EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

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

  1. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I was gonna mention The Pointer Sisters as another act we'd be "hearing more from" in my roundup. And it's true - they really covered an eclectic range of styles, except apparently disco which you'd think they'd have plunged right into and become dancefloor superstars. Or maybe they did do some disco and it flopped. Anyhow, following a country hit they sort of drug into the end of the decade and the start of the next with a few light soul/pop hits of the borderline "quiet storm" variety, like "Slow Hand" or "Fire", which he wrote for the trio. I loved those hits, along with the new wave-tinged "He's So Shy" and the '50s retro "Should I Do It", but they seem to have sorta been forgotten.

    Today they're probably best-remembered for their monster album Break Out and a stream of Top 10, indelibly '80s hits - "Automatic", "Jump (For My Love)", "I'm So Excited" and "Neutron Dance". Never quite the ones to do what they were supposed to do, they ended up having their most commercially-fertile period long after acts which had become stars after them in the '70s had seen their commercial careers effectively come to an end.
     
  2. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    All this talk about Sesame Street reminds me of The Carpenters and their Joe Raposo-penned hit "Sing" - which I loved - and which sounded like a Sesame Street song because it was written by the guy who wrote the Sesame Street theme. I think as old timers we tend to slag off on kids music, but there's good kids music and then there's the Barney theme, and I think I was really lucky to grow up in this era when so much care and also artistry and weirdness went into creating children's' programming.

    I just turned 5 in the second half of 1973, and while I loved a lot of the music on the radio, kids music from Sesame Street and other programs (like Schoolhouse Rock, which started in '73) brought a lot of enjoyment. No listing of top hits of '73 would be complete without my favorites from that period.
     
  3. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco


    "Figure Eight", featuring Blossom Dearie, from February of '73
     
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  4. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco


    "Conjunction Junction", featuring Merv Griffin's band leader Jack Sheldon, from November of '73. Maybe the best tune of the entire Schoolhouse Rock series.
     
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  5. Hoover Factory

    Hoover Factory Old Dude Who Knows Things

    Location:
    Spokane, WA
    It’s the one I remember most.
     
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  6. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Sesame Street's Neil Young esque "Capital I", from '71 or so, but repeated heavily thru the '70s.

     
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  7. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Beautiful post.
     
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  8. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Another Sesame Street entry, "Ladybug's Picnic"



    As someone noted in the comments on this video, every so often I find myself singing this for no reason...
     
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  9. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    That is a lot better than some 80's lists imo! Pretty darn good. Nothing really bad even in your first five , nothing I would skip if were listening to a comp. Very rare for me. A good year all and all, and for me it's about to get better through at least '79.

    By the way, this thread isn't sticking to my profile so I only see it when I scan the first page as I generally don't get past that. Any reason why that might be?
     
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  10. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Sesame Street could get pretty trippy:



    This is better than about a third of the crap that hit #1 in '73.
     
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  11. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Wow. After reading your's and comparing it to my comment above, I feel like the kid in school that got picked on for bringing my Partridge Family albums to fourth grade when we got to play records on Fridays...lol! It's so incredible how we all passionately love and hate different songs! Very interesting when you think about it, and why I hate seeing posts sometimes that passionately berate another forum member if they disagree about someone liking certain material. No such thing as "the worst song ever performed" or vice versa. This list, and your and my posts, sure drive that point home. Music was so much more interesting back then when you could have such diversity.
     
  12. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    This one isn't a song so much, although the music in it is pretty incredible. And early Sesame Street could be wonderfully, disturbingly trippy.



    Unfortunately, the program got slicker, straighter, and more meta as the decade wore on.
     
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  13. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    It's an ongoing problem for many of us. Sometimes I get alerts for threads I posted in 2 years ago but then threads I frequent may slip by. Best thing to do is click on watched threads up at the top left.
     
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  14. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Will do that. This thread is about to become the movie I don't want to miss when I need a bathroom break!
     
  15. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    And once again, a rundown of all the singles that just missed the top spot in 1973 and peaked at #2.

    1. Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandel - Dealing Banjos

    2. Deodato - Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)

    3. Gladys Knight & The Pips - Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye)

    4. War - The Cisco Kid

    5. Elton John - Daniel

    6. Clint Holmes - Playground In My Mind

    7. Paul Simon - Kodachrome

    8. The Carpenters - Yesterday Once More

    9. Paul McCartney & Wings - Live and Let Die

    10. Paul Simon - Loves Me Like A Rock

    11. The Alman Brothers Band - Ramblin' Man

    12. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

    That's 12 #2 hits in 1973, The Carpenters are predictably on the list, though they did finally score another #1 this year. Elton John and Paul Simon both have 2 each. Paul Simon, despite a very successful solo career would only hit the top of the chart once, and that song is still a couple years away.
     
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  16. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    Favorite #1 hit of 1973: Gladys Knight & The Pips - Midnight Train To Georgia

    Song that should've hit #1 (4 way tie): Anne Murray - Danny's Song
    The Four Tops - Ain't No Woman Like The One I Got
    Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
    Areha Franklin - Angel


    The artist of the year: Elton John, who else saw his success?

    1973 is 45 years ago as of 2018, that's a full grown man/woman, married with kids, at this point even teenaged children. It's a world away from today that's for sure but the music has certainly endured. Amazing year overall, hurray to the music buyers of 1973.
     
