Every UK #1 Single Of 1973 Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Bobby Morrow, Jun 5, 2018.

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  1. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Continued from http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/every-uk-1-single-between-1972-1984-discussion-thread-part-1-1972.748602/:)


    1973 was the year I properly got into music. Mainly, as I’ve explained before, thanks to my neighbour. Still, I found my own way a little too. Listening to Radio’s 1 and Luxembourg... Watching TOTP and any of the few other music TV programmes when I could.. By the summer I was having Record Mirror ‘delivered’ to my house each week. I was only allowed one magazine so I had to cancel Whizzer & Chips in order to get RM.:D

    We weren’t a music loving family and I had no older siblings. People have asked me how I fared with the older 50s/60s type stuff... Pretty easily... I heard very little of it. My parents had very few records. Outside of the occasional ‘oldie’ on the radio, I was largely oblivious to the past, music wise, for years. Even if I had been aware of older stuff, I couldn’t have afforded to buy it. I had enough on scraping money together to buy the singles of 1973.:D

    And 1973 was a great year (IMO) for pop singles.. Acts like Bowie, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Slade, the Carpenters and Wizzard would have the best chart years of their careers. Teenybop stuff was alive and well with David Cassidy and The Osmonds peaking. Plus, lots of new acts like Mud, David Essex, Suzi Quatro, Medicine Head and, erm, Barry Blue came through. Even Wings had a few hits.:D

    So, let’s get stuck into 1973. It won’t always be pretty, but it should mostly be fun.:)
     
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  2. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    The first #1 of 1973 was dear Jimmy Osmond’s Long Haired Lover From Liverpool. The little tyke would stick it out until 27th January when Sweet’s Blockbuster! (or Block Buster) would hit the top and stay there for 5 weeks.




    "Block Buster!" (also sometimes listed as "Blockbuster!") is a 1973 single by Sweet. Written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, and produced by Phil Wainman, "Block Buster!" was the band's sole UK No. 1 hit. Released in January 1973, it spent five weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart,[2] and also made #1 in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Ireland, and #3 in Finland, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. Outside Europe it peaked at #1 in New Zealand, #29 in Australia and at #73 on the American Billboard Hot 100
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
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  3. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    The excellent B-side, Need A Lot Of Lovin’.

     
  4. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Typically unexciting UK single.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Germany got a picture sleeve.[​IMG]

    As did the Netherlands.

    [​IMG]
     
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  5. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Sweet on TOTP the week Blockbuster! hit #1 (25/1/73)

     
  6. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Blockbuster! was a single my neighbour had. Copy-cat that I was, I wanted it too. However, this was at the very start of my record buying life and by the time I’d gotten the money together, Blockbuster! was ‘old’ and falling down the charts. So, I decided I’d get the just-released follow up, Hell Raiser, instead. This was mainly so I could watch it climb the charts and be in on it from the start. As a novice this made absolute sense to me.:) It was rather a daft move though as I never liked Hell Raiser anywhere near as much as Blockbuster!:D

    But Blockbuster!, eh? What a single. Sweet had been doing well for a couple of years at this point, but Blockbuster! took them to another level. It would be their only #1, which is a shame considering the fantastic run of singles they’d put out in 1973/4. I still love the song today and I consider it the moment Sweet truly arrived.

    Anyone tempted to buy their albums had better like hard rock as Sweet’s singles didn’t really represent the group at all... Luckily, the sap loving me didn’t make that mistake as someone I knew had their current album at the time and I suitably put off by it’s ‘rawk’ sound.:D
     
  7. bob60

    bob60 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    This is a fabulous single by one of the great singles bands.
    By now glam was huge and nobody embraced glam like Steve Priest. To watch The Sweet on TOTP was a thing of wonder, even if just to see the look of horror on the faces of your parents at Steve Priest winked, pouted and blew kisses at the camera. This was now the era of whilst watching TOTP your dad might get up off his chair, walk towards the TV, bend over whilst rubbing his eyes and ask 'is that a man or a woman'?
    To be young when generation gaps still existed was fantastic.
    Steve was way out there in the fashion stakes, as he once reminded us, he wore hot pants on TOTP 18 months before Bowie was wearing them.

