Summer Chart Flashback: Summer Singles 1978

In terms of best years for music EVER, 1982 reigns supreme.  A runner-up could easily be 1978.  Single by single and album by album, a lot of really, really great music came out in 1978. HERC has been slowly revealing his favorite singles of 1978 through a series of posts here on The Hideaway but today's feature isn't about that.  Today is the fifth installment of his year-by-year (1974-1983, his Favorite Decade in Music) Summer Singles countdown based on the weekly WLS surveys he used to collect. Between May 27, 1978 and September 2, 1978, a total of eighty-six different singles made the Top Forty-fives weekly chart.  Only seven of them made the chart each of those fifteen weeks and only one of those seven made it all the way to #1 - and it's #2 on this countdown.  The overall #1 song for the Summer of 1978, according to those WLS surveys, peaked at #2 but it is the only one of eighty-six singles to spend all fifteen weeks in the Top 10.

weeks @
Top 45	Top 10	#1	rank
7			45	If I Can't Have You - Yvonne Elliman
10			44	Dukey Stick - George Duke
10			43	Stuff Like That - Quincy Jones
11			42	Take Me To The Next Phase - The Isley Brothers*
12			41	Disco Inferno - The Trammps
12			40	Girl Calling - Chocolate Milk
7			39	Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad - Meat Loaf
8			38	Bluer Than Blue - Michael Johnson
6	2		37	Hot Blooded - Foreigner
8			36	Only The Good Die Young - Billy Joel
10			35	Count On Me - Jefferson Starship
7	2		34	Emotion - Samantha Sang
11			33	Can't Smile Without You - Barry Manilow
10			32	Close The Door - Teddy Pendergrass
11			31	Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees
9			30	Goodbye Girl - David Gates
9	3		29	Jack & Jill - Raydio
9			28	Still The Same - Bob Seger*
8	3		26T	Boogie Oogie Oogie - A Taste Of Honey
14			26T	Runaway Love - Linda Clifford
8	5	1	25	Three Times A Lady - Commodores
11	4		24	Flashlight - Parliament
12	3		23	Dust In The Wind - Kansas
9	6		22	Grease - Frankie Valli
11	5		21	Closer I Get To You - Roberta Flack with Donny Hathaway
13			20	On Broadway - George Benson
10	6		19	Copacabana - Barry Manilow
13	4		18	Night Fever - Bee Gees
15			17	Shame - Evelyn "Champagne" King
13	2		16	Imaginary Lover - Atlanta Rhythm Section
12			15	You Belong To Me - Carly Simon
12	2		14	Take A Chance On Me - ABBA
11	8	2	13	Miss You - Rolling Stones
15	8		12	Dance With Me - Peter Brown with Betty Wright
14	6		11	With A Little Luck - Wings
14	6		10	It's A Heartache - Bonnie Tyler
13	9		9	Last Dance - Donna Summer
13	10		8	Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty
14	7	2	7	Too Much Too Little Too Late - Johnny Mathis with Deniece Williams
15	5		6	Use To Be My Girl - The O'Jays
15	5		5	Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione
13	11	4	4	King Tut - Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons
15	7		3	The Groove Line - Heatwave
15	13	6	2	Shadow Dancing - Andy Gibb
15	15		1	You're the One That I Want - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

*these two songs are not included in Spotify playlist below

Whenever available, single versions were used in the playlist above.

Gary Pfeifer did the survey scans

raw survey data courtesy of Doug Scherer & Mike Gallant