Which artist spent most weeks in the charts in 1973?
As a true music fan, my understanding of years gone by is always related to the biggest albums of that year. The simple utterance of a date sparks an immediate connection to a record that defined whatever year it existed in. 1969 will always be Abbey Road, while 1995 will always be (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. 1973 feels a little more tightly contested however, given just how much great music was released then but realistically, the answer is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon.
It felt almost like the perfect album of that time. The mood on the ground was positively experimental. The Beatles had paved the way for anything original to be celebrated, across a multitude of genres and with that sentiment, many artists ran wild. Of course, in these new exciting worlds of psych and prog rock, some bands stretched the realms of normality a little too far at times, and so people needed a record that reigned in the esoteric ideas somewhat, crystallising them into a coherent idea.
This is exactly what Pink Floyd managed to achieve with their seminal album, and it opened the gateway for the rest of the decade to continue on with a similarly open-minded approach. It told music listeners all over the world, that anything went, so long as it was delivered with creative heart.
But let’s not forget, this was in a year densely populated with musical greatness, and so it just goes to show how truly brilliant a piece of work it was. Stevie Wonder had released Innervisions, Elton John had released Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Marvin Gaye had given Let’s Get It On to the world. That year, the charts read like a royal rumble of musical titans, each with albums and singles that would go on to dominate the airwaves.
Did these artists spend the longest time at the top of the charts in 1973?
Despite their individually brilliant records, none of these artists actually topped the charts for the longest in 1973. Two other artists shared the top spot, sitting pretty at a total of 25 weeks and at least one of them would qualify as a titan of industry, with a big enough name to challenge the aforementioned three.
Yes, one of the artists was David Bowie, who was riding the wave of his 1973 record Aladdin Sane. The two tracks from that record that cemented his place at the top were ‘Drive-In Saturday’ and ‘The Jean Genie’, which spent five weeks in the top ten respectively. But Aladdin Sane and its two singles clearly rose the tide for his previous hits ‘Life on Mars’, ‘Sorrow’ and ‘The Laughing Gnome’ which made up for the remaining 15 weeks, with ‘Life On Mars’ staying the longest for 6 weeks.
Bowie shared the top spot with Donny Osmond, who was enjoying the fruits of four albums that had been released over the course of 1972 and 1973. Portrait Of Donny, Too Young, A Time For Us and Alone Together were all released under the child star’s name, with the tracks ‘Crazy Horses’, ‘Going Home’, ‘Let Me In’, ‘The Twelfth of Never’, ‘When I Fall in Love’, ‘Young Love’ doing the heavy lifting. Of all those songs, it was ‘The Twelfth of Never’ that topped the charts the longest, sitting in the top 10 for 7 weeks.