    All hail Steve, Andy, Mick and Brian for bringing some much needed fun, colour and camp into the early 70's. And of course a fantastic run of Glam stompers.
     
  8. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    The chart for the 2nd week Sweet were at #1. Blockbuster! would keep both Gary Glitter’s Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah) and the Strawbs’ Part Of The Union at #2.

    [​IMG]
     
  9. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Steve Priest always looked like he was in on the joke. I remember my mum used to like his ‘lines’ on the Sweet singles.
     
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  10. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Good old generic RCA die-cut sleeves.:)

    [​IMG]
     
  11. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Some more Blockbuster! picture sleeves.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  12. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    In the U.S., this, like The Sweet's other recordings at the time, were issued on Bell Records, cat. #45,361. Have yet to see a CBS Pitman copy of this one. No exclamation point on the title, and radio station copies had a siren sound effect taken out. However, CBS Terre Haute did make their own pressings, which coupling is the same as the UK:
    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
  13. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Sweet should have been on Bell here too. Everyone else was.:)
     
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  14. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    Blockbuster! was the third straight number one I can recall clearly at the time. For some reason, a number of 10 and 11 year olds marched around our school playground singing it!

    I also soon squired the single: the TOTP performance was sensational, and I recall my very traditional mum liking it.

    The story that I heard regarding Steve Priest and his makeup, was that the makeup room was next to Pan's People's changing room. Makes sense and makes sense.

    What a song to finally dethrone Little Jimmy.
     
  15. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Would you have preferred Gary Glitter to have de, erm, throned Little Jimmy?
    :D
     
  16. carlwm

    carlwm Forum Resident

    Location:
    wales
    This! :righton:

    The Sweet are a great band. Possibly two great bands these days. Love the singles and also the rockier albums which remained brilliant even after poor Brian Connolly departed from the band.

    They should have topped the charts far more often!
     
  17. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    This was issued in the U.S. several months after it scored #1 here. In fact, Bell seemed to be behind the 8-ball with this group, either in releasing Sweet product or it charting. A single which was something of an oldie, "Little Willy," originally issued in Britain in May 1972 and peaking at #4, was released by Bell in the States around September, but crickets were chirping until the next spring (1973) when it finally peaked at #3.
    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  18. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    Both of these charts are just brilliant, it is hard to pick a few out as there is quality everywhere.
     
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  19. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    I remember it well.
     
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  20. carlwm

    carlwm Forum Resident

    Location:
    wales
    Good to see dear old Dick Emery propping up the singles charts. He's become the forgotten man of British comedy but he was pretty influential on a lot of later character based comedians, I reckon.
     
  21. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Of that list, the 45's I have are #6, 9, 12, 13, 18, 24, 30, 38, and 45; among the LP's in my collection are #2, 3, 14, 18, 19, 28, 37 - 39, 46 and 49.

    Meanwhile, in the U.S., Focus' "Hocus Pocus" was issued on the Sire label.
     
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  22. Andy Smith

    Andy Smith .....Like a good pinch of snuff......

    A major music year for me. Maybe the 'best'. 15 year old, plenty of pocket money to buy singles, and forming very definite opinions of what I liked and didn't like and seeing some marvellous gigs throughout '73 (& '74) - T.Rex, Roxy, Mud, the Strawbs, Mott the Hoople, Bowie, Sparks, good Queen, Slade, the Sweet, Gary Glitter, Lou Reed, Purple, Wizzard, Sabbath, Quo....... Being brought up in this country, being a Brit, we were - I think - very lucky as it was the Glam Rock era. Imagine hitting your stride in - shudder - the Disco era.....
     
  23. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Ah, but later on they would wind up in the States on Capitol.
     
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  24. steelvelvet20

    steelvelvet20 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Well before my time. But PETERS and LEE Welcome home I really like.
     
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  25. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    We're a little jumping ourselves ahead by a few months - but when we come to that I have something to say about it . . .
     
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