I always had a lost of mistrust for Billboard's HOT 100 chart. Over the years, they have changed their methodologies of determining what was a hit so many times that you simply cannot compare one era to aother.
Back in the early 1970s, airplay on just a few AM Top 40 stations and record sales in a relatively small sampling of retail record stores determined where a record sat on the charts. Also, in order to chart on the HOT 100, the song had to be an officially released single (not just an album track).
So it was very easily manipulated. If you could get a handful of key stations to play the new Barry Manilow song and send a pallet of the 45 singles to each of the key record stores at a discount (to the stores), you could get that song up in the Top 10 in no time at all.
Nowadays, chart placement is determined mostly by how many times a song is streamed on the various platforms like Spotify and Pandora. It's overall a better way of doing things but the charts look a lot stranger these days, as a new album release by an established superstar can have every single album track placed in the HOT 100 all at once.
About a year ago, country star Morrgan Wallen released a 36-track album and every single cut made the HOT 100 that week. It was bandied about that Morgan smashed The Beatles record of having a bunch of songs on the charts back in 1964.
Not quite the same thing however. Not even close.
Early in the Beatles intro to US charts, they had top 5 spots - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 at the same time.
We are pretty close in age, and I grew up in Connecticut listening to Casey Kasem on WDRC, even getting a Long Distance Dedication in 1982. Also won the Captain Fantastic contest in 1975 by holding the last digit of the phone call to the station until I heard the Captain Fantastic whistle.
By definition, the Billboard Hot 100 doesn’t do album tracks. That wasn’t what it was for. So, Bruce Springsteen could be on the cover of both Time AND Newsweek, and the “Born to Run” single didn’t crack the Top 10.
Billy Joel was a bigger thing in Connecticut than nationwide in 1973 (possibly due to him being NYC centric). I remember his Turnstiles album was only available in mono from the Columbia Record Club, so he was pretty fresh then.
“Show Me the Way” only made #6 (as I recall), even though “Frampton Comes Alive” was among the all-time greatest selling albums.
I was told by a former Billboard employee that there was latitude in chart placement (advance orders and radio airplay being especially squishy measurements). That is how the Captain Fantastic album could debut at #1. I got suspicious when a novelty record called “18 With a Bullet” debuted at #18 . . . with a bullet. I have no idea how they measured double-sided hits (e.g. Ringo Starr’s Snookeroo/No-No Song, Wings’ Jr’s Farm/Sally G, Elton John’s “Grow Some Funk/Feel Like a Bullet”)
Of course “Piano Man” was a thing, but it was not a Top 20 single. His follow-up “The Entertainer” from Streetside Serenade barely tickled the Top 40, even though I liked the number. He had to get out of singing and playing songs about singing and playing songs before he could hit really big.
I certainly agree that you cannot compare one era with another. There was something democratically leveling about going to the Barker’s store and buying a 45 of your choice for 69 cents. A half dozen streaming sites with different track pricing and promotional models and freebies throws everything off. It would be like if they counted those Archies’ records that were printed on the backs of “Super Sugar Crisp” cereal.