There was a figure floating around the internet that the Abba greatest hits album sold 80 - 100 million copies on it's own around the world , which is pretty massive. Forgot for a moment we were relating to Billboard ( put it down to pre dementia ) so was momentarily thinking globally rather than U.S. Of course Abba were never as big in the States.
ABBA Gold had a different track listing in Australia because we had different hits. When More ABBA Gold came out everything went to hell.
I'm not sure why it is tough to find something that is a reliable sales figure, but, I did stumble upon this interesting truffle: ABBA’s story in the United States actually began with their very first recording, before they were even known as ABBA. ‘People Need Love’ was released as a one-off single in Sweden in 1972, credited to Björn and Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid. The group’s manager, Stig Anderson, made use of all his international music business connections to have the recording released in as many territories as possible. However, he only succeeded in a few countries, one of them being the United States where the song was released on the fairly tiny Playboy label. Credited to the ludicrous “Björn and Benny (with Svenska Flicka)” (translated as “Swedish girl”, the credit presumably being an attempt to transform Björn and Benny into Playboy-style swingin’ bachelors and Agnetha and Anni-Frid into sexy Scandinavian bunnies), the song actually showed up in the lower regions of two then-significant single charts, peaking at number 114 on Cashbox and 117 on Record World. ABBA in the United States | ABBA
The weird thing about ABBA was they were on different labels all around the world Ten different labels ABBA records came out on 1. Polar (Sweden) 2. Vogue/Mode (France) 3. Atlantic (USA) 4. Epic (UK) 5. RCA (Australia) 6. Family (New Zealand) 7. Discomate (Japan) 8. Carnaby (Spain) 9. Dig It International (Italy) 10. Sunshine (South Africa) Supposedly it was to stop cheap imports from countries where ABBA were less popular. Malcolm McLaren tried to do the same thing with the Sex Pistols but failed dismally
Mama Cass was on TV all the time when I was a kid. Game shows, variety shows, talk shows, she even had her own music special at one point and might have gotten a series in the seventies had she lived. She was by far the most successful of her former group after the split, even without hit singles. Cass and Dick van Dyke play Laurel and Hardy during her TV special 'Don't Call Me Mama Anymore' She was even on Scooby Doo!
Boy, you miss a few days on this thread and you drop ten pages behind! I don't think I'll ever be able to post again if I wait until I catch up, so forgive me if I repeat something someone else said... A few of the songs I missed: I Can See Clearly Now One thing that really slowed me down on this thread was listening to all those great Johnny Nash numbers people posted, and realizing that I knew them all! I always thought of him as a classic one-hit wonder (in the sense that the radio only ever plays the one song of his nowadays; I always knew he had many now forgotten hits stretching back more than a decade). But it was amazing how I knew every one of the clips you guys posted. I swear I never heard them on the radio. I don't own them, either. Did I absorb them from the ether? Who knows, but now I'm stoked to go look for a collection of his. I still love I Can See Clearly Now the most, though. Just a transcendently positive, uplifting song. His voice is amazing, especially during the blue skiiiiiiiies part in the middle. After a whole lot of #1 songs I either could do without or liked but didn't love, here's one of my favorite tunes of the 70s, and one of my favorite performances. Nothing but blue skies indeed! Papa Was a Rolling Stone I like the gritty, urban Temptations sound, and this is another good 'un. I always date this one a few years earlier in my mind, to go along with Psychedelic Shack and what not. Papa isn't my favorite of their songs of this ilk (I lean towards Ball of Confusion.... and the band plays on....), but the personal nature of the lyrics make it a winner nonetheless. Too bad that era of the group came to an end not long after this!
