Poll - What Is Your Favorite US #1 single from 1979?

"I Will Survive," a slight favorite over "Rise" and "Reunited". I can take or leave most of the others. There are a couple I dislike, but I don't wish to start a flame war on anyone's favorites here.

 

I went for Tragedy, though there are quite a few more I could have gone for. Hot Stuff. My Sharona. No More Tears. What A Fool Believes. Good year.

 

1979 was a great year for singles, but you wouldn't know it from the poll.

Kinks - (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman
Kinks - Low Budget
Kinks - Gallon of Gas
Roxy Music - Angel Eyes
Roxy Music - Dance Away
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
Pink Floyd - Another Brick In the Wall (Part 2)
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead
Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage
Frank Zappa - Dancin' Fool
Frank Zappa - Bobby Brown
The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
David Bowie - Boys Keep Swingin'
David Bowie - DJ
David Bowie - John, I'm Only Dancing
The Police - Can't Stand Losing You
The Police - Bring On the Night
The Police - Message In a Bottle
Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
Squeeze - Cool For Cats
Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot
Patti Smith - So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star
UFO - Doctor Doctor (Live)
Neil Young - Hey Hey, My My
AC/DC - Highway To Hell
Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated
The Clash - I Fought the Law
Joe Jackson - It's Different For Girls
Public Image Ltd. - Memories
Sex Pistols - Who Killed Bambi?

 

Heart of Glass, with some stiff competition.

 

I didn't know that "Hey Hey, My My" was a single!?

 

Released August 27, 1979

 

Lot of good songs but have to go with Hot Stuff by Donna.

 

For me it has to be Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, a wonderful song, but I am also a fan of the Bee Gees songs, Hot Stuff, Heart Of Glass, Good Times and even Do Ya Think I'm Sexy .

 

Bee Gees & since I can only pick one...Too Much Heaven.

Darryl

 

Nice list, I would add just a few others:

"Starry Eyes" - The Records
"Up the Junction" - Squeeze
"English Civil War" - The Clash
"Strange Town", "When You're Young", "The Eton Rifles" - The Jam

 

Probably the Doobie Bros, but Blondie and The Knack werte considerations as well!

 

Lots of great albums came out 79 but there not listed here.

 

Yipe not a good Year

 

My favorite is easily Heart Of Glass from that list. Runner ups for me would be the Rod Stewart, Eagles, Knack and Michael Jackson entries. The Doobie Brothers and Styx tunes are tolerable.

 

Good Times.

 

Okay, here we go. While "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" is my favorite on this list (and an all-time favorite by anyone for me), some GREAT 1979 singles aren't there. These are from the Billboard year-end top 100, so they're pretty mainstream...
Noting that where singles are concerned, taste means absolutely nothing. I would expect several of these to be on somebody else's "worst singles of 1979" list.

But for reasons good and ill, these all brought a smile whenever they came on.

"Time Passages" Al Stewart
"Sultans of Swing" Dire Straits
"Rock and Roll Fantasy" Bad Company
"I Want You To Want Me" Cheap Trick
"Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)" The Jacksons (this might have been the only 45 I actually bought that year)
"Everytime I Think Of You" The Babys
"Don't Bring Me Down" ELO
"Somewhere In The Night" Barry Manilow
"Dance The Night Away" Van Halen
"Love Is The Answer" England Dan & John Ford Coley
"Lotta Love" Nicolette Larson
"A Little More Love" Olivia Newton-John
"MacArthur Park" Donna Summer
"Shake Your Groove Thing" Peaches & Herb
"The Logical Song" Supertramp

FWIW, the year's top 5 sellers were
My Sharona
Bad Girls
Le Freak
Do Ya Think I'm Sexy
Reunited....

....and at # 8, Y.M.C.A, by The Village People. Spell it with me!

Well, since you mention it, here are the Top 20 sellers of 1969. Now, obviously, we could pick some better personal favorites from the rest of the top 100, but singles are always polarizing, and I can imagine equal numbers of the following making anyone's individual best or worst list -- but these were the most popular.

1 "Sugar, Sugar" The Archies
2 "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" The 5th Dimension
3 "I Can't Get Next to You" The Temptations
4 "Honky Tonk Women" The Rolling Stones
5 "Everyday People" Sly & the Family Stone
6 "Dizzy" Tommy Roe
7 "Hot Fun in the Summertime" Sly & the Family Stone
8 "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" Tom Jones
9 "Build Me Up Buttercup" The Foundations
10 "Crimson and Clover" Tommy James and the Shondells
11 "One" Three Dog Night
12 "Crystal Blue Persuasion" Tommy James and the Shondells
13 "Hair" The Cowsills
14 "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" Marvin Gaye
15 "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" Henry Mancini
16 "Get Together" The Youngbloods
17 "Grazing in the Grass" The Friends of Distinction
18 "Suspicious Minds" Elvis Presley
19 "Proud Mary" Creedence Clearwater Revival
20 "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" Jr. Walker & The All Stars

My #1 from this list is "Dizzy," by a mile, with nods to Aquarius, Get Together, Proud Mary, Suspicious Minds, and c'mon, admit it, Sugar Sugar.

