5 Classic Rock Hits That Snagged The No. 1 Spot For Just One Week

It's an amazing achievement for a band to take a song — a classic rock song that will rise above any short-lived chart feats in the long run — to No. 1, even if it is for just seven days. While plenty of bands sold millions of records but never had a No. 1 hit in the rock heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, so many others managed to make it to the top of the pop chart, and with what would become eternal classic rock anthems — although just barely. The minimum period of time that a song can be the biggest hit of the land is one week. Some of the best-known tunes with the longest proverbial tales in music history fall into the category of shortest-lived No. 1 hits.

It's kind of wild to think that some of those songs that get played every day on classic rock radio, and  have for decades, were once hot and fresh, competing for chart placement. Their initial success was palpable but brief, a non-predictor of historical and cultural impact. Here are five classic rock hits that were also No. 1 hits — for one week each.

Remarkably, the Rolling Stones took eight songs to the No. 1 slot in the 1960s and 1970s. And three of those tunes spent a solitary week at the highest position. In addition to the torch song "Angie" in 1973 and the disco-funk song "Miss You" in 1978, the Rolling Stones' epic break-up ballad (and plaintive recorder-driven) "Ruby Tuesday" made it to No. 1 on March 4, 1967, before falling down the chart the next week.

Neither the Rolling Stones nor their management at London Records had ever even foreseen or planned for "Ruby Tuesday" to even get on the pop chart in the first place, let alone dominate it for what would ultimately amount to a single week. In early 1967, the label serviced "Let's Spend the Night Together" to U.S. radio stations. Such a blunt discussion of sexuality was too scandalous for many outlets. The Stones had to obscure that title lyric when they performed the song on "The Ed Sullivan Show," while many stations just refused to play it. Still wanting new Rolling Stones content, however, DJs around the country played the single's B-side instead: "Ruby Tuesday."

Among the once mega-popular '70s musicians that have since been largely forgotten, Grand Funk Railroad once spent half a decade as one of the most consistently best-selling album artists in rock — the group saw 10 LPs released between 1969 and 1974 eventually go gold or platinum. While it would later shorten its name to just Grand Funk, the power trio was aptly named after train travel — its songs were loud, metallic, and aggressively moved along with speed and force. Its cover of the '60s hit "The Loco-Motion" is about a dance that looks like a train went to No. 1 for a couple of weeks in May 1974. 

Grand Funk had previously scooted all the way to that top position back in September 1973. A self-referential, personal theme song, "We're An American Band," is the supposed autobiography of Grand Funk (Railroad). The lyrics detail the band's exploits on tour, partying in hotels, meeting up with groupies, and playing poker. The seedy, confessional tune captivated listeners, but really only for the one week it was a No. 1 hit.

Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" is a rock/R&B song about a futuristic rock band, and a fictional one at that. "I saw Bennie and the Jets as a sort of proto-sci-fi punk band, fronted by an androgynous woman," John's longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin told Rolling Stone. Also not real: The crowd cheering and clapping throughout the song — those were effects laid on in the studio to make the song sound live. All of that made "Bennie and the Jets" seem too complicated and unapproachable for MCA Records in 1974, which didn't plan on releasing it as a single from John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album.

But then a Detroit R&B station went rogue and regularly played "Bennie and the Jets." It got such great feedback that MCA issued it nationally as a single. John has taken nine singles to No. 1 in his career, six of those in the 1970s when he was at his commercial peak. "Bennie and the Jets" represented only the second time that John got to the top, enjoying the week of April 13, 1974, at No. 1.

The Edgar Winter Group functioned as an incubator for talented would-be rock stars. After recording some well-received rock-jazz fusion albums under his own name, the eponymous band leader assembled his group, bringing in future Montrose guitarist Ronnie Montrose, singer, bassist, and eventual '80s soft rocker Dan Hartman, and, eventually, "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" singer and producer Rick Derringer.

The Edgar Winter Group is probably still best known for "Free Ride," but that bluesy, infectious rocker about wanderlust and unity only got as high as No. 14 on the Hot 100 in 1973. And it was the radically different-sounding follow-up to the song that actually did go to No. 1 for the band earlier that year: "Frankenstein," a hypnotic, totally lyric-free hard rocker that's heavy on the riffs courtesy of Winter, a versatile multi-instrumentalist. A headbanger that deftly blends pounding drums, crunchy guitars, and shimmering, effects-heavy synthesizers, it was the only chart-topper for the Edgar Winter Group. It spent the week of May 26, 1973, at the apex of the pop world.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive, a spinoff of the 1970 chart-topping Guess Who, placed only six songs in the U.S.'s Top 40 in the 1970s, and only one of them went Top 10. That's the chugging, playful "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet." The week of November 9, 1974, the classic rock radio standard was the sole week the tune was the No. 1 song in the U.S.

Probably most famous for the stammering in its chorus, "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" was inspired by, and intended to make fun of, Gary Bachman, manager of Bachman-Turner Overdrive and brother of lead singer and songwriter Randy Bachman. The group was just going to knock out the song on a lark and privately gift it to their manager. BTO only added it to its third album, "Not Fragile," in 1974 at the behest of Mercury Records executive Charlie Fach, who thought the LP lacked an obvious radio single. The band happened to have "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" ready to record.