EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

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

  1. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    This is indeed interesting as my Billboard Top Pop Singles book lists Satisfaction as the top single of 1965, Independent Women for 2000 and All For You by Janet Jackson for 2001.
     
  2. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    I think the books use a different formula than the magazine itself.
     
  3. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    That's possible but it's not like Wikipedia hasn't been wrong before. All in all, rather confusing.
     
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  4. WolfSpear

    WolfSpear Music Enthusiast

    Location:
    Florida
    Joel Whitburn tends to rank hits on its peak position and number of weeks at that position.

    Billboard used to compile it's Year-end listing on the strength of the hit throughout the course of its run. So despite peaking at #2, "Wooly Bully" had a stronger run than the typical #1 hits in that year.
     
    JoeRockhead likes this.
  5. greelywinger

    greelywinger Osmondia

    Location:
    Dayton, Ohio USA
    Here's my UK list...

    UK #1s
    1957
    The Crickets - That'll Be The Day
    1958
    The Everly Brothers - All I Have To Do Is Dream
    1959
    Buddy Holly - It Doesn't Matter Anymore
    1960
    The Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown
    Eddie Cochran - Three Steps To Heaven
    1961
    The Everly Brothers - Walk Right Back
    The Everly Brothers - Temptation
    1964
    The Dave Clark Five - Glad All Over
    Herman's Hermits - I'm Into Something Good
    1966
    Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
    1967
    The Monkees - I'm A Believer
    Bee Gees - Massachusetts
    1968
    Bee Gees - I've Gotta Get A Message To You
    1969
    The Archies - Sugar, Sugar
    1970 Smokey Robinson And The Miracles - The Tears Of A Clown
    1971
    T. Rex - Hot Love
    T. Rex - Get It On
    Slade - Coz I Love You
    1972
    T. Rex - Telegram Sam
    T. Rex - Metal Guru
    Slade - Take Me Bak 'Ome
    Donny Osmond - Puppy Love
    Slade - Mama Weer All Crazee Now
    David Cassidy - How Can I Be Sure
    Chuck Berry - My Ding-A-Ling
    Little Jimmy Osmond - Long Haired Lover From Liverpool
    1973
    Sweet - Blockbuster
    Slade - Cum On Feel The Noize
    Donny Osmond - The Twelfth Of Never
    Suzi Quatro - Can The Can
    Slade Skweeze Me Pleeze Me
    Donny Osmond - Young Love
    David Cassidy - Daydreamer
    Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody
    1974
    Susi Quatro - Devil Gate Drive
    ABBA - Waterloo
    The Osmonds - Love Me For A Reason
    John Denver - Annie's Song
    1975
    Bay City Rollers - Bye Bye Baby
    Bay city Rollers - Give A Little Love
    Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
    1976
    ABBA - Mamma Mia
    The Four seasons - December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)
    ABBA - Fernando
    ABBA -Dancing Queen
    1977
    ABBA - Knowing Me, Knowing You
    The Jacksons - Show You The Way To Go
    ABBA - The Name Of The Game
    1978
    ABBA - Take A Chance On Me
    Bee Gees - Night Fever
    1979
    Bee Gees - Tradgedy
    1980
    ABBA - The Winner Takes It All
    ABBA - Super Trouper
    1981
    Smokey Robinson - Being With You
    Michael Jackson - One Day In Your Life
    Queen And David Bowie - Under Pressure
    1983
    Michael Jackson - Billie Jean
    Duran Duran - Is There Something I Should Know
    1984
    Duran Duran - The Reflex
    1987
    Michael Jackson And Siedah Garrett - I Just Can't Stop Loving You
    Bee Gees - You Win Again
    1989
    New Kids On The Block - You Got It (The Right Stuff)
    1990
    New Kids On The Block - Hangin' Tough
    1991
    Queen - Innuendo
    Michael Jackson - Black Or White
    1993
    Freddie Mercury - Living On My Own
    1995
    Michael Jackson - You Are Not Alone
    Michael Jackson - Earth Song
    1997
    Michael Jackson - Blood On The Dance Floor
    Hanson - MMMBop
    1999 Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way

    It's interesting how some songs were #1 on both sides of the pond, While some others were huge its on one side but not the other.

