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Regional Hits of 1977

Other Years: 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984

The standard page for 1977 lists the biggest hit songs across the whole World. This page compares that with the top 20 biggest hits of the year in North America and Europe. The region index explains how these results were generated and the long term trends.

The most distinctive songs of 1977 (that is the hits that only charted in one place) has been calculated.

  North America   World   Europe  
# Artist Song Title Artist Song Title Artist Song Title #
1 Debbie Boone You Light Up My Life Moves -6 Moves -1 Eagles Hotel California Moves -14 Moves -2 Boney M Ma Baker 1
2 Eagles Hotel California Moves 1 Moves -3 Bee Gees How Deep is Your Love? Moves -15 Moves -3 Wings Mull of Kintyre 2
3 Barbra Streisand Love Theme From 'A Star is Born' (Evergreen) Moves -10 Moves -100 Boney M Ma Baker Moves 2 Moves -3 Baccara Yes Sir, I Can Boogie 3
4 Andy Gibb I Just Wanna Be Your Everything Moves -7 Moves -17 Donna Summer I Feel Love Moves -1 Moves -13 Smokie Living Next Door to Alice 4
5 Bee Gees How Deep is Your Love? Moves 3 Moves -100 Wings Mull of Kintyre Moves 3 Moves 1 Donna Summer I Feel Love 5
6 Rose Royce Car Wash Moves -9 Moves -100 Baccara Yes Sir, I Can Boogie Moves 3 Moves -20 Boney M Sunny 6
7 Fleetwood Mac Dreams Moves -18 Moves 6 Debbie Boone You Light Up My Life Moves -100 Moves -5 Abba Knowing Me, Knowing You 7
8 Manfred Mann's Earth Band Blinded By the Light Moves -34 Moves -108 Santa Esmerelda Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood Moves -3 Moves -33 Baccara Sorry I'm a Lady 8
9 Leo Sayer When I Need You Moves -1 Moves -1 Queen We Are the Champions Moves -15 Moves -30 Boney M Belfast 9
10 Queen We Are the Champions Moves 1 Moves 1 Leo Sayer When I Need You Moves -16 Moves -18 Space Magic Fly 10
11 The Emotions Best of My Love Moves -8 Moves 7 Andy Gibb I Just Wanna Be Your Everything Moves -100 Moves 3 Santa Esmerelda Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood 11
12 Alan O'Day Undercover Angel Moves -40 Moves -73 Abba Knowing Me, Knowing You Moves 5 Moves -42 Umberto Tozzi Ti Amo 12
13 Leo Sayer You Make Me Feel Like Dancing Moves -3 Moves 10 Barbra Streisand Love Theme From 'A Star is Born' (Evergreen) Moves -123 Moves -40 Smokie Lay Back in the Arms of Someone 13
14 Shaun Cassidy Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home) Moves -42 Moves -100 Julie Covington Don't Cry For Me Argentina Moves 0 Moves 0 Julie Covington Don't Cry For Me Argentina 14
15 David Soul Don't Give Up On Us Moves -5 Moves 9 Rose Royce Car Wash Moves -28 Moves 14 Eagles Hotel California 15
16 Meco Star Wars Theme - Cantina Band Moves -20 Moves 3 Leo Sayer You Make Me Feel Like Dancing Moves -40 Moves -13 Abba The Name of the Game 16
17 Carly Simon Nobody Does it Better Moves -4 Moves -165 Smokie Living Next Door to Alice Moves 13 Moves 15 Bee Gees How Deep is Your Love? 17
18 Eagles New Kid in Town Moves -16 Moves -7 Stevie Wonder Sir Duke Moves -18 Moves -12 Elvis Presley Way Down 18
19 Mary MacGregor Torn Between Two Lovers Moves -13 Moves 8 The Emotions Best of My Love Moves -88 Moves -61 Jeanette Porque te vas 19
20 Glen Campbell Southern Nights Moves -27 Moves 5 David Soul Don't Give Up On Us Moves -34 Moves -47 Showaddywaddy Under the Moon of Love 20

The comments here are from the the MusicID impact site site. This version is not able to accept comments yet

1 Aug 2011

Harumfan

Excuse me, the biggest U.S. hit of 1977 was "You Light Up My Life" by Debby Boone (on your website is 2nd). On Billboard Hot 100: No. 1 for 10 weeks, 25 weeks in the chart, best selling single of the year (platinum cert.), Oscar and Grammy Award for Song of the Year winner...

"Hotel California" went to No. 1 only for 1 week, stayed 19 weeks in theBillboard chart...

The Grammy award we use is the Record of the Year (which for 1977 was "Hotel California"), the winner of Song of the Year was actually Joe Brooks (for writing it) not Debby Boone (joint winner of course since "Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)" also won). We don't use the Song of the Year Grammy since it is specifically focused on the song, not the particular performance.

In terms of sales during 1977 you are correct, "You Light Up My Life" was a bigger seller than "Hotel California". However we're trying to measure the total 'success' of a song (which we admit is a rather vague term). For example if you were to ask a random person in the street to quote some of the lyrics which song do you think they'd be more likely to know? Which of these two songs is more likely to be on a random North American's MP3 player?

The longer lasting impact of the Eagle's song is attested to by the fact that it is one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 500 (selected in 1983), in 2001 it was one of the RIAA's "Songs of the Century" and, in 2003, was given the Grammy Hall of Fame award. It was finally awarded Platinum by the RIAA in Feb 2009.

We suspect you would agree that the Eagle's song has had more exposure than Debby Boone's since, say 1985. The question is has it had enough extra exposure to overcome the 1977 sales difference. The calculation we use seems to suggest that it has.

So we agree you do have a good point, total sales at the time are important, but the metric used here indicates that "Hotel California" is more 'important' and 'well known', that's why is is listed top North American song of 1977.

5 Jul 2011

Crystal Gayle - Regional Hits

What about Crystal Gayle's "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue"? No. 2, 26weeks, gold certification? No. 2 for 3 weeks November - December 1977

The 41st most successful song of 1977 worldwide, by our calculation it was not in the top 20 North American songs of the year.

© 2007-2024, Steve Hawtin et al. Generated 17 Jan 2024 16:59 GMT. This data may also be accessed from tsort.info. (this data is version 2.8.0053).