Anyway, is there as much here as you remember? Because I'm kinda surprised how little there is for me.

FWIW, It's Your Thing and Sweet Caroline are bubbling under. Love those both.

Also, the only Beatles track in the top EIGHTY is Get Back, at 25. Something and Come Together are at 83 and 85. I only mention those because people think of 1969 as a pretty good year for The Beatles, and because, well, it's SHTV, and all posts longer than 2 paragraphs are required by federal law and international treaty to refer to The Beatles.

There are no bad years for music. Not even 2014.

I could probably have stopped there. It's probably polite if I would stop there. No need to pile on. Anything more would also be even further off-topic than I already am.

And yet...I can't stop myself. I am absolutely obsessed with years. All of them. Obsessed, I tell you, because once you start pinning stuff down, the picture changes.

Here are a handful of terrific 1985 albums....admittedly perhaps made shinier by 1985 being the year I got married, but these are some great records, period.

• Head On The Door, The Cure
• Fables of the Reconstruction, REM
• Around The World In A Day, Prince
• Songs from the Big Chair, Tears for Fears
• Little Creatures, Talking Heads (my favorite of theirs, may god have mercy on my soul)
• Dream of the Blue Turtles, Sting
• This Nation's Saving Grace, The Fall
• Brothers In Arms, Dire Straits -- 9 weeks as the #1 album in the US
• Flip Your Wig, Hüsker Dü
• New Day Rising, Hüsker Dü (Two Hüsker Dü records in one year? A GOOD YEAR)
• Low-Life, New Order
• Psychocandy, Jesus and Mary Chain
• Hounds of Love, Kate Bush
• Voices Carry, 'Til Tuesday
• Tim, The Replacements
• Meat Is Murder, The Smiths (admittedly, the best track on the US release is "How Soon Is Now," a non-album single in the UK....but I live in the US, so there you go. It stays on the list.)
• Once Upon A Time, Simple Minds
• Boys and Girls, Bryan Ferry (includes insanely great single, Slave to Love)
• Centerfield, John Fogerty
• Love, The Cult
• Like A Virgin, Madonna (no apologies here, haters)
• Biograph!!!! The first of the Bob Dylan packages to completely reshape my playlists for the year (see also: Tell Tale Signs, Self Portrait, and surely Basement Tapes), but to me, Biography definitely counts as a 1985 highlight.

Born In The USA should probably be in there somewhere, right? I'm not a huge John Mellencamp fan, but I think Scarecrow would be on most people's lists too.

And a pretty great year for singles, too. Skipping great singles from the albums above (Money For Nothing, Head Over Heels, Raspberry Beret, Glory Days, Lonely Old Night, etc etc), and noting again that singles are even more polarizing than albums, we still have

• Don't You (Forget About Me), Simple Minds
• Boys of Summer, Don Henley
• The Heat Is On, Glenn Frey
• I Want To Know What Love Is, Foreigner
• I Feel For You, Chaka Khan
• Can't Fight This Feeling, REO Speedwagon
• Summer of '69, Bryan Adams
• The Power of Love, Huey Lewis
• What's Love Got To Do With It, Tina Turner
• Who's Zoomin' Who, Aretha Franklin
• All Through The Night, Cyndi Lauper
• What About Love and These Dreams, Heart
• Would I Lie To You, Eurthymics
• Some Like It Hot, Power Station
• Walking On Sunshine, Katrina and the Waves

and what the hey, We Are The World.

Note the conspicuous absences of One Night In Bangkok, Sussudio, Axel F, and St. Elmo's Fire on my list. But still.

Apologies again for the off-topic over-response, but I do have fond memories of an awful lot of music from 1985.

Less so than I would have imagined from 1969, too. And ain't a thing in the world wrong with '79.

 

I went with Hot Stuff, Toss up between that and Heart of Glass. Bad Girls was on the turntable a lot back then, Great songs and great production

 

Wasn't "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2" a #1 US single that year?

 

Check post #28

 

I liked most of this stuff ok before I hit puberty. Afterward, I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to most of these for the next 20 years. Now, most wouldn't bother me.

For being a song I liked then, now and inbetween, I went with "Heart of Glass." "I Will Survive" would probably be #2.

 

I was Class of '79, never owned any of those singles. My favorite from that list would probably be Don't Stop Till You Get Enough.

When was Another Brick In The Wall, it was #1 when I bought it.

 

Wow, almost all these songs really suck, just like I remember as I entered Sr year HS on 1979

Heart of Glass is probably the best of a very sad bunch

 

But did it reach the top of the US charts in 1979, or in 1980? That's what I wanted to know.

 

If you're just basing it on #1 hit singles, I'll take the 1/3 of the songs I liked from 1985 over the ten whole songs that topped the charts last year.

 

Well, at the time (5th grade) it was definitely "Pop Muzik" - I even liked the "M Factor" flip side. Nowadays, it's the Blondie cut all the way.