    Darryl
     
  6. I Love Music

    I Love Music Forum Resident

    Alas . . . it was not to be

    [​IMG]
     
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  7. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Next is a HUGE hit by Tommy Edwards, "It's All In The Game", #1 for 6 weeks.... September 29-November 9, 1958.

     
  8. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Fascinating that the melody of this song was written by Charles Dawes, Vice President under Calvin Coolidge. Carl Sigman wrote lyrics to Dawes' "Melody In A Major" in 1951. Dawes' original composition was written in 1911.
     
  9. I Love Music

    I Love Music Forum Resident

    Yes, here's how Time magazine described it in the December 17, 1951 issue:

    “In the welter of pop music last week, a song called It's All in the Game was beginning to get attention. The credit line on its record label read simply "Sigman-Dawes." Lyricist Carl Sigman's sentimental lines were the standard drippy stuff, but the lilting waltz tune had an unusually fresh, clean sound. Its composer: the late Charles G. ("Hell 'n Maria") Dawes, Chicago banker, amateur musician, and Vice President of the U.S. in the Coolidge Administration.

    Charlie Dawes never studied composition ("My parents were afraid I might become a musician"), but he managed to work up one piece for violin called Melody in A Major, which Fritz Kreisler started playing, made into a concert hit in the early 1900s. In the '40s, Dawes' Melody, as the trade called it, was picked up and recorded, swing-style, by Tommy Dorsey and a few other bandleaders. But like most pop recordings, it soon lost its hold, and finally disappeared from the record catalogues.

    Last summer Carl Sigman gave it the new setting. In recordings by Dinah Shore, Sammy Kaye, Carmen Cavallero and Tommy Edwards, Dawes' Melody is now waltzing around the popularity lists in Variety and Billboard.”


    Tommy Edwards’ 1951 recording of It’s All In The Game became the biggest hit among the above group of covers:



    By 1958, after years of declining record sales, Tommy’s record label (MGM) asked him to re-record several of his earlier hits, including It’s All In The Game, in stereo for inclusion on an album before his contract expired. In the process of re-recording the song, the 1951 arrangement was updated. MGM liked the new version of It's All In The Game well enough to release it as a single.

    The 1958 re-recording of It's All In The Game revived Tommy's career, as he recounted in the November 17, 1958 issue of Billboard:

    [​IMG]
     
  10. I Love Music

    I Love Music Forum Resident

    With the 1958 version of It’s All In The Game we have the first case (in this thread) of a song with dedicated mono and stereo mixes (there are many more of these instances to come). As I mentioned above, the impetus for the 1958 re-recording of It’s All In The Game was the desire to create a stereo version of the song. However, a mono mix of the updated song was also made for the commercial single release (this version also appears on the mono It’s All In The Game LP).

    The stereo mix has more reverb than the mono mix. One of the first digital appearances of the stereo version was on Dennis Drake’s excellent 45s on CD Volume 1 (an unfortunate title!) and it has appeared on countless CDs since:



    The mono mix (as heard in the video in alphanguy's post) is drier and, in my opinion, it has better balance than the stereo mix.

    The mono version is less common in digital but I’ve found it on CDs released by Time-Life, Rhino, Readers Digest, and Ace among others. Alternatively, one can look for the original commercial 45 (MGM K 12688).
     
  11. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    Another lovely song from that era and an improvement all around over the original recording. Too bad he couldn't manage to continue his success with the dozen or so tunes he charted with after that mega-hit.
     
