Every #1 Hit From 1964, Ranked Worst to Best

For the next six weeks, I’m going to be ranking every Billboard #1 hit from 1964, 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004 and 2014 from worst to best in each respective year. I did this in 2023, which you can read the final entry of here (and access the previous ones), and I figured I’d fire the series back up as we careen towards 2025.

Beginning today with 1964, this is one of the denser lists, especially in the context of how good all of the music is. I’d say that 20, maybe 21 out of the 23 entries are incredible songs that are as monumental in the pop music canon as anything else that’s come out in the last 60 years. As is the case with the era these songs came from, there are a few underwhelming entries. Mainstream success didn’t always come with a requisite of stardom or genius, but there are, by my count, no less than 20 tracks here that have transcended the limitations of the very chart they topped six decades ago.

Only one of these songs can be categorized as “bad,” but that doesn’t negate the accolade of having a #1 hit—an achievement that makes your career immortal in some capacity, or, at least, it used to be that way. 1964 offered up a great mix of one-time chart-toppers and rock ‘n’ roll legends, spanning from the Beatles (six times) all the way through the heart-and-soul of Motown and the trad-pop staples. Without further ado, here is every #1 hit from 1964, ranked from worst to best.

23. Lorne Greene: “Ringo”

Listen, 1964 was, mostly, a phenomenal year for hit songs—and that was especially true until the week of December 5th, when Lorne Greene nabbed a #1 single with “Ringo,” the only song on this list that’s aged poorly. It’s a novelty country tune, a spoken-word gimmick where the only sung lyric is a male chorus chanting the song’s title in unison. This style had been done before, notably on Jimmy Dean’s 1961 hit “Big Bad John,” but there’s a reason why it was already a rare stylistic choice by ‘64. If you don’t remember “Ringo” or you’ve never heard it, don’t be alarmed—it ought to be lost in the landfill of pop chart ephemera completely.

22. Louis Armstrong: “Hello, Dolly!”

Louis Armstrong is one of the most important jazz voices and trumpeters ever, but “Hello, Dolly!” is old hat now. While the Broadway musical title-track unseated the Beatles’ then-14-week reign at #1, it didn’t have the staying power to stick around—as Mary Wells’s “My Guy” would soon replace it. But “Hello, Dolly!” is, without a doubt, a phenomenal part of the Broadway lexicon—a track that, despite its lack of ingenue in the company of British Invasion and Motown acts, measures up with a legacy as equally potent. Not all successes can be measured by weeks spent at #1, but 1964 had far more interesting work to offer.

21. Bobby Vinton: “There! I’ve Said It Again”

No disrespect to the great Bobby Vinton for this bottom-five placement, but 1964 was simply just one of the best years in music history. “There! I’ve Said It Again” was Vinton’s first of two #1s that year, and it was the second time the Redd Evans and David Mann-penned track reached the top of the chart (the first being Vaughn Monroe’s version of the song going #1 on the Records Most-Played on the Air chart in 1945). It’s one of those cross-generation standards that sounds great with any voice, but Vinton’s four-week run at #1 stood no chance against the impending 14-week run the Beatles would have right after.

20. The Beatles: “Love Me Do”

Released originally in the UK in 1962, “Love Me Do” was the Beatles’ debut single—yet it was their fourth #1 hit on the Hot 100 in 1964 alone. One of the greatest Merseybeat songs ever made, “Love Me Do” doesn’t have the dynamics of the other Beatle songs that topped the charts this year, but its quality remains terrific. Paul McCartney and John Lennon share duet vocals, while Lennon’s harmonica is the most identifiable part of the work. Funnily enough, the version of “Love Me Do” that went #1 in the States does not feature Ringo Starr on drums. Instead, it’s a session drummer by the name of Andy White, who filled in for Ringo (who was featured on drums on the Parlophone pressing that went #1 in the UK).

