Throwing back to the week of July 4, 1976 — the nation’s bicentennial — we find Wings’ ‘Silly Love Songs‘ holding on to the top spot.
Right behind it was a 70s one-hit wonder, Starland Vocal Band with the deceptively promiscuous ‘Afternoon Delight.’ The song reached #1 the following week, its “skyrockets in flight” chorus a perfect match for the summer of America’s 200th birthday.
Throwing back to the week of June 20, 1976, we find Wings holding on to the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Silly Love Songs.’
In the #2 slot, where it peaked, was ‘Get Up and Boogie (That’s Right)’ by the German disco act Silver Convention. We last heard from Silver Convention when their song ‘Fly, Robin, Fly‘ topped the Hot 100 in early December of 1975. This single immediately followed that one, and was the last of their songs to get higher than #60 on the chart.
Throwing back to the week of June 6, 1976, we find Wings atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Silly Love Songs,’ the band’s third #1 song in the U.S. This was Paul McCartney’s 27th #1 hit in America as a songwriter, setting a record that he holds to this day (the number is now 32).
Written as a response to critics (and his old pal John Lennon) who called his music sappy, ‘Silly Love Songs’ leans unapologetically into the corn. And it paid off, spending five weeks atop the chart and becoming the #1 overall song of 1976. That made McCartney the first artist to have the #1 overall song with two different bands.
Throwing back to the week of May 23, 1976, we find Diana Ross atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Love Hangover,’ the third single from her self-titled soul album released in February of that year.
The first single, which also reached #1, was ‘Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To),’ a Best Song Oscar nominee the previous year.
Throwing back to the week of May 9, 1976, we find family R&B band The Sylvers atop the Hot 100 with ‘Boogie Fever.’ This song, which spent one week at #1, was the group’s only chart-topping hit.
Nine Sylvers siblings perform on this track. A 10th, Christopher, never performed with the band, depriving them of the chance to say they were twice as good as the Jackson 5.
Meet Me In Montauk 