EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

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

  1. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    Jesus records that were big in Australia

    Jesus Was a Soul Man
    Jesus is Just Alright
    Superstar
    Put Your Hand in the Hand
    My Sweet Lord

    Aussie Jesus records

    Show Me the Way ~ Brian Cadd and Don Moodie
    The Prophet ~ Ronnie Burns

    Aussie hare krishna records

    Krishna Came ~ Tully
    Trust Me ~ Spectrum
    Krishna Loves You Too~ Matt Taylor
    Harry v Dirchy ~ Ariel
     
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  2. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    I remember Oh Happy Day from the '60s so it got airplay up here.

    I've learned who Brian Cadd, is he was behind this piece of brilliance from 1967, Woman You're Breaking Me by the Groop, that should have done a lot better up here:

     
  3. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member



    He was also in Axiom who were supposed be Australia's answer to The Band. This song throws in everything from Honky Tonk Women to highly orchestrated pop

    He later became musical director for 'The French Elvis' Johnny Hallyday
     
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  4. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    That's pretty good! I've never heard it before; I'll give it a preliminary B rating but it could be a grower.
     
  5. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    He wrote the B side of a #1 single by The Pointer Sisters which has probably sustained for the last couple of decades ;)



    B side of Fire
     
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  6. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Great clip!! This also reminds me how utterly sad it was that Australia didn't get color television broadcasts until 1975!
     
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  7. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    It certainly was, Motown went so far as to release and entire album of gospel , "Keys To The Kingdom" that had contributions from most every artist on the roster at the time.

     
  8. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Next up, we have "I Can't Get Next To You" by the Temptations, #1 from October 18 - October 31, 1969.

     
  9. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Here it is performed live on the Ed Sullivan show, September 28, 1969. (Date on video is obviously wrong)

     
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  10. Black Thumb

    Black Thumb Yah Mo B There

    Location:
    Reno, NV
    Love the Temps, but my go-to version of "Can't Get Next To You" is Al Green's. A more relaxed tempo seems to suit the song better.
     
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  11. zebop

    zebop Well Known Stranger

    Great. The change in style the Temptations did was still paying off. If they missed David Ruffin, they at least got a chance to hear all of the guys getting lines. This is probably one of the least dated of the 68-71 Whitfield psychedelic singles.
     
  12. snepts

    snepts Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene, OR
    I know the song "Oh Happy Day" but I don't know why. I sorta remember the Edwin Hawkins Singers.
    It's a good memory, although I'm not a gospel fan.
     
  13. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    The Temps were huge in my house, and this has always been a favorite.

    Love the Ed Sullivan clip, in part because it looks (to me) like the band were growing sick of the by then cheezy '60s Motown "choreography".
     
  14. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    "I can't get next to you" is pretty good. It's kind of a bare bones song made more interesting by the switching around of each singer's parts and those cool chords that begin the chorus. Coming out of the second chorus, it kinda loses momentum and meanders a bit, that section could've easily been edited out. That's pretty much what happens on the live clip, which is ok, but the tempo is a bit too fast.

    Anyone know what this beat out for #1? I like it, but it doesn't sound like a chart topper, unless the competition was a little weak at this time.
     
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  15. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    The WAY-toned down choreography is obvious - and welcome. It's fun to see each guy do his thing solo, too.
     
  16. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
     
  17. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    Now THAT's a song I dig a lot. Not many songs with that kind of slow, languid triplet groove ever made it big on the pop charts. Interesting that this one also divides the lead vocal into single lines sung by various group members. Love the chords and melodies on the verses and a solid chorus, too. Like this a lot more than "can't get next to you." Seems like I almost always prefer the a competing song to the actual #1 at the time.
     
  18. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Absolutely true, one of the better examples of this in 1969 was back in May, when this tune peaked at #34, but yet was #3 in the Boston Market, and top 10 in a handful of others:
     
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  19. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    Yeah - I heard this for the first time about 5 years ago. And I was a very avid AM listener when it was most popular. Shoulda been a contender.
     
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  20. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    Nothing But A Heartache and Hot Fun In The Summertime are truly superb records I'd love to see replace some of the lesser efforts we saw in '69. Yeah, the charts can be so unforgiving. This one by The Moody Blues for instance. #91...really??

     
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  21. pickwick33

    pickwick33 Forum Resident

    That proves my point more than Grant's - that the gospel influence was more up-front in soul than pop.
     
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  22. zebop

    zebop Well Known Stranger

    I think the religious/secular work of the late '60s to the mid '70s or so, was rooted in a lot of R&B. The sound was often given a contemporary sound to hook the R&B audiences. That's probably where the sub-genre settled since pop success like "Oh Happy Day" was few and far between. The evolution of the Staple Singers might be an interesting juncture to trace how the sound changed--and when it stopped.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2017
  23. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    As I mentioned when talking about Everyday People, The Temptations credited Sly Stone with the idea of divvying up the lead vocals, an idea that they used repeatedly during this period.

    Incidentally, this is my favorite of all the Family Stone songs. Almost no song makes me think 'summer' more than this one. 'I cloud nine when I want to!'
     
