Can you name the U.S. #1 Songs of the Year (Billboard)? - sporcle

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Can you name the U.S. #1 Songs of the Year (Billboard)?

Enter a song title in the box below
Correctly named song titles will show up in the table below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
This game was contributed by Sporcle user: rockgolf
From "Hottest Hot 100 Hits", 4th edition by Fred Bronson. Listings are based on Billboard charts but may differ from Billboard's own year-end chart since Bronson includes the song's entire chart run.
Source: Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits, 4th Edition

You have 10 minutes to guess after you click the button below.

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Year	#1 Song of the year	Artist
1956		Elvis Presley
1957		Pat Boone
1958		Danny and the Juniors
1959		Bobby Darin
1960		Percy Faith
1961		Bobby Lewis
1962		Ray Charles
1963		Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs
1964		The Beatles
1965		The Rolling Stones
1966		The Monkees
1967		Lulu
1968		The Beatles
1969		5th Dimension
1970		Jackson 5
1971		Three Dog Night
1972		Gilbert O'Sullivan
1973		Carly Simon
1974		Barbra Streisand
1975		John Denver
1976		Rod Stewart
1977		Debby Boone
1978		Chic
1979		Donna Summer
1980		Blondie
1981		Olivia Newton-John

Year	#1 Song of the year	Artist
1982		Survivor
1983		The Police
1984		Prince
1985		Lionel Richie
1986		Dionne (Warwick) & Friends
1987		George Michael
1988		George Michael
1989		Phil Collins
1990		Stevie B
1991		Bryan Adams
1992		Whitney Houston
1993		Tag Team
1994		Boyz II Men
1995		Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men
1996		Toni Braxton
1997		Elton John
1998		Next
1999		Santana feat. Rob Thomas
2000		Santana feat. the Product G&B
2001		Nickelback
2002		Nelly feat. Kelly Rowland
2003		Beyonce feat. Sean Paul
2004		Usher feat. Lil Jon & Ludacris
2005		Mariah Carey
2006		Nelly Furtado feat. Timbaland

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There are 62 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

	Imbetterthanu:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 21:52 GMT	6 points
	Challenging! Great idea, more like this!

	Victor2K:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 21:53 GMT	0 points
	I can think of some songs that were even more popular than some #1 of some years.

	cigarette:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 21:57 GMT	0 points
	I'm not going to argue that that song isn't officially by "Santana and Product G&B", but Wyclef is definitely heard on that track and had he been mentioned, I probably would have gotten it.

	Haunter:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:01 GMT	14 points
	nice quiz. a lot of bad/annoyingly catchy music here...

	math_teacher_mom:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:02 GMT	23 points
	Man i must be getting old. I didn't know any from this decade, and they don't sound familiar.

	Loona:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:15 GMT	4 points
	And now let the music snobs come out of the woodwork.

	debbiedoesnothin:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:26 GMT	8 points
	The ones like Mariah and the Beatles are hard because they had so many big hits. Most of these are easy to believe because I've heard them so often, but I can't remember ever hearing the Santana & Product G&B song on the radio.

	MovieDynamic:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:30 GMT	7 points
	This really hasn't already been done? I remember a quiz strikingly similar to this one.

	SilverCup:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:32 GMT	3 points
	Fun quiz. Kinda surprised at the correct amount of guesses. The most guessed answer is only at 50.5%. You would think that songs like Candle in the Wind would be guessed by at least 75%.

	SilverCup:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:34 GMT	5 points
	Looked familiar to me too MovieDynamic, so I had a look. I'm guessing you meant this one: http://www.sporcle.com/games/billboardsongsofyear.php Has a lot of similar answers.

	ianbob:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:42 GMT	5 points
	@ Loona: Hate to be your prophesied music snob, but Billboard is a terrible gauge of good music, with few exceptions.

	Iceberg:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:57 GMT	13 points
	At 29, it's like I'm too young to know any of the "classic" music at the beginning of this quiz, but too old to care about any of the manufactured garbage near the end.

	BrettCaudill:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 23:00 GMT	12 points
	oh man, "smooth" came out 10 years ago? i feel old. that was/is an awesome song.

	rockgolf:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 23:08 GMT	8 points
	@ianbob: Billboard is an excellent gauge of popular music. All they doing is measuring is the tastes of American public. (No one complained on the TV quiz when "Happy Days" was the highest rated show of 1975!)

