1970: Sparkle Someone Else's Eyes

 4 — B.J. Thomas: "Raindrops Keeps Fallin' on My Head"

 5 — The Archies: "Jingle Jangle"

 6 — Shocking Blue: "Venus"

 1 — Tom Jones: "Without You (There Is Nothing)"

 3 — Eddie Holman: "Hey There Lonely Girl"

 9 — The Guess Who: "No Time"

 9 — Simon and Garfunkel: "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

 6 — The Beatles: "Let It Be"

 8 — Norman Greenbaum: "Spirit in the Sky"

 9 — The Guess Who: "American Woman" 

 5 — Creedence Clearwater Revival: "Up Around the Bend"

 3 — Ray Stevens: "Everything Is Beautiful"

 7 — The Beatles: "The Long and Winding Road"

 4 — Rare Earth: "Get Ready"

 5 — Melanie with the Edwin Hawkins Singers: "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)"

 1 — Miguel Ríos: "A Song of Joy"

 4 — The Carpenters: "(They Long to Be) Close to You"

 8 — Mashmakhan: "As the Years Go By"

 7 — Mungo Jerry: "In the Summertime"

 7 — Edwin Starr: "War"

 6 — Creedence Clearwater Revival: "Lookin' Out My Backdoor"

 3 — Neil Diamond: "Cracklin' Rosie"

 7 — Sugarloaf: "Green-Eyed Lady"

 4 — The Carpenters: "We've Only Just Begun"

 2 — The Partridge Family: "I Think I Love You'"

 9 — George Harrison: "Isn't It a Pity"

Average Score: 5.42

1970 is the first year since 1963 not to have a single Canadian number one get full marks from me. As you can see, a handful came close but they weren't quite good enough. I had actually been expecting several more underperforming singles here but I think it came down to mediocrity triumphing over absolute badness.

This is of course the year in which The Beatles came to an end. While "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" are hardly poor efforts, neither of them approach what the Fab Four were capable of at their very best. Perhaps this suggests that had they continued either as a full-time or part-time recording concern in the seventies that their output would never have returned to form. I sort of suspect that's exactly what would have happened even if I will happily acknowledge that a lot of the music they recorded after the Get Back/Let It Be sessions was a return to form. Still, it's difficult to imagine them accomplishing more had they carried on.

The post-Beatle landscape was ably filled in by their longtime rivals The Rolling Stones who, rather fittingly, see a return to the top spot after a pretty lengthy stretch of coming up short. The former Fabs all do well for themselves too but I have to wonder if the public was judging John, Paul, George and Ringo on a curve. With the likes of Dawn (soon to be 'featuring Tony Orlando), a creatively bankrupt Bee Gees, more dismal crap from The Partridge Family and Tom Jones and the rise of The Osmonds, Canadians clearly had a lot of time for pop's shitty underbelly but they seemed to expect better of The Beatles even in their waning solo years — but this is more the concern of what lies beyond 1971.

Much has been said and written about '71 as being the peak of rock music. For the most part, this has been examined from the perspective of the many huge selling, critically acclaimed and/or deeply influential LPs that came out during that particular twelve month stretch. For the purposes of this blog, attention will be devoted to the singles. As ever, they're a mixed bag. The bad ones are coming but so, too, are some genuinely great RPM number ones. If not quite the Year Rock Exploded then certainly it is the Year Rock Did Quite Well for Itself, Thank You Very Much.