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  24. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Sugar Sugar

    With the ascension of this song to the top spot, bubble gum music reached its apogee. This song was everything that made bubble gum great: a completely bogus group (in fact, a cartoon!); bubble gum stalwarts Ron Dante and Don Kirschner involved; suggestive lyrics (why were so many bubble gum songs so unapologetically risque?); and best of all, irresistible hooks.

    The late sixties was not the only time a bogus group tangentially related to the comics got to #1; Alley Oop by the Hollywood Argyles managed the feat already nearly a decade previous. But 1969-70 was a time when seemingly every cartoon show on TV was featuring the characters either performing in a band or running away from bad guys while bubble gum music played (or sometimes both!). I was very young at the time, but some of my first memories were watching cartoons which featured these types of songs.

    The Archies was just another cartoon following this trend. The Archie gang had been around since the 40s, and in the late 60s they got another update to keep them hip with the times. No, the boys didn't grow their hair long, although Betty and Veronica's dresses did get shorter and shorter at this point, and the boy would occasionally sport a medallion around their necks or groovy clothing.

    [​IMG]

    And of course, now they were in a rock band. The Filmation cartoon was cheap even by the standards of the time. Once you saw one of the numbers performed, you basically knew what to expect from then on: that Reggie bobbed from side to side while playing his guitar, Veronica stood at her keyboards while pressing her foot repeatedly on the pedal, and Betty played the tambourine like an absolute dork. Even as a three or four year old I could tell this was not high art. But it was fun and that was all that mattered.

    [​IMG]

    Dante and company parlayed the Archies concept into a bunch of albums and several hit singles, although none was as massive as Sugar Sugar. Why did this one song hit so much bigger than the rest? It was the biggest hit of 1969, in fact. IMO, the hooks are a little bit hookier, and as later covers showed, it had some flexibility to be reinterpreted as more than kiddie fodder (I'm not picturing Wilson Pickett covering Bang Shang a Lang, but he did cover Sugar Sugar, even scoring a hit with it).

    Bubble gum songs often functioned on multiple levels: for the kids, the hooks were irresistible just like the sugary cereal with which these records sometimes were shipped (the Sugar Sugar 45 fittingly appeared on the back of Super Sugar Crisp cereal). For adults, there were the suggestive lyrics. It's not surprising that the Archies TV cartoon performance of Sugar Sugar does not feature anyone actually pouring sugar or honey all over Veronica or Archie; but the lyric is certainly intended to have a more sexual suggestion than a G-rated cartoon would allow.

    Other Archie songs were not suggestive at all, but still managed to sneak adult content into the lyrics that probably flew over the little tykes' heads (or scared the daylights out of them). My choice for prime nightmare fodder, Archies-style, is 'Mr. Factory'. Archie and the gang sing about how Mr. Factory is polluting the skies and rivers, while we watch dead fish bob in the water and kids asphyxiate. To quote another show Kirshner once did music for, 'Who writes this stuff?'



    Wacky aside: as a kid, I always thought Veronica was much more attractive than Betty, and obviously a better match for Archie. I suspected that the writers were aware of this, but felt trapped by the idea that he was never supposed to choose between Betty and Veronica and so tried to even the score by intentionally sabotaging Veronica and favoring Betty. In the cartoon, I resented the way they tried to make her hideous, from her horrible 'Archiekins' accent to her snobbery. To me, Betty was colorless and boring, but Ronnie looked like she would have been a heck of a lot of fun to pal around with. Yeah, I thought about this kind of stuff too much even then.

    [​IMG]

    Wacky aside two: The ARCHIES? Some ego you got there, Mr. Andrews. Wouldn't Reggie Mantle have objected being in a group named after his rival? How about Archie and the Riverdales at least? Yeah, I realize this rock group name was necessary for connection to the same-named comics, but in-world, there is no 'Archies' comic, so why would the group be called that? I TOLD YOU I THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS STUFF. ;)
     
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  25. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    This was the top 2o during the first week when "Can't get next to you" was #1

    BILLBOARD (USA) MAGAZINE'S SINGLES CHART FOR WEEK Of October 18,1969

    1 I CAN'T GET NEXT TO YOU-TEMPTATIONS
    2 HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME-Sly and the Family Stone
    3 SUGAR SUGAR-Archies
    4 JEAN-Oliver
    5 LITTLE WOMAN-Bobby Sherman
    6 SUSPICIOUS MINDS-Elvis Presley
    7 THAT'S THE WAY LOVE IS-Marvin Gaye
    8 WEDDING BELL BLUES-5th dimension
    9 EASY TO BE HARD-Three Dog Night
    10 TRACY-Cuff Links
    11 I'M GONNA MAKE YOU MINE-Lou Christie
    12 THIS GIRL IS A WOMAN NOW-Gary Puckett and the Union Gap
    13 BABY IT'S YOU-Smith
    14 HONKY TONK WOMEN-Rolling Stones
    15 EVERYBODY'S TALKIN'-Nilsson
    16 OH WHAT A NIGHT-Dells
    17 IS THAT ALL THERE IS-Peggy Lee
    18 I'LL NEVER FALL IN LOVE AGAIN-Tom Jones
    19 GREEN RIVER-Creedence Clearwater Revival
    20 SOMETHING-Beatles
     
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