Aug 12th, 2009 at 23:24 GMT

2 points

If you enjoy this game, and want to see what songs #2 thru #100 were for each year, check out the source for this quiz: Fred Bronson's Hottest Hot 100 Hits. There's a hyperlink to Amazon at the top of the page and it's less than $20.
Also lots of other song lists, including the mammoth Top 5000 Songs of All Time (which is not likely to become a Sporcle quiz anytime soon).

	fatbeard:	Aug 12th, 2009 at 23:39 GMT	3 points
	@math_teacher_mom: I'm 19, and I only knew two from this decade, and the rest weren't familiar either. To me, at least, this is a peculiar list of songs

	ianbob:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 00:06 GMT	0 points
	@rockgolf: Yes, Billboard is an accurate gauge of music sales and popularity. I was making the obvious point that popularity does not equal quality, nor vice versa. Case in point, the funniest American television show in recent years by many accounts is Arrested Development, and it didn't make it past season three. I'm still saddened and baffled by this fact.

	scaryice:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 00:11 GMT	1 point
	2007 is Beyonce - Irreplaceable, and 2008 is Flo Rida - Low.

	sideshowjim:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 00:25 GMT	10 points
	Man, the general public sucks.

	juviejay:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 00:29 GMT	4 points
	No Michael Jackson? No Madonna? No U2? Surprising.

	Guinevere:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 00:38 GMT	3 points
	Another who feels old - I got nothing after 1999, but I managed to go 8-5 on the songs that were in years before I was even born. Lionel Richie and Phil Collins were both impossible for me; so much crappy music and so little time.

	rockgolf:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 00:47 GMT	2 points
	@scaryice: Not necessarily. As alluded to at the top of the page, Billboard's year-end chart are cut off strictly from Dec 1 of the previous year to Nov 30th of the current year. So songs that started charting in August or September but stayed on the charts till February or March of the next calendar year may have overtaken "Irreplaceable" or "Low". For example, "Umbrella" and "Big Girls Don't Cry" peaked in 2007 but stayed on the charts well into 2008. And the 2008 hits "Whatever You Like" and even "Viva La Vida" were still in the top 40 for several months this year.

	Kicking222:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 01:07 GMT	3 points
	Great quiz. I'm generally proud of how well I did, but I'm also kind of surprised how poor the average quiz-taker did. Only ONE answer guessed by at least half of takers? That's really amazing.

	zalagreensbury:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 01:46 GMT	5 points
	Lots of good 90's R and B songs on the list, Boyz II men need to do a comeback tour or something.

	MetaphysicalMan:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 01:53 GMT	4 points
	Strange list. Only a handful of really legendary titles. A lot of the songs that really catch fire on Billboard don't stand the test of time.

	Buzza:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 02:33 GMT	1 point
	Since most of my correct answers came from the 70s and 80s I guess that makes me an old fart. Or maybe just "old school".

	Massagraf:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 02:34 GMT	6 points
	Anybody noticed that since 1999 you have to 'feat' with somebody to have a good chance on a #1 song of the year?

	wayman:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 03:00 GMT	-4 points
	George Michael with back to back years. The Beatles couldn't even do that. Suck it Beatles. George Michael owns you!!!

	Camden:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 03:11 GMT	-1 points
	This makes me ashamed to be an American. Gooo.

	JohnJF:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 04:10 GMT	4 points
	@Camden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_singles_by_year_%28UK%29 Trust me, the UK ain't much better...

	languid:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 04:21 GMT	0 points
	Candle in the Wind was the only one I really got. Rest I had to jogstart my memory via internet =p.

	wolv82:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 04:34 GMT	4 points
	I'm no music snob, but Whoomp There It Is? REALLY?!?!

	rottenmonk:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 05:22 GMT	2 points
	I only got 18 and thought I bombed... turns out I did better than average. Also, how come 'there it is' is no good for 1993? Seriously?

	chikka2:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 06:34 GMT	2 points
	Boy, did I love this quiz. It was easier to get those artists who had only one huge US hit, like Toni Braxton, Lulu, Debbie Boone, than to figure out which Beatles or Ray Charles hit of their many actually made #1. Thanks Rockgolf

	Jon:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 06:34 GMT	3 points
	would have been a lot easier to name the artists instead of the song titles...very hard...should take "whoomp there it is" as a correct answer...I mean, I spelled whoomp right, and that's not even a word!

	vogz:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 06:41 GMT	2 points
	just cuz somebody has to do it...OMG WHAT NICKELBACK IS ON THIS LIST?!?!? WHY?!?!?! now we can all go on with our lives

	santosaurus:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 07:36 GMT	0 points
	the only reason i got calypso is because i went to a john denver tribute concert in Branson hahaha

	superpole2000:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 07:43 GMT	2 points
	Some of these songs are horrible.

	toocool:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 08:37 GMT	0 points
	@wayman the only thing George Michael owns is the toilet stall he and his boyfriend were hanging out in when the cop arrested him in California

	Sneuticles:	Aug 13th, 2009 at 09:37 GMT	0 points
	Was i the only one to try "We Are the World" for Dionne Warwick & Friends? And then type it again, more slowly?