  12. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    "It's All In The Game" is one of those songs that hit several times in music history with various artists. After this version... Cliff Richard had one go top 5 in the UK, and made it to # 25 in the US in late 1962:
     
  13. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    The Four Tops then scored a top 5 hit in the UK and #24 in the US in 1970. Also unusual for the featured lead parts by Renaldo Benson:
     
  14. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    And finally, Merle Haggard took it to #54 on the country chart in 1984:
     
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  15. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    It's very possible that "Bird Dog" hit #1 on the Best Sellers chart because on that chart, it was a double-sided hit with "Devoted to You." They were listed separately on the Hot 100, and both sides made the top 10.
     
  16. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Next up is "It's Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty, #1 for 2 non-consecutive weeks... November 10-16, and again November 24-30, 1958.
     
  17. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    This is another great rock/country ballad by a man who I believe doesn't get the notice he deserves. Sure, he went on to record some corny country tunes after starting out as an Elvis clone but even those records have a charm all their own and his vocals only got better as time went on. By the way, Glen Campbell took his own version to the top ten in 1970 and I love that one, too.
     
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  18. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    "It's Only Make Believe" was one of two records ("You Don't Know Me" by Ray Charles was the other) that got me through the worst case of unrequited love I ever endured. It still has a special place in my heart for that reason. It never gets old for me.
     
  19. I Love Music

    I Love Music Forum Resident

    Conway Twitty’s It’s Only Make Believe gave the MGM label its second consecutive #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was recorded in Nashville with several members of the A-Team and The Jordanaires in May 1958, and released in July. The tune did not initially appear to have the makings of a hit until Columbus, Ohio disc jockey Doctor Bopp started playing the song heavily on WCOL and it became a local smash. The song then spread to other radio markets and by September 1958 it was receiving enough national airplay to chart in Billboard.

    [​IMG]
     
  20. I Love Music

    I Love Music Forum Resident

    It’s Only Make Believe was initially released in mono (MGM K12677) in July 1958.

    A stereo 45 (MGM SK50107) was issued a few months later in November (disregard the erroneous 45 label in the video below):



    The stereo version is the one I’ve found on all CDs in my collection.

    Does anyone know whether the mono version of It’s Only Make Believe has appeared on a legitimate release in digital?
     
  21. I Love Music

    I Love Music Forum Resident

    Footage of Conway Twitty “performing” It’s Only Make Believe on the Dick Clark Beech-Nut Show, January 17, 1959:

     
  22. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    I love "It's Only Make Believe."

    Conway Twitty would have several more similar hits, including "Danny Boy" and "Lonely Blue Boy," in that sort-of Elvis-like voice that served as a reasonable facsimile until the King returned from his Army stint. But then he faded from view for a few years before becoming, in country music circles, "the best friend a song ever had."

    His song "Hello Darlin'," a #1 country hit in 1970, is usually ranked among the greatest country songs of all time, in the same rarefied air as "He Stopped Loving Her Today," "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "There Goes My Everything," etc. He even recorded a version in Russian that was presented to Soviet Union cosmonauts during the joint Apollo-Soyuz space mission in 1975.

    Once he started doing country full time, Conway had a ton of hits and was still a viable hit maker when he died in 1993. Unlike some Nashville hitmakers, he wrote a good percentage of his hits. The only one to make significant inroads on the pop charts was his 1973 #1 country hit "You've Never Been This Far Before"; that song, and a few others, gave rise to the theory that Twitty was singing "country porn," believe it or not. Country romance novels, perhaps, but definitely not porn.
     
  23. george nadara

    george nadara Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Left to right, guitarist Joe Lewis, Conway Twitty, bassist Blackie Preston, and, indistinct, longtime Twitty drummer Jack Nance, in 1958.

    [​IMG]
     
  24. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Next we have "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio, #1 for one week, November 17-23, 1958.

     
  25. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    When you really analyze it, this is one helluva a violent song, isn't it?
     

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