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, that prophecy came true in an instant as he flew to the top of the charts, bagging not only the number-one spot in country music, but on the main charts too, marking his entrance into the mainstream.
It would be the first of five number one singles Presley would get that year as he became the biggest artist in America. By the end of 1956, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ had only gone from strength to strength, and despite being released way back in January, it stuck around as the best-selling single of the year in the US.
However, in the UK, rock and roll was still taking a little time to cross the Atlantic in a mainstream way, and Pat Boone’s ‘I’ll Be Home’ was the best-selling single there instead, but by the end of ’56 and into 1957, Presley started invading the charts worldwide, opening the doors for more rock and roll artists to filter into the big leagues.
