Albums have been where the labels made the bulk of their money since the '70s (at least). While singles and radio were certainly important, they were most important in promoting album sales. Here's a graph in inflation-adjusted dollars: For someone who keeps telling me I'm no "music historian" and don't know what I'm talking about, you sure keep making a lot of easily-falsifiable statements.
Your graph shows that LP/singles were king in 1973, but, still no evidence to prove your claim that album sales were where it was at in 1973. Remember? This thread is about SINGLES, and not albums. We are in January of 1973, not 1993. Give it up and move on! Carly Simon was more successful than Joni Mitchell. Carly's songs are remembered quite well. One of them, "Anticipation", was even used by The Heinz Corporation to advertise their ketchup. It's slow good!
Uh, the graph shows exactly that. The green segment is vinyl album sales, the brown is 8-tracks and the yellow is cassette. That little teal sliver represents vinyl single sales. The 8-track alone dwarfed it.
There was some talk upthread regarding how the general quality of singles seemed to have declined since the mid-'60s. That chart is probably a big clue as to why it happened - the labels were making so much of their money off of album sales by the early '70s the single became something of an afterthought. For the more quality-oriented labels it was just a marketing tool to expose consumers to an album act, one capable of packing 8-10 solid cuts onto a single record. That left behind a slew of one-hit-wonder throwaway acts and oddities like "The Candy Man" to clutter up the pop singles charts. The best acts were being carefully nurtured by their labels and sent off to record whole albums full of theoretically-solid material. They weren't bubbling up from some garage straight onto the singles charts like in the '50s and '60s - there was a whole "star making machinery behind the popular song". In a way, it was a bit like the old Hollywood studio system.
This probably also accounted for the rise of so much R&B onto the pop charts during this period - R&B albums hadn't typically been especially strong a sellers on the pop album charts, so R&B acts and stations were more accustomed to being singles-focused, as were listeners. Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder changed all that, right around this time, and Wonder in particular scored a series of mega-selling albums as a result. Elton John wasn't the only superstar who could have #1 singles off of iconic records.
In the case of America, it was simply that George Martin had heard about their reputation for taking forever to complete an album and, when they asked him to produce their next one, he said yes but insisted they do it on his home turf. It was a good call: they wanted to impress the Fifth Beatle, so they went into heavy rehearsals before they left for London, and had no problem completing Holiday on schedule.
If I can talk about the No Secrets album for a bit - I purchased it after the second hit single (The Right Thing To Do) was released and thought it was a wonderful album - very cohesive, daring and entertaining. It had everything - slow ballads, fast rockers, autobiographical lyrics and man, the guest list was impressive (if sometimes uncredited). And the cover was quite - um, enticing, I guess you could say! I've always felt that No Secrets is Carly's best album, and I faithfully followed her career until she started recording for Arista. Her other albums are very uneven, but No Secrets is solid through and through. Carly's strong attitude proved that a woman could take charge and be a player on the same level as the guys. This attitude, along with her Jagger-esque sex appeal and wonderful singing voice, is what put her on the map. But I feel that she peaked with No Secrets.
On a more mellow note, this classic one-hit wonder was just easin' into the Top 40 during Carly's reign: King Harvest - Dancing In The Moonlight
I never thought of the similarity before, but the lead and the backup singers sound similar to the ones on "Brandy" by Looking Glass.
Simultaneously, she was on the Cover of the Rolling Stone. No word on whether she sent five copies to her mother. And yes, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show were just starting to climb the charts with that song.
And so it begins. Stevie Wonder did not suffer from lack of hit singles before Talking Book but his albums were generally not considered particularly noteworthy even though I beg to differ with Where I'm Coming From and Music Of My Mind. This album was different as far as critics and the general public were concerned and began his unprecedented run of 70s albums that garnered praise, awards and sales, sales, sales! Even critical and mass appeal darling Paul Simon, upon the occasion of winning a Grammy album of the year award for 1975's Still Crazy After All These Years, thanked Stevie for not releasing an album and thus, allowing him a win. I'm guessing his headlong plunge into the Black experience in America commentary raised his profile from a good R&B artist to a serious, social justice warrior, just as Marvin Gaye briefly did with What's Going On. With Stevie, though, it wasn't just a momentary project but a career-long focus that carried through virtually all his important albums that followed. Of course, it didn't hurt that the songs were all top notch and still filled with the funk, soul and heartfelt emotion we had come to expect from this extraordinary talent. The best part of all this? It was only the beginning.