19. Bobby Vinton: “Mr. Lonely”

Against all odds, after the Beatles managed to secure the top spot on the Hot 100 for 18 total weeks, nine different artists nabbed the brass—including Bobby Vinton, whose second #1 hit of 1964, “Mr. Lonely,” spent one week as the biggest song in America. It’s one of Vinton’s all-time great songs, neck-and-neck with “Blue Velvet” and “I Love How You Love Me.” I’d argue this was the singer’s commercial peak, spending 15 total weeks on the charts across two years. It’s one of my favorite vocal performances of the 1960s.

18. The Four Seasons: “Rag Doll”

How good of a year was 1964 for music? Well, “Rag Doll” is the seventh-worst #1 hit of that year—that should say it all. The Four Seasons’ fourth #1 hit (after “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man”) is my personal favorite of theirs, one of the more sentimental entries in the group’s catalog. Frankie Valli sounds fabulous here, as do his backup singers Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi and Bob Guadio, the latter of whom was a co-writer on the song with producer Bob Crewe. The Four Seasons wouldn’t have another #1 hit for 11 years—not until “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)”—but “Rag Doll” was the perfect end-cap to the group’s incredible ‘60s run (and Valli is still cutting up a rug to this song on stage in 2024).

17. The Dixie Cups: “Chapel of Love”

You can’t argue against anything Phil Spector helped make, especially “Chapel of Love,” which he co-wrote with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich in 1963. The song was originally recorded by one of Spector’s greatest artists, Darlene Love, but that take didn’t see an official release until the 1990s. After Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller started their own label, Red Birds Records, with George Goldner, the Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love” was the imprint’s very first release. The Ronettes would record a version of it for their debut album, and Bette Midler would take a turn with the song in 1973, but nothing stands up with the Dixie Cups’ chart-topping ace-in-the-hole. It knocked the Beatles out of the #1 spot and was one of seven singles that year to spend more than one week at the top of the Hot 100. “Chapel of Love” is also, somehow, the first of two songs on this list that, at some point, became intertwined with the character arc of Quinn Fabray on Glee. That feels worth pointing out.

16. Manfred Mann: “Do Wah Diddy”

In 1963, an American vocal group by the name of the Exciters recorded the Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich-penned “Do Wah Diddy,” but most of us know it best as the slam-dunk hint by the English beat band Manfred Mann, whose version would reign over America for two weeks in October 1964. This song has been close to me for as long as I can remember; it was sung in Stripes and Full House, and I can remember watching Geri and the Atrics singing it on an episode of The Muppet Show. Like “Oh, Pretty Woman,” “Do Wah Diddy” is a special part of mainstream music’s rock ‘n’ roll language—the kind of song that lives countless lives outside of itself, remaining crucial to the zeitgeist 10, 20 and 30 years after its initial release.

15. Peter and Gordon: “A World Without Love”

In the summer of 1964, the Beatles didn’t have a #1 hit for eight consecutive weeks—or, perhaps the Hot 100 wants you to believe that to be true. In that time, Peter and Gordon scored a chart-topper with their first-ever single, “A World Without Love”—an incredible pop-rock song that was written by, yes, Paul McCartney (and credited, of course, to Lennon-McCartney). McCartney penned the track when he was 16. The Peter in Peter and Gordon—Peter Asher—was sharing a room with McCartney at the time and asked the Beatle bassist if he and Gordon Waller could record the track. Not believing that “A World Without Love” was good enough to be a Beatles song, McCartney gave it to his roommate and the rest was history—becoming one of just two Lennon-McCartney songs recorded by another artist to reach #1 (alongside a recording of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by Elton John).

