The #Top100of1959

The very first full year of the Hot 100 was 1959. This is also the first year I'll have featured that I have a playlist, but no spreadsheet with my research on it. This is one of five years I'll cover that I completed on a spreadsheet that is on a flash drive which broke and was unrecoverable, so I may not have much to say about these songs.

"Mr. Personality" capped a decade of pop success with three 1959 chart-toppers. (Youtube)

Lloyd Price is the artist of the year, with three songs on the chart (all in the top half) including two in the top 10. "Personality" and "Stagger Lee" both ranked among the year's top hits, but neither was the biggest.

That honor goes to the Bobby Darin megahit, "Mack The Knife." There are few songs pre-Beatles that I enjoy enough to put on any non-chart related playlists, but "Mack" is the rare exception that has found its way onto a couple.

Ray Anthony's "The Peter Gunn Theme", in the low 30s (I don't have exact numbers because the playlist only has 98 songs and again, I don't have all the songs on a spreadsheet), reminds me of middle school jazz band. You can decide if that's a good or bad thing.

"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" by The Platters is low on the list because half of its time on the Hot 100 was in 1958, but is also a rare pre-British Invasion hit that is recognizable.

Apart from Price, five other artists had three songs chart among the best of 1959. Brook Benton, Connie Francis, Elvis Presley, Frankie Avalon and Paul Anka were the year's other biggest pop music stars.

We'll see if we can go into more depth with next month's list, but for now here's the playlist: