70s Number One Hits: Every Billboard #1, 1970 to 1979

By Charlie · Published September 27, 2026

There were 253 different 70s number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

They filled 522 weekly charts, from January 3, 1970 to December 29, 1979.

The Bee Gees had the most, with nine.

Debby Boone's You Light Up My Life ran the longest, at 10 straight weeks.

Every one of them is in the sortable table below, pulled week by week from this site's own chart data.

Most of them can be played right from the table, too.

The five acts with the most weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, 1970 to 1979.

Chart: Music of the 70s, from this site's weekly Billboard data.

The Short Answer: 253 Songs, 522 Weeks

The 1970s turned over the top of the chart faster than most people remember.

Here is the decade in numbers:

• 253 different songs reached number one.
• 522 weekly charts were published, because 1972 and 1977 each had 53 chart weeks.
• 125 songs lasted exactly one week at the top.
• 59 more lasted exactly two weeks.
• 13 songs lost the top spot and then won it back.

So almost half the decade's chart-toppers were gone after seven days.

That churn is the real story of the era.

AM radio, disco clubs and a flood of soft rock all fed the same single chart.

A song could own the country on Saturday and be yesterday's news by the next one.

The First and Last 70s Number One Hits

B. J. Thomas opened the decade with Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head.

It sat at number one on the very first chart of 1970, dated January 3, and held on for four weeks.

The song came from the soundtrack of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Rupert Holmes closed it out with Escape (The Piña Colada Song), number one on the chart dated December 29, 1979.

One is a breezy movie song.

The other is a wry story song about answering a personal ad.

Everything else in the 70s happened between those two records.

The Longest-Running 70s Number One Hits

Only ten 70s number one hits held the top for six weeks or more.

Weeks are counted from the weekly charts themselves, and a song's separate runs are added together.

Debby Boone's 10 Straight Weeks

You Light Up My Life took over on October 15, 1977 and did not let go until the week ending December 23.

That was ten consecutive weeks, the longest single run of the decade.

It was a hushed, churchy ballad in the middle of the disco boom.

You can see the run for yourself on Billboard's own Hot 100 chart for October 15, 1977.

1978, the Year of the Gibb Brothers

Three of the ten longest runs belong to 1978.

Two of those came from one family.

Night Fever gave the Bee Gees eight weeks, and Shadow Dancing gave their younger brother Andy Gibb seven more.

Chic's Le Freak arrived in December and was still trading the top spot in February 1979.

Which Artists Had the Most Number Ones

The Bee Gees own this category outright.

They scored nine number ones in the 1970s and spent 27 weeks on top.

The Bee Gees' Nine

Their run started as a soft-rock ballad group and ended as the sound of disco itself.

• How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (1971): 4 weeks
• Jive Talkin' (1975): 2 weeks
• You Should Be Dancing (1976): 1 week
• How Deep Is Your Love (1977): 3 weeks
• Stayin' Alive (1978): 4 weeks
• Night Fever (1978): 8 weeks
• Too Much Heaven (1979): 2 weeks
• Tragedy (1979): 2 weeks
• Love You Inside Out (1979): 1 week

The full story of the group behind that list is on the Bee Gees artist page.

The Bee Gees in 1977, on the edge of their biggest chart year.

Image credit: NBC Television, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Why Elton John and Paul McCartney Look Smaller Than They Were

The table counts each artist exactly as the chart credited them.

Two stars split their number ones across more than one credit.

• Elton John: four as Elton John, plus Philadelphia Freedom as the Elton John Band and Don't Go Breaking My Heart with Kiki Dee.
• Paul McCartney: one with Linda McCartney, two as Paul McCartney and Wings, and three as Wings.

Add those up and both men reach six apiece.

That still leaves them three behind the Bee Gees.

Year by Year: New Chart-Toppers Each Year

The number of new 70s number one hits swung hard from year to year.

The table counts each song in the year of its first week at number one.

The Revolving Door of 1974 and 1975

In 1974 and again in 1975, 35 different songs reached number one.

That is a new chart-topper roughly every week and a half.

These were the years of one-week wonders, novelty records and early disco singles all trading places.

Spin the 70s Decade Wheel to land on a random year and see which song ruled it.

The Blockbuster Years of 1971 and 1978

At the other end, 1971 had only 18 new number ones and 1978 had 19.

Fewer new songs meant longer runs.

In 1978 that was the Saturday Night Fever effect, with the Gibb family holding the top for weeks at a time.

If you want the number one from one specific week, the Birthday #1 Song Finder pulls it straight from the same chart data.

Songs That Lost the Top Spot and Came Back

Thirteen of the 70s number one hits fell from the top and then climbed back up.

• Alone Again (Naturally), Gilbert O'Sullivan
• Killing Me Softly with His Song, Roberta Flack
• Let's Get It On, Marvin Gaye
• The Way We Were, Barbra Streisand
• Fame, David Bowie
• That's the Way (I Like It), KC and the Sunshine Band
• Silly Love Songs, Wings
• I Just Want to Be Your Everything, Andy Gibb
• Best of My Love, The Emotions
• You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond
• Le Freak, Chic
• I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor
• Hot Stuff, Donna Summer

Barbra Streisand is the only name on that list twice.

Notice how many of them are dance records.

A club hit could fade on radio, keep packing floors, and surge back a few weeks later.

Every 70s Number One Hit, Sortable

Here are all 253 songs, in the order they first reached number one.

Tap a column heading to sort by song, artist, weeks at the top or date.

Song titles in gold link to a full story on this site.

Press Play on any row to watch that song right here, in a player that opens under it.

For nonstop 70s music, try Listen Now, the site's free radio and jukebox.

How This List Was Built

Every figure on this page comes from this site's weekly Billboard Hot 100 file, one record per chart week.

There are 522 records, with no missing weeks between January 3, 1970 and December 29, 1979.

Weeks Are Counted From the Charts Themselves

The data file also stores a separate "weeks at number one" figure for each song.

For nine songs, that stored figure disagrees with the weekly charts.

Stevie Wonder's Superstition, for example, is stored as two weeks but appears on only one chart.

So every week count here comes from counting the actual charts, never the stored figure.

Checked Against Outside Sources

The yearly totals of 70s number one hits were compared with independent records.

• Wikipedia's list of 1970 Hot 100 number ones also counts 21 different chart-toppers that year.
• Wikipedia's decade list of Hot 100 number one singles covers the same songs in chart order.
• Billboard's archive chart for January 3, 1970 shows where the decade's first run began.

The full approach is written up on the site's methodology page.

This page is part of the growing chart archive at Music of the 70s.

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