14. Dean Martin: “Everybody Loves Somebody”

When you stack songs by the Rat Pack up against a band like the Beatles, it’s a collision of generations—of fads and good-natured faith, timelessness versus archaic recessions. It’s almost impossible to compare a song like “Everybody Loves Somebody” with something like “Love Me Do” or “She Loves You,” but few traditional pop songs have ever aged as gracefully as Dean Martin’s #1 hit that spent a week atop the charts in August 1964—a track previously recorded by Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra before Dino sent it to the moon. To see an Italian-American crooner snag the top spot on the Hot 100 in-between the Beatles and the Supremes remains one of mainstream music’s most unlikely, unprecedented feats. Dino’s son, Dean Paul Martin, was 12 years old then and loved the Fab Four. “I’m gonna knock your pallies off the charts,” his dad told him, only to make good on his promise.

13. The Beatles: “I Feel Fine”

The final #1 hit of 1964, “I Feel Fine” soared to the top of the charts on Boxing Day and remained there for the first two weeks of 1965. The track is primitive for its early use of feedback (caused by McCartney plucking the A string on his bass guitar and Lennon’s guitar leaning against McCartney’s bass amp) and, subjectively, I think it’s one of the Beatles’ most underrated hits. That opening riff is unmistakable, and it was inspired by Bobby Parker’s “Watch Your Step,” and Ringo’s drumming was inspired by Ray Charles’s “What’d I Say.” By the time “I Feel Fine” came out, the Beatles were studio pros and taking big risks with their noise. While the Kinks and the Who had already applied feedback to their music in live settings, Lennon and McCartney were one of the first groups to usher that technique onto a vinyl pressing. They were so taken aback by what they’d found that they called it “voodoo.”

12. The Supremes: “Baby Love”

The second of five consecutive #1 singles for the Supremes, “Baby Love” is one of the most iconic Holland-Dozier-Holland compositions ever—making Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson the first Motown group to ever have multiple chart-topping songs. Berry Gordy wanted another hit, so H-D-H intentionally made “Baby Love” sound like its successful predecessor, “Where Did Our Love Go.” With the Funk Brothers backing the trio up, “Baby Love” arrived as a wholehearted treasure—a blueprint for all femme groups to follow in the Supremes’ high-heeled footsteps. It would secure a Grammy nomination for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording (losing, unjustly, to Nancy Wilson’s “How Glad I Am”) and remains not just one of the greatest pop songs to come out of Hitsville, USA, but one of the most beloved songs in the lexicon of contemporary music altogether.

11. The Animals: “The House of the Rising Sun”

A traditional American folk song first called “Rising Sun Blues,” “The House of the Rising Sun” was first discovered in 1930s Appalachia but has English roots. Musicologists have determined that it was crafted under the influence of broadside ballads and resembles a 16th-century ballad called “The Unfortunate Rake” (though no one has been able to corroborate whether or not that likeness was intentional). Some of the earliest versions of the songs were done by American miners in 1905, Gwen Foster in 1933 and Roy Acuff in 1938. Woody Guthrie would record a version, as did Lead Belly, the Weavers, Andy Griffith, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, but the definitive version belongs to the Animals, who recorded and released it in 1964 and watched it go to #1 in September of that year. It remained at the top of the charts for three weeks, vaulted by the one-two punch of Eric Burdon’s shredded, dark-tinted vocals and Alan Price’s haunted, ghoulish Vox Continental organ.

10. The Beatles: “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

Canonically considered to be one of the Beatles’ greatest works, I don’t hold “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to as high of a regard as most—only because I think the Fab Four had far more compelling tracks from this era. But the proof is there: The song sold over a million advance copies in the UK and was given an official American release just a month later, mere days before 1964 began. The song would climb to #1 by February 1st and stay there until mid-March—the second-longest-charting #1 single the Beatles would ever release, behind “Hey Jude.” It was the band’s first-ever chart-topping hit in the United States and its supremacy would guarantee that the Beatles would never be relegated to any sort of monocultural source of intrigue. Billboard named it the 48th biggest hit of all time in 2018, and one of the greatest songs to feature no real lead singer. The magic is in Lennon and McCartney’s harmonizing.