I Am Woman Ugh, Helen Reddy. Now here's a woman who inexplicably (IMO) became huge for several years, and just as quickly disappeared off the face of the planet. Singers like Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Carly Simon, even Olivia Neutron Bomb, all had their moments in the sun and faded, but they all seemed to either live on in the fond memories of their fans, or from time to time get revived and presented to a new generation. This did not happen to Helen Reddy, and I don't foresee it happening anytime soon. I apologize to those who like her, but she does zilchorino for me as a singer. Was her version of I Don't Know How to Love Him really a bigger hit than the beautiful rendition by the exquisite Yvonne Elliman? Ach nein! In fact, it sounds like Reddy's personal life and degenerate husband are actually a more interesting story than anything that was happening on stage with her at the time. I Am Woman is to me the kind of song that probably was necessary at one point, a time when it really seemed legitimate for men to openly denigrate the women's movement and what it stood for. But nowadays? I feel it is a textbook example of 'not aging well'. It ranks right up there with 'You're Having My Baby' as a big hit from the era that I can't see anyone other than a drag queen tackling with any conviction today. The camp is just built into its DNA. It has less to do with the message (which is fine) than the way Reddy and the songwriters put that message across. The most painful bit for me is when she rhymes go with embryo, but let's just say most of the number is very 'of its time'. Well, it meant something to a lot of people back then, so I can't give it the full hater treatment, but I'll take a hard pass on Ms. Reddy's greatest hits album nonetheless.
Four words: Pink Lady and Jeff. Pink Lady were the biggest act in Japan at the time, but had only one small chart success in the States, and, oh yeah, couldn't speak English. Somehow the producers found a way to get them into bikinis every episode, and managed to convince acts like Alice Cooper, Blondie (twice!) and Cheap Trick to risk their careers and appear on the show. One of the most notorious bombs of the 70s. (Pink Lady was a group consisting of TWO ladies, Mitsuyo Nemoto ("Mie") and Keiko Masuda("Kei"). Jeff was comedian Jeff Altman, and thankfully there was only one of him.)
There were two different music charts in Japan. One domestic and the other for overseas acts. When Cheap Trick were 'big in Japan' on the other chart Pink Lady were outselling them 20 to 1.
"Let's just do Donny and Marie" - Fred Silverman, producer. Which proved he was not only a bad producer, he couldn't count, either.
Yes . . . so were Sonny & Cher. And Mr. Van Dyke. And Jerry "When You're Hot, You're Hot" Reed. There were a few who didn't appear alongside Scooby Doo, though . . . Dean Martin among them. Or Carol Burnett.
I like Helen Reddy more than you do, though she's hardly in my inner circle of female singers or anything like that. She did have a big, thick, distinctive voice, and the novelty of her being Australian and the social relevance of "I Am Woman" is probably why she wound up having some sustained commercial success. She had an identity. And her songs were, for the most part, pretty decent (though "You And Me Against The World" is torture on these ears). There is a certain male singer/songwriter whom I feel about the way you do about Helen Reddy, and we'll be encountering him in this thread a little later, at which point I will unleash the hounds...
Don't forget, Helen Reddy almost transitioned over to becoming a Hollywood star. I'm guessing a lot of people who were kids in the mid to late '70s are more familiar with her from this than from her earlier chart hits: Pete's Dragon (1977 film) - Wikipedia If this thing had been a bigger hit, Reddy might be more famous for her work on film than in the recording studio...
Yes, in an episode full of insults about her weight! Ugh! At least she was a good sport about it. Kinda sad, tho...and one of the last things she did before passing away. The New Scooby-Doo Movies e 23 - The Haunted Candy Factory (Scooby meets Cass Elliot) - Video Dailymotion
Different era - jokes like that were way more acceptable back then. I've always been surprised that she went along with the "no one's getting fat except Mama Cass" line in "Creeque Alley", though!
That first Mama Cass picture is definitely from the '70s Match Game. It must have been pretty early for that show as the show was revived in 1973, and Mama Cass died in 1974. I've never seen any episodes of that show that she was on (it's news to me she was ever on it). But since it was syndicated, there were a lot of episodes a year, and I'm not claiming to have seen a lot of them. I was only 7 when she died, and so I have no memory of her being on TV at that time. Didn't realize she made the TV rounds as much as she did.
I was referring in that post, to worldwide sales... that's why I specifically said "Exploded onto the world stage". If you can name another group from the 70's that has sold a total of 300 million records, go right ahead.
