What was the worst number one of 1973?
The way my parents talk about the 1970s, you’d think it was the only era ever worth living. The songs were good, there was absolutely no regard for health and safety, and not an inch of room for political correctness. Total bliss.
Of course, it should go without saying that the majority of this is said tongue in cheek, but there is one fact which does still stand true despite it all: the music, and particularly when looking at a year like 1973, it was a span of 12 months which changed the iconic leagues of rock and roll forever.
It’s hard to believe that albums like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, and Goat’s Head Soup by The Rolling Stones were all released at the same time, which proves the calibre we’re talking about here, but when this normally happens, the same can’t often be said for the top singles.
Unfortunately, this rings true once again for the selection of number one songs for 1973, with a number of absolute horrors somehow managing to top the charts, including ‘Angel Fingers’ by Wizzard and ‘Welcome Home’ by Peters and Lee. But shockingly enough, neither of them is even bad enough to take the biscuit for worst song of the year.
A close contender was the New Year number one, ‘Long Haired Lover from Liverpool’ by Little Jimmy Osmond. However, it feels a little harsh to absolutely lambast someone who was nine years old at the time of their big hit, and subsequently broke the record for the youngest ever person to top the charts in the UK. Instead, let’s hand the unwanted accolade to his older brother.
What made Donny Osmond the worst number one of 1973?
The Osmonds were, of course, an absolute family dynasty with unparalleled success for their era, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that their selection of hits has completely stood the test of time. One of those was Donny Osmond’s cover of the old English folk song ‘The Twelfth of Never’, which topped the chart for one week at the end of March 1973.
While this was one of Osmond’s more short-lived successes, he did somehow enjoy a longer stint at the top later in the year, when his double-sided cover of ‘Young Love’/’A Million to One’ saw him reign at the number one spot for no less than four weeks. There was no denying the man was popular, but it didn’t mean his choice of songs were any good.
It was the mark of an era like the ‘70s that such revolutions could be made in one corner with the likes of Bowie and The Rolling Stones, meanwhile, the mainstream was still lapping up cosy covers like this, as if they were still gathering around the wireless during the war. In short, culture was in a state of flux, and it needed to move forward.
It’s not quite clear at which point the dial finally shifted, because the rest of the decade, as well as the ‘80s and ‘90s, were still home to their fair share of classic clangers. Among them, Osmond can wear his badge of being an ancient relic proudly – because if there’s anything that his discography proves definitively, it’s that some things are better left in the past.