9. Roy Orbison: “Oh, Pretty Woman”

Co-written with Bill Dees, there are very few songs in American history as beautiful as Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.” It was released in August 1964 and certified Gold by that October, becoming Billboard’s #4 song of the year. It was the second and final Orbison song to hit #1, and his last Top 10 hit for 25 years. “Oh, Pretty Woman” was inspired by Orbison’s wife, Claudette, and Dees’s declaration that “a pretty woman never needs any money” upon Orbison asking her if she had enough cash for her night out. The phrase stuck, and Orbison recorded the song with Jerry Kennedy, Wayne Moss and Billy Sanford, the latter of whom is credited with playing that opening guitar riff that’s recognizable from a mile away. “Oh, Pretty Woman” didn’t reinvent rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s one of the greatest earworms ever laid to tape.

8. Mary Wells: “My Guy”

Mary Wells may not have had the career longevity of the Supremes or Marvin Gaye, but she was one of Motown’s greatest weapons. Her work for the label transcended perfection, and her 1964 hit song “My Guy” is a soul masterpiece that topped the Hot 100 for two weeks in May of that year. Written by Smokey Robinson, “My Guy” is my favorite Funk Brothers instrumentation ever. How do you know the song is great? Dave Hamilton is credited with just “vibes” on the liner notes. That’s a good way of summing up the energy of “My Guy,” though, as the vibes are, indeed, immaculate. The song would be Wells’ last solo hit with Motown, and what a way to exit. Her career would never recover after she signed with 20th Century Fox, but “My Guy” is a catchy, melodic ode to fidelity that remains a definitive piece of Motown’s early catalog.

7. The Beatles: “A Hard Day’s Night”

The title track from the greatest music movie of all time and the album that sent the Beatles careening straight into a legacy they’d never lose command of, “A Hard Day’s Night” is recognizable from that first guitar strum of George Harrison’s Rickenbacker 360 12-string. It’s as important a note in the band’s history as the E major that concludes “A Day in the Life”—a fitting pair of bookends to the greatest creative stretch in rock ‘n’ roll history. Jeremy Summerly called it “the most discussed pop opening of all time.” Ringo came up with the malaprop title and Lennon wrote the track in one night; the Fab Four gathered at Studio 2 in EMI Studios and, supposedly, recorded nine takes in three hours. Lennon lifted the “When I get home to you” line from a birthday card sent to his son Julian by a fan, and McCartney sings the “When I’m home, everything seems to be right” bridge because John “couldn’t reach the notes.” “A Hard Day’s Night” would hold court at #1 for two weeks in August before getting unseated by Dean Martin.

6. The Beatles: “Can’t Buy Me Love”

The first single from A Hard Day’s Night to reach #1, “Can’t Buy Me Love” was Paul McCartney’s first stroke of mad genius—an argument that his penchant for pop hooks was greater than John Lennon’s, but that’s a debate for another day. McCartney wrote the song on an upright piano in a Paris hotel, feeling the pressure of “I Want to Hold Your Hand”’s resounding chart success. It’s a 12-bar blues song, a formulaic approach the Beatles rarely ever used in their work, but it worked and became, in my opinion, the band’s best single from 1964—and the first song of theirs without the background harmonies that gave shape to their previous hits. The story goes that, until 1991, “Can’t Buy Me Love” had the biggest position jump in Hot 100 history, going from #27 to #1 in just one week. In the song’s second week at the top of the chart, the Beatles had 13 other songs on the Hot 100 beneath it. If anything, “Can’t Buy Me Love” is the pinnacle of one of the greatest commercial runs in pop music history.

5. The Supremes: “Where Did Our Love Go”

When the Supremes released Where Did Our Love Go, the best soul record of the decade, in 1964, it quickly became a powerhouse of doo-wop and pop-soul that yielded six lead singles, all of which made an appearance on the Hot 100. The fourth single, and first #1 hit for the group, “Where Did Our Love Go,” established the Supremes as the premier girl group in America and made Diana Ross a household voice. It was the first of five consecutive #1 hits for the Supremes, but “Where Did Our Love Go” has aged beautifully over the years. Like on “Ooo Baby Baby,” Jack Ashford lays down a great vibraphone here, while the Funk Brothers, again, turn a Motown track into a catchy, melodic slice of pop euphoria.

