The musical landscape of 1974
The charts reflected a broad musical marketplace: intimate singer-songwriter records, soul, hard rock, country-pop and polished mainstream pop all competed for attention.
The Top 20 is spread across 20 different credited artists, giving the year an unusually broad cast of performers.
What to listen for
Pay attention to the range of vocal styles and to the growing contrast between personal songwriting and large-scale studio production.
This list contains 20 different credited artists. The number gives a quick indication of whether the year was concentrated among repeat hitmakers or spread across a wider field.
Billboard Year-End Top 20 songs of 1974
| Rank | Song | Artist | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Way We Were | Barbra Streisand | Spotify ↗ |
| 2 | Seasons in the Sun | Terry Jacks | Spotify ↗ |
| 3 | Come and Get Your Love | Redbone | Spotify ↗ |
| 4 | Dancing Machine | The Jackson 5 | Spotify ↗ |
| 5 | TSOP | MFSB featuring The Three Degrees | Spotify ↗ |
| 6 | The Streak | Ray Stevens | Spotify ↗ |
| 7 | Bennie and the Jets | Elton John | Spotify ↗ |
| 8 | Jungle Boogie | Kool and the Gang | Spotify ↗ |
| 9 | Rock the Boat | The Hues Corporation | Spotify ↗ |
| 10 | You Aint Seen Nothing Yet | Bachman-Turner Overdrive | Spotify ↗ |
| 11 | Band on the Run | Paul McCartney and Wings | Spotify ↗ |
| 12 | Show and Tell | Al Wilson | Spotify ↗ |
| 13 | The Joker | Steve Miller Band | Spotify ↗ |
| 14 | You Make Me Feel Brand New | The Stylistics | Spotify ↗ |
| 15 | Sundown | Gordon Lightfoot | Spotify ↗ |
| 16 | Until You Come Back to Me | Aretha Franklin | Spotify ↗ |
| 17 | Midnight Ride | Paul Revere and the Raiders | Spotify ↗ |
| 18 | One Hell of a Woman | Mac Davis | Spotify ↗ |
| 19 | The Loco-Motion | Grand Funk Railroad | Spotify ↗ |
| 20 | Annies Song | John Denver | Spotify ↗ |
Build a 1974 playlist
Start with “The Way We Were” by Barbra Streisand, then alternate familiar high-ranking records with contrasting selections from the lower half of the list.
How this page should be used
Year-End charts summarize performance across an extended chart year. They are not simply a list of songs that reached number one, and historical methodology has changed. Treat this page as a guided listening resource and compact chart-history reference rather than a mathematical comparison with other eras.