EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

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

  1. Dougd

    Dougd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fla.
    I'd agree.
    It was crazy that some argued War wasn't important or a well-known act.
    Many other acts would love to have the hits and sales War had.
     
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  2. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    I.I.N.M., Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks (another act that recorded at one time for Blue Thumb, I.I.N.M., to tie this in to the hits of the period such as the Pointers' "Yes We Can Can"), had some SS involvement, contributing this little number (with animation by John and Faith Hubley):
     
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  3. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    There was also, in 1973, relatively more diversity in terms of where music acts could go to put their product out. There seems to be a correlation to the decrease in such diversity of music and the consolidation of the record and radio industries.
     
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  4. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Another hit from 1973 that would reach classic (and influential) status . . .
     
  5. tmoore

    tmoore Forum Resident

    Location:
    Olney, MD
    I'd argue that "Sing" was the point where The Carpenters began to be taken less seriously by some folks.
    Not to say that they weren't still successful (there's still a #1 to come for them, albeit a cover song).
     
  6. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    I remember the Crazy Eyes LP getting quite a bit of play in 1973, and I did pick up the single from the album, "Here We Go Again". I really liked the structure of the song, and the kind of unusual percussion, and it was written by Sacramento California's own Timothy B. Schmit (later of the Eagles). If I remember correctly, the "Crazy Eyes" title track was about Gram Parsons, who of course passed away in '73. I recall hearing a news bulletin about his passing, at the time I had never heard of him (but I later became a fan).

    [/QUOTE]
     
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  7. pablo fanques

    pablo fanques Somebody's Bad Handwroter In Memoriam

    Location:
    Poughkeepsie, NY
    Written about their time at Bard College in Anondale on The Hudson. I’ve been a DJ for a few events there over the years and The Dan are easily their most famous alums
     
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  8. Grant

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

    Nonsense. And, you still haven't told us what these "serious" music fans listen to.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2018
  9. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    This discussion reminds me of how much most of my hippie friends hated AM radio in the early 70s. Most of them didn't buy singles at all. I sometimes got comments like "Man, why do you buy 45s all the time?!" The thing was, I was the type of music lover who was into pretty much everything, and I didn't follow any type of trend...I would just pick up whatever I thought was good. By 1973 I was buying a lot more albums than in the previous two years, but it was still about 50-50 as to singles vs. albums.
     
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  10. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    Serious music fans can listen to anything they want irregardless of genre. The only difference is that they invest more of their time and money into music. They are also fairly frequent concert goers as well.

    I think what @sunspot42 is getting at is that in '73 (and today) somebody who purchased albums (which are more costly) is probably more invested in music than a casual radio listener.

    Ontop of that some bands at the time like Led Zeppelin in particular didn't really issue that many singles. a lot of bands then were albums artists in the true sense of the word. You did have artists in the 70's like Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Bee Gees etc. who did score lots of hits and also sold lots of albums and their audiences were very far reaching.
     
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  11. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    I "seriously" enjoyed

    Sugar Sugar
    Love grows Where My Rosemary Goes
    Yummy Yummy Yummy
    Jelly Jungle
    Crimson & Clover

    And I won't apologize for any of it!
     
  12. Grant

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

    That's how it was for me later in the 70s. I bought both singles and albums.

    I get really sick of all this musical snobbishness or elitism. This snobbishness is fueled more by peer pressure and ignorance more than anything.

    Oh, and, what about all those album fans who listened to FM rock radio and taped whole albums off the air? Were they not serious listers? I'm sure quite a few of them were the same hippie-type people you were friends with.

    What about those of us who collect songs on CD? Are we who collect compilations any less serious than those who only buy albums? The whole argument that one type of music lover is less serious than another is ridiculous, and worse. Yeah, i'm f-kn' angry! Maybe it's time to use the ignore feature for a while.

    To me, the whole idea of "serious" musical listeners harkens back to the people who like to say that intelligent people listen to rock & roll, whole intelligent people listen to classical music. It really is the same thing.

    Man, I wish people would think a little more about the stuff they believe. I also wish the guy could take back his posts on the matter. It looks to me like he just parrots the stuff he learned from other music snobs. And, I like the guy. I really enjoy most of his posts and insights. I like reading about his history with music. But sometimes...:shrug:
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2018
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  13. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    Yes, the ever popular "high culture vs. low culture" debate. Like you've got to like one or the other. And don't get me started on "cool vs. uncool"! One of my friends from high school (he was a bass player in a garage band) was into a lot of the heavy bands of the day and we used to listen to music together and discuss all kinds of stuff. But he LOVED a band called West, Bruce and Laing and when their album came out around the summer of 73 he kept playing it for me and saying "Do you like it? Man, aren't they cool?" and I was trying to be polite and be positive but man, that band did nothing for me. Yet he chuckled at me for liking Strawberry Alarm Clock. By the way, I did like Mountain with Leslie West, but West Bruce & Laing didn't exactly float my boat.
     
  14. Grant

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

    Sorry for the obvious typos in my post. But, I was really pissed!

    I had a friend like that (R.I.P.). He was older and was a gunner in Viet Nam. His favorite music was stuff like Seal Level, Santana, and Spirit. Nothing wrong with that, as I like them too. But, his thing was that it was "real" music, and anything else outside of that late 60s/early 70s rock sphere wasn't. He just had a mental block of anything that wasn't part of his own little musical world. He acknowledged a bit of jazz and blues, as they pertained to what he liked, but no soul, no country, no classical. He was too nice of a guy to say anything else was worthless, but from knowing him, that's exactly what he thought. His brother is a little more blunt about that, though.