Addressed this one over in the R&B #1's thread: EVERY Billboard #1 rhythm & blues hit discussion thread EVERY Billboard #1 rhythm & blues hit discussion thread Landmark single, and yet another example of R&B taking the lead away from conventional pop and rock when it came to really advancing the sound of pop music. This is a theme which would continue to repeat for about two decades, as rock slowly became more and more ossified. Wonder would - along with Marvin Gaye - establish himself as an album artist on the back of records like Talking Book and in particular Innervisions. He'd set the benchmark for R&B acts, one which chart successors like Michael Jackson, Prince and Whitney Houston would build on in the subsequent decade, where their staggering sales numbers came to dominate not only R&B, but the entire market.
Definitely sounds like a brilliant departure from his earlier work (which was also great, but quite different). This goes a long way towards explaining why he was one of the few teen idols who went on to a long and successful career as an adult.
I'd mentioned this in the thread linked by @sunspot42, but here goes (with a few amendments): Now, here is where the "Stevie Wonder Sound" as we've come to know for years thereafter really took off, after his blueprint earlier in '72 with Music Of My Mind (and, before that, with Where I'm Coming From in 1971 which had an "of two worlds" quality to it - on one hand, working within the Motown production structure, on the other beginning a collaboration with Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil who would guide him to the path he would take musically going forward). While Marvin Gaye was the first to fight to break free from the strictures of the Motown production apparatus (and win), Mr. Wonder ironically would go much farther in this aspect - in every which way. This, together with The Temptations' pop and soul #1 "Papa Was A Rolling Stone," marked the end of an era in one aspect. "Superstition" (the lead single off his pivoatal album Talking Book) was released on Oct. 24, 1972. Four days later, on Oct. 28, Owosso, MI-based American Record Pressing Co. - which once boasted Motown as comprising 80% of their business (though, by 1972, it had dwindled to about 2%) - burned to the ground, completely destroyed, and putting everyone who was employed there out of work. It is not known if any stock copies from ARP (which in its last three years of existence was owned by Viewlex, parent of Buddah, three other pressing plants, and Bell Sound Studios) exist of this breakthrough single, but here's what promos from the plant (made within the last week of ARP's existence) looked like: Of Viewlex' remaining array of plants, only Monarch continued to press for the Motown stable of labels. (I don't know of any made by Sonic Recording Products or Allentown Record Co.)
Ironically, the seeds of that aspect of Mr. Wonder's career - social commentary in music - would appear to have been planted with his 1966 cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind," whose arrangement and production were very much of "The Motown Sound." In 1972, Michael Jackson's Ben album contained a cover of The Stylistics' "People Make The World Go Round." The message in that would be ironic in terms of MJ's oeuvre - especially after he reached superstar status in the next decade. As for this turning-point single for Mr. Wonder, as esteemed in its own way was the B side, "You've Got It Bad Girl," which would also be covered by quite a few - in this case, Quincy Jones, who even did vocals on it on his 1973 album of the same name. But here's the original: His vocals on numbers like this are why some people thought Stevie was the lead vocalist on another song by another act in the next decade (that's the only hint I'll give, for y'all jumping beans on this and the other thread).
Speaking of Marvin Gaye . . . round this time he would have a Top 10 hit (peaking at #7) with this jazzy/blues number that was the theme for a Blaxpoitation film of the time, Trouble Man (Mr. Gaye's only contribution to the genre, following, albeit once, in the footsteps of Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield): The director of this flick was once Sgt. Kinchloe on Hogan's Heroes . . .
No matter how hard I try, I can't forget it. The worst "musician trying to break into the movies" moment since Tony Bennett's first (and last) movie acting role as 'Hymie Kelly' in the Oscar.
All this talk about who the subject of 'You're So Vain' was, when the answer was staring us in the face right from the early seventies on. So allow me to reveal the answer: it was about a certain popular television star, and he even released a cover of the song to tip his hand to you. I found that very cover on YouTube for your edification!
Superstition is a great single - one of many great songs by Stevie Wonder. His talent had always been obvious, but this song was something else entirely. Wonder took the Sly Stone playbook (combining soul and rock music) and ran with it, scoring a big, big win.
The funny thing was, while Bennett won for that role in the Medved brothers' Golden Turkey Awards book, Ms. Reddy's Airport '75 role wasn't among the nominees in "The Worst Performance By a Popular Singer" category. Neil Sedaka was a nominee for an obscure film, Playgirl Killer, released in 1967 (that was his first and last acting role, likewise) - as were Bob Dylan for his role as "Alias" in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (1973), and Sonny Bono for Escape To Athena (1979; let's just say Cher went farther in that department - acting, that is). Mr. Bennett himself later wrote in his autobio that the experience making that film was so bad, he never attempted another acting role as a fictional character.
Now, about "Superstition": It's hard to believe, given all Mr. Wonder gave on that, that he'd intended it for Jeff Beck . . . Stevie's pop/rock profile was especially raised during '72 when he toured with The Rolling Stones.
