EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by alphanguy, Jan 29, 2016.

  1. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    Paint It Black went to #1 in Billboard.
     
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  2. Dougd

    Dougd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fla.
    Oops. I got that song mixed up with Black is Black, a similar-titled song.
     
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  3. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    I've been known to get those mixed up too. :)
     
  4. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Interesting... This song got a LOT of airplay on our late, lamented oldies station. Of course, it was a long time before I knew the name of it!
     
  5. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Boy, it sure felt like 4 minutes! :cool:
     
  6. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    I remember talking about this when we were discussing Respect. I'm not sure if anyone was able to definitively answer whether that song came up with the phrase, or it was just a saying that was around that Aretha threw in there (it wasn't in Redding's version IIRC). It definitely predated Laugh In, however.
     
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  7. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Trying to play catch up...

    This Guy's In Love With You

    It is one of the ironies of Herb Alpert's career that his biggest hit of the 60s was one of the few that wasn't an instrumental. I always liked this song, and the fact that Alpert isn't a professional quality singer makes it all the more charming. A real singer would overwhelm the mellow vibe I think.

    This is one I almost never heard on oldies radio. I only know the song because my mom was/is a huge Herb Alpert fan. Yes, I was one of those boys who realized he liked the way girls looked when he first spied that Whipped Cream album cover. :)

    I heard his stuff so much as a kid it's hard to know which one I like the most. I guess the Lonely Bull or Spanish Flea; Lonely Bull really puts the Tijuana in the Tijuana Brass. As far as his covers, I like A Taste of Honey, a song I knew mainly from his version until I started to complete my Beatles collection.

    Grazing in the Grass

    It's one of those interesting twists that 1968 saw back-to-back #1 hits by guys who were primarily known as trumpeters. Grazing in the Grass was a song that was literally never played on oldies radio, but weirdly, the cover of that song by the Friends of Distinction WAS often played. So here's a case where a cover/alternate version of a big hit is the one that has come down to us while the bigger hit has been 'lost'. I quite like the Friends version, better than Hugh's version to be honest.

    Here are the Friends doing the number in 1970. The ladies really are getting down!

     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2017
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  8. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Hugh Masekela played at the Monterey Pop Festival, and also accompanied the Byrds on one of their better mid-period songs, So You Want To Be a Rock N' Roll Star? Here is their collaboration! He doesn't appear in the video, but you can't mistake that horn, the first use of brass in a Byrds single.

     
  9. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    As I mentioned, one of my favorites of the Tijuana Brass, A Taste of Honey. Man, this brings back a lot of ancient memories for me!

     
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  10. thecdguy

    thecdguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia, Pa.
    "Black Is Black" made it to #4 in Billboard.
     
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  11. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    I can take or leave People Got to Be Free. For me the Rascals were like the Animals in the UK, meaning they were probably my least favourite of all the big topnotch acts from their respective nations. But I like enough of each's songs to have a compilation or two. For the Rascals, I always liked It's Wonderful, probably the least substantial of any of their songs, but several others are okay. It's a case of a good band that didn't really make an impact on me personally.
     
  12. tmoore

    tmoore Forum Resident

    Location:
    Olney, MD
    That's exactly what my mom said about the Tijuana Brass, that once he hit it big with Whipped Cream album, the Tijuana influence went away.

    And she liked him doing vocals even less. Not so much "This Guy's in Love With You", but the ones he did after that (e.g. "Without Her" and "To Wait For Love").

    But I think she still liked the non-vocal sides, at least for a few years, since she kept buying the records and singles at least up to 1970 and "Jerusalem". She definitely did not like 1979's "Rise".

    ==========
    Re: Grazing in the Grass. I am not in love with the Friends of Distinction version. The "gas" and "can you dig it?" lines really date it (badly) for me, as I was a little too young to experience those times.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2017
  13. snepts

    snepts Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene, OR
    I've done some short, crappy research on Sock It To Me.
    One of the more satisfying replies was this :

    "Well, observe the difference. You pay eight cents and four mills, we pay only four cents."
    I prepared, now to sock it to him. I said: "Look here, dear friend, what's become of your hige wages you were bragging about a few minutes ago" -- and I looked round on the company with placid satisfaction.
    From _A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur_ (1889) by Mark Twain

    Makes sense to me. In a position to deliver a telling blow. " I was prepared to sock it to him." I can dig that.
     
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  14. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    Herb Alpert's first #1 was in 1968. Here he is today with his just-released new album, MUSIC VOL 1, playing the Jason Mraz hit, "I'mYours". Not bad for an octogenarian!



    Still classy after all these years!
     
  15. snepts

    snepts Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene, OR
    Hilarious ! I'd love to be the trombone player in that band. Plus there are pretty girls who just dance and hang around.
    No, I'm not naive to what was popular at the time, but it's still a little funny to see the video, everybody just chillin' like this is what life might actually be like.
    "Hey, I'm Herb the-sheik-of Alpert, and this is my band. This is our life!" It's so cheesy, but that's how it was back then. I like it, but ... it's questionable.
     
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  16. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I find it interesting that, in a forum with a bunch of baby-boomers and Gen-X'ers, that a lot of members don't listen to classic music. I cannot count the many times someone has posted that they hadn't heard a 6-s or 70s song in decades. What are y'all listening to?:confused:
     
  17. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    The Urban Dictionary will provide more accurate definitions and history, as "sock it to me" is slang from the 60s.

    Urban Dictionary: sock it to me
     
  18. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    I never got much of a chance to talk abut this song when we were discussing Windy, but yeah, it's by far my favorite Association song, and I love Windy and many of their other numbers.