  17. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    "Dueling Banjos" was huge - I really loved that song as a tyke. "Daniel" became an absolute standard, as did "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", which is peak Elton. "Kodachrome" and "Loves Me Like A Rock" were your typical bits of Paul Simon genius. "Live And Let Die" I already checked above as a real comeback for McCartney as a rocker - it's certainly one of the best things he ever did as a solo artist. "Ramblin' Man" to some degree reflects the country invasion of the charts, but I think it really helped pave the way for the dominance of The Eagles and other country-inflected '70s rockers. Sweetheart Of The Rodeo might not have been a big hit, but its descendants ruled the charts by the mid-'70s.
     
  18. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    A Year in review for Billboard (1973)

    Top Singles Male Vocalist: Elton John

    Top Singles Female Vocalist: Helen Reddy

    Top Singles Vocal Duos & Groups: Gladys Knight & The Pips

    Elton beats out Stevie Wonder, Helen edges out Diana Ross, Gladys Knight & The Pips beat out Paul McCartney & The Wings for their titles that year.


    Stevie Wonder
    however does win the overall title on Billboard, Cashbox and Record World, as the overall male vocalist of 1973.

    Helen Reddy wins female vocalist of 1973 for Billboard, Cashbox and Record World. Meaning Helen was the biggest female artist in America at the time.

    Gladys Knight & The Pips top the list for overall singles artists of the year, they further top the list for R&B singles chart as well. Meaning Gladys & her Pips were major stuff that year.

    Link to Billboard Magazines last issue of '73, dated the 29th of December.

    http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/70s/1973/Billboard 1973-12-29.pdf
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2018
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  19. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    One thing I wanted to point out and forgot - and we've mentioned this before - but the singles and album charts were really starting to decouple now. While Elton ruled both with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Dark Side Of The Moon was much more a force on the album charts than on the singles chart. Houses Of The Holy was also a much bigger deal on AOR than on pop radio. Lady Sings The Blues as well.

    This rift would continue to grow throughout the decade. Labels would come to realize it didn't cost much more to promote an album than to promote a single, and that once fans were hooked on a quality artist the albums would to some degree sell themselves. And since albums sold for around 8 times as much as singles, the return on investment for the labels was much, much greater.

    This isn't to say singles weren't important, but they were rapidly becoming marketing tools for the albums, as opposed to albums being collections of singles. If you see the quality on the singles charts start to slide, this is a big reason why. For the labels and for serious music fans, the singles charts and singles-oriented pop radio just didn't matter much anymore. The pop landscape was fragmenting and audiences were scattering into many different directions. The pop charts increasingly reflected the tastes of buyers and radio listeners who were more casual fans, who were pre-teen, or who were really into whatever was hip. Serious music listeners - who represent maybe 10% of the market but have always bought a disproportionate amount of records, maybe 50% - were no longer well represented on the singles charts, especially not at the peak.
     
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  20. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    There was an argument a while back about whether or not War were major in the 70's. On page 31 of that Billboard article War were afforded the top LP group of 1973 by Billboard, Cashbox and Record World.

    They also scored a #2 hit this year. I'd say they were maor stuff.
     
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  21. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    Yeah the singles vs. albums artists discrepancies were still big.

    In the Billboard article the albums rundown for the year looks drastically different from the singles one. It's very male dominated, and very rock dominated. Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd were big dogs this year but you couldn't tell from looking at the singles charts.
     
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  22. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    Before we leave 1973 there's one more tune I'd like to mention. Not a single release but a song worth the spotlight nonetheless. I wouldn't call myself a Poco fan besides the random hit songs they had particularly with Crazy Love and Heart Of The Night but it's another similarly titled song called Crazy Eyes that caught my attention that year. An epic Country/Rock tune that clocks in at over 9 minutes was not the norm in music circles but that's exactly what Richie Furay gave the world. Banjos coexist with florid orchestration that builds and sweeps to a crescendo before meandering to a flute and vocal coda. It fits in perfectly with all the other epic songs that were in vogue in the 70s.

     
  23. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    And, we won't!

    What??? So, people who bought singles and listen to the radio weren't serious music fans? Oh please!:rolleyes:

    You are about two or three years too early, if at all. Pop audiences didn't scatter. Sure, radio played a big role in the fragmentation of the audiences, but that was for radio. People maintained their buying habits. Those like me who bought pop stil bought pop singles. We branched out and started buying more albums because we got old enough to afford them, but we still bought plenty of singles in 1974 and 1975. The album crowd always bought albums. The country people stayed country, and the R&B and funk crowd stayed loyal. The only thing that really changed was the emergence of disco, that that didn't really happen for another few years. And, the industry went crazy over disco.

    That was always true!

    There's that word again. I think you should stop and think about what you're saying. You are trying to tell us that 90% of all music listeners are not serious. So, tell us, what does this 10% listen to? Hmmmm... Are you a serious listener? Am I a serious listener? Is W.B. serious? Manapua? SITKOL76? Steve Hoffman? What do we listen to? Is this not a singles thread? What are we doing here?
     
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  24. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Pretty much, yeah. It's background noise for most of the population. As more and more people got decent stereos and more and more serious listeners concentrated on their LP collections, they left radio behind to one degree or another. It had an impact, both on who radio programmers were catering to and which singles sold well.

    Isn't that kinda obvious? If everybody was a serious listener, we'd have a lot more people participating in this thread.
     
  25. Dougd

    Dougd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fla.
    Amazing. Both of Paul Simon's songs that peaked at No. 2 sound like No. 1s.
    Kodachrome was always a delight to hear, even when I was 11 when it was released.
     
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