4. The Beach Boys: “I Get Around”

“I Get Around” was America’s curbing of the British Invasion. As Beatlemania was raging, the Beach Boys were able to strike gold with a #1 hit amidst all the English fury. Combining surf-rock with energetic doo-wop and that California sound, “I Get Around” is a diaristic song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love about their newfound fame post-“Surfin’ U.S.A.” and it hauls major ass. With a B-side (double A-side in our hearts) of “Don’t Worry Baby,” “I Get Around” is the poster-child for one of the greatest single releases in rock ‘n’ roll history. Love sings co-lead, while Brian applies a chorus falsetto lead behind him. It’s a combination that is lights-out, and, with the Wrecking Crew behind them, “I Get Around” is a layered, edgy, warping pop record that still feels pristine 60 years later.

3. The Supremes: “Come See About Me”

Though I adore Diana Agron’s (as Quinn Fabray) cover of this song on Glee, “Come See About Me” is the Supremes’ crowning achievement (rivaled only by “You Can’t Hurry Love”). I think it’s one of the coolest-sounding tracks Motown ever put out, with that fade-in guitar from Joe Messina that acts like a definitive intro that cannot be shaken. Diana Ross employs this very delicate, almost angelic delivery on her vocals—which Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson back up with precision. Their harmonies launch Ross’ lead into the stratosphere, while the Funk Brothers experiment with pop instrumentation that Motown had never really embellished prior. “Come See About Me” hit #1 on the Hot 100, as Supremes songs often did, and even unseated the Beatles from the top spot in January 1965. Not many artists can claim that feat, but, then again, the Supremes are much better than almost any other band that has ever existed.

2. The Beatles: “She Loves You”

The Beatles’ second #1 single of 1964, “She Loves You,” was one of the only slow-burn hits of their career. It was released in the States in September 1963 but didn’t soar to the top of the Hot 100 until March of the following year—unseating “I Want to Hold Your Hand” after a seven-week run at #1. The “yeah, yeah, yeah” refrain that we’ve come to associate with the Beatles, which Lennon implemented after hearing Elvis use it in “All Shook Up,” is alive here and delivered in one of the sweetest three-part harmonies in music history. Lennon and McCartney began writing “She Loves You” while they were on tour with Roy Orbison and Gerry and the Pacemakers in the summer of 1963, with McCartney declaring that he and Lennon were inspired by the call-and-response of Bobby Rydell’s hit song “Forget Him.” The Beatles would make a few dozen songs better than this one, but it remains one of the most intoxicating pop-rock songs ever—and one that begins with the hook instead of a verse, no less.

1. The Shangri-Las: “Leader of the Pack”

Now that I think about it, Americans should have been punished for letting Lorne Greene’s “Ringo” unseat the Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack” from the #1 position in December 1964. It was the year’s greatest injustice, as “Leader of the Pack” is one of the most important girl-group songs of all time—and maybe the best example of a “teenage tragedy song” to ever land anywhere on the Hot 100 chart. George “Shadow” Morton—along with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich—wrote the song for the Goodies (known, also, as the Bunnies) but it became the follow-up to the Shangri-Las’ Top 5 hit “Remember (Walking in the Sand).” It’s about a girl named Betty who dates Jimmy, a leader of a motorcycle gang “from the wrong side of town.” Betty’s parents disapprove of her dating him and, crushed by the news, Jimmy dies after speeding away in anger. Morton produced the song, lending space to Mary Weiss’s vocal, the studio band’s powerhouse instrumental and the theatrics of a motorcycle engine revving through the melody and tires screeching into a fadeout. It’s one of the most brilliant singles ever released.