    When I'm thinking about soft sixties songs that just work, this one is at the top of the heap. Mellow, pretty, heartfelt, with a gorgeous melody and phenomenal harmonies. Larry Ramos really knew how to sing a love song! I totally dig the organ sound. And the way the song fades out; it's one of my favorite endings of all time, especially when it gets a little more insistent on the third go round and the keyboard jams into the fade.

     
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  19. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Hello I Love You

    The last time we talked about the Doors, I wrote a somewhat dismissive review of Light My Fire. I was channeling the high school memories of all those overbearing Doors fans who treated Jim Morrison like he was just so edgy, man. But looking back, I think I might have been a little unfair to the band. Oh, I don't take back anything I wrote :), but I do think there is more to say beyond the negative.

    For one, as I started to think about what to write about Hello, I Love You, I realized there were more Doors songs I liked than I had previously thought. I can see that they were really two, two, two bands in one. On the one side was the concise, pop-friendly singles band, and on the other side the group that reveled in interminable overstatement. No points if you guess which band I prefer. But I also think that the other guys somewhat let Morrison overwhelm them with his ego. Let's face it, as a jam band, the Doors are not in the same league as, say, the Dead (another group with overbearing fans, but that's another story :) ). If you enjoy watching Morrison go wherever his stoned mind will take him, I suppose the long stuff is for you. But for me, I think it's a shame that a not-untalented guy couldn't reign in his excesses more often.

    As far as the long stuff goes, about the only one of them I like is L.A. Woman, and even that one gets to the edge of annoying during the Mojo Rising business. I love the other part, though; it has a propulsive, urban quality that always makes me think of driving down a lively city street on a weekend.

    [​IMG]

    But for me, it's the short stuff that really is their strength. Touch Me is a great little number, but what I like is that this one, unlike Light My Fire, really does have some great instrumental sections. I guess they learned what works in the intervening years (and what they learned is, hire great session musicians if you are going to have instrumental passages). The first 30-40 seconds of this song might be the best thing they ever did.

    As for Hello, I Love You, I have to admit it's probably my least favorite of their concise numbers. I always forget that THIS is their other number one. For some reason, I always think it's Love Me Two Times, which has a wonderful bluesy quality AND a nice pop structure. I even like Morrison's voice on that one, something I will rarely cop to.

    [​IMG]

    Another song of theirs I like is People Are Strange. What I like about that one is that it is a rare instance of Morrison being willing to project himself into a narrative about a character who is not a Dionysian love god. 'Women seem wicked/when you're unwanted' - that's as un-Morrisonlike a lyric as you can get. It almost makes me like him a little. (Almost).

    Hello I Love You came about when they were working on their third album. IIRC, some of the band members admitted that they had run out of old pre-fame material by this time and had been too busy touring to come up with much good new stuff. So they went to the well, digging up an poem of Morrison's he had written several years earlier. It was his style to write lyrics down that had associated melodies, in the hopes he would remember the tune later. Sometimes he wouldn't and he would end up with just a poem. In this case, he did remember the tune. He wrote it while sitting on a roof in Venice, California, watching a beautiful black girl walk down the street. The song is OK, but I can't hear the hooks, the power, or frankly the reason that the public decided that it should be a hit, let alone a chart topper.

    But since the song I always think got to #1 is Love Me Two Times, that's the one I'll pop in below. Better than Hello, I Love You? I sure think so!

     
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  20. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Wow, at the above link there were about fifty explanations as to how the phrase came about!

    I'll go with Mark Twain, or perhaps Twain himself was quoting an existing phrase. Heck, let's just say George Washington said it to the enemy after crossing the Delaware and leave it at that! :winkgrin:
     
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  21. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    People Got to Be Free

    A huge hit for the Rascals, but to be honest I never much liked this one. It's too churchy for my tastes. Sometimes when it comes on the radio (and they play this one a lot), I briefly think I'm listening to Three Dog Night. I wouldn't be surprised if those guys listened closely to this one when they were forming their sound, because the similarity is striking to me.

    Although it's not my fave, I do give them credit for writing something from the heart and insisting it get released even though the record company was resistant.

    The odd thing about this was that this super smash hit ended their reign as top hit makers. At least in America. They never had another top twenty hit here, but in Canada, they managed four more top ten hits and 11 in a row (!). In 1970, they started to lose members, and that was pretty much that in terms of hits anywhere.

    Here is one of their Canadian smashes :cool: from 1969, Heaven. Never heard it before, but was curious and looked it up. This is from Beat Club (a German TV show).



    PS - it's distracting how much Dino Danelli looks like Paul McCartney, although his facial expressions while playing are most un-Paul like! For that matter, Eddie Brigati seems to be channeling Dave Davies of the Kinks here.
     
  22. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    You don't like the message of the song?
     
  23. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    "People got to be free" is a good song, hard to argue with the sentiment. Has anyone else mentioned the obvious use of Stax instrumentation and style? I especially hear a lot of Sam and Dave style backing here, which is a good thing.
     
  24. Victor/Victrola

    Victor/Victrola Makng shure its write

    Hello, I Love You
    This is about the only Doors song I like - mainly because it is over before it gets annoying.

    People Got To Be Free
    Not my favorite Rascals song (that would be Good Lovin') but this track laid the groundwork for their image of being peace-loving hippies and I mean that in the nicest way imaginable.
     
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  25. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    I wonder that myself sometimes. I listen to NOTHING from the last 20 years, today I've been Od'ing on Dave and Sugar.
     
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