The week of January 12, 1965, saw The Supremes and The Beatles atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Come See About Me‘ and ‘I Feel Fine,’ respectively.
At #3 was The Searchers with ‘Love Potion No. 9,’ their take on a song first released by The Clovers in 1959. This is an example, one of many, of a white group finding more success than a Black group with the same song.
Throwing back to the week of Jan. 11, 1955, we find three repeats atop the Billboard singles chart: ‘Mister Sandman‘ by The Chordettes, ‘Let Me Go, Lover‘ by Joan Weber, and ‘The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane‘ by the Ames Brothers.
I’m sure there’s a good reason for the sticking power of hit songs in the 50s (payola? not as many new songs as later decades?). It certainly seems like the same dozen or so tunes kicked around the top 10 for the better part of a year. I suspect things might be shaken up a bit as we enter the rock-n-roll era.
Sabrina Carpenter has released six albums since 2015, a fact that makes her Best New Artist Grammy nomination a bit of a head-scratcher.
The song at #25 on last year’s Billboard year-end Hot 100 is from her fifth album, 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send. ‘Feather’ was released as a single from the deluxe edition of that album, and became her first song to reach the Top 40 (it peaked at #21). Of course, her next three singles all reached the top three, so I guess it’s that “overnight” success the Grammys are acknowledging.
The top-selling album of 2024 was Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, but none of its songs made the year-end top 20. For all of its phenomenal success (juiced by frequent special edition re-releases), Tortured Poets didn’t really break through to the wider culture. If it had, lead single ‘Fortnight’ would be higher than #22 on this list.
At #23 is Luke Combs’ ‘Fast Car,’ the Tracy Chapman cover that reached #8 on the prior year’s list.
SZA holds both the 19th and 20th slots on the year-end Billboard Hot 100. Yesterday’s ‘Saturn’ is followed up by ‘Snooze,’ a hit from her album SOS that was so big it first showed up at #9 on the 2023 year-end list.
At #21 is the second Doja Cat song of the week. ‘Paint the Town Red,’ the lead single from her 2023 album Scarlet, also showed up on that 2023 list, at #52. It was Doja Cat’s first solo #1 hit late that year, and carried that success into 2024.
Meet Me In Montauk 