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Mon 15 December 2025 19:45, UK
There’s arguably no greater ten years in music than those between 1966 and 1976.
From the moment The Beatles released Revolver and announced a chapter of musical experimentation, to the middle of the 1970s, saw some of the greatest music releases of all time.
Because that famed Beatles album ultimately gave artists permission to do so. It triggered a chain of events that would result in genre innovation, allowing for the 1970s to become the most cultural impactful decade in history. David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye and plenty more icons made this decade their own, with albums that would take the ambitious blueprint set out by The Beatles and send it into the stratosphere.
By the time 1976 rolled around, music had entered a period of unbridled genius. It had finally been ten exact years since Revolver, and the fruits of its influence could be plainly seen. Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life, Bowie’s Station To Station and Bob Dylan’s Desire were but a few records from that year which made a chart impact.
Nevertheless, it was neither of them who gained the title for the chart-conquering song of the year. Such was the landscape of music at that time that the greatest artists were more concerned with creating albums than singles. A fact best expressed through Wonder’s aforementioned opus, which topped the list for a total of 11 weeks in that year. But none of the songs from it managed to top one song, from a more single led artist.
So, who was number one spot for the longest in 1976?
Because that honour was reserved for Rod Stewart. An artist who was successful and brilliant, in his own very unique right, but one who probably couldn’t boast a similar level of album integrity as say Wonder, Bowie or Dylan.
His track ‘Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)’ topped the charts for the longest in 1976, staying up there for eight consecutive weeks. It was the opening track to his record A Night On The Town, which featured the uncharacteristically profound ‘The Killing of Georgie, Part I and II’, but it was this song that represented something more obviously commercial for Stewart.
“This came to me in the middle of the night, as songs often do,” he explained. “I always keep a note pad and cassette recorder by my bed, among other things. Steve Cropper and I worked out the arrangement on Friday morning and it was in the can by Friday night, lyrics being finished by the following evening. We spent more time working on the somewhat complicated intro than the song itself. It was banned by many radio stations because of its lyrical content, but, nevertheless, a little scandal never did anyone any harm.”
It was a fairly modest sex-rock anthem, by Stewart’s usual standards. But, given the appetite for that brand he had curated, the sensual arrangement and more modest approach to love-making seemed to hit all the right notes with 1976 music fans, sitting pretty on the charts for two consecutive months.
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