    I tried to get him on this forum because he would've fit right in, but he wasn't into computers and didn't have the ability to be on one due to his work injuries and illnesses. He was the kind of guy who would order two or three copies of 180 gram pressings behind his wife's back just to have them. He kept them sealed to sell off once the value went up. But, his stereo sounded terrible. He just wasn't an audiophile.
     
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  15. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    y'all are taking this "serious listeners" thing way to far - and way too literally. I can't read anyone's mind, but it doesn't appear to me that any of this stuff SOME of you are taking such offense to was intended that way at all. A serious listener takes the time to listen as opposed to wanting their music to function mostly as background to some other activity. It's as simple as that.
     
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  16. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    I'll admit that I also dislike the whole 'real music' snobishness that gets thrown around. My musical tastes skew towards female vocalists, and I'm often told that some of my coveted 'divas' aren't what's considering 'real' music, apparently there's 'fake' music, make believe and doesn't really exist. :laugh:

    The woman in my avi. didn't write any of her hits and never played instruments but I'll take her over most artists that do. It's real to me and that's what matters.

    I think the distinction that's being made is between casual music listeners and music enthusiasts, like the ones on this forum. Music is just background noise to some people, and that's ok, but I wouldn't put them in a category of someone who buys masters, Vinyls and regularly attends concerts. That's all.
     
  17. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    Isn't this issue as old as the hills? I remember in the mid 60s being castigated by my older brothers for liking the Beatles! They apparently were too cool for such Pop nonsense and only listened to Dylan and others of that ilk. Then in the early 70s, some buddies of mine looked down on me for liking mainstream Pop. To them, it was all about The Who Live At Leeds, Zep, Prog rock, Zappa, Trout Mask Replica, blah, blah, blah. Lots of us live in a bubble and if that's how you roll, so be it. Nothing wrong with liking what you like but cool it with casting aspersions on others for doing the same even when you're poles apart.
    Now let's all sharpen our knives for 1974! :whistle:
     
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  18. zebop

    zebop Well Known Stranger

    War certainly was major, a bunch of big hits, gold albums, they were one of the most popular groups of the early to mid '70s. They've been a bit forgotten due to their old label (United Artists) and they never got helpful reissue campaigns like many other acts. I actually like something from all of their albums, well, from 71-82--that's nothing to minimize, they were and are major IMO.
     
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  19. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Ok... now we start into 1974, with "Time In A Bottle" by Jim Croce, #1 from December 23 1973 - January 5, 1974.

     
  20. tommy-thewho

    tommy-thewho Senior Member

    Location:
    detroit, mi
    Very good song by Jim... Didn't realize it charted # 1.
     
  21. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    His posthumous #1. Haunting, beautiful song - always loved it. This is one of the first songs I solidly associate with Phoenix, our new hometown. Maybe slightly Gordon Lightfoot-esque, I always thought. The harpsichord was a stroke of genius. From the Wikipedia article on the song:

    The arrangement features a harpsichord that producer Tommy West discovered had been left in the mixing studio:

    "The night before we were going to mix, I was watching a horror movie on TV, and something must have lodged in my brain because when I walked into the studio the next day, I saw this harpsichord sitting in a corner and got an idea. A jingle company had used it on a session and in walked a couple of guys from SIR [Studio Instruments Rental] to haul it away. I asked them to take a lunch break and told Bruce to put a couple of mics on it. He was whining that it was out of tune, but I asked him to let me try something. I added two tracks of harpsichord, told the movers they could remove it, walked into Jerry's office and asked if I could borrow the electric bass that was sitting on his couch, played that on just the second verse and the outro, and that was that! Radio compression worked in our favor on that record. It made the harpsichord blend with the two guitars in an unusual way. But we thought this record would only be an album cut."
     
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  22. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    I think I liked this more in '74 than I do now. It's okay but the possibility exists I'd change the station by the halfway point. Not exactly a great start, actually an overlap, for what is somewhat of a problematic year for #1s. This is a good year for outlying songs, though.
     
  23. Hoover Factory

    Hoover Factory Old Dude Who Knows Things

    Location:
    Spokane, WA
    Beautiful, poignant song - one of Croce’s greatest.
     
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  24. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    And yeah, serious listeners are the 10% or whatever of the public that was buying 80% or whatever of the records being sold. As they retreated from buying pop singles and stopped listening as much to pop radio, there was a noticeable drop off in quality (especially for pop/rock) and other genres came to represent a disproportionate amount of the good stuff on the charts (particularly soul, but country gave us a bunch of great "pop" hits in '73 as well).

    And yeah, I'm gonna be a snob and say stuff like "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" - while I liked it as a kid - is pretty lame compared to "Higher Ground" or even clever earworms like "Kodachrome". I love a lot of chart kitsch from this era ("The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia"), but I'm also aware it's kitsch. And if it weren't for soul (especially), the kitsch to quality ratio on the pop charts in '73 would look even more abysmal than it does when you compare what was charting in '73 to what was charting in the mid-thru-late '60s.

    The discrepancy between the top 100 singles and what was happening on the album front was pretty dramatic (although the top 10 singles for the year are mostly really solid stuff, surprisingly enough):

    Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1973 - Wikipedia

    If you go down in to the rest of the Top 100 singles though, there's some lesser material (putting it bluntly), and again if you removed all the soul from this list...it would be a pretty awful list.

    Over in album land, you had stuff like Aladdin Sane, Transformer, Can't Buy A Thrill, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, Houses of the Holy, and Quadrophenia hitting the charts. That stuff barely sounds like it comes from the same planet as most of the singles charts, let alone the same year.

    And I still want to know how in the hell "Frankenstein" could chart higher than "Free Ride". WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE????
     
  25. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    here is the comparison of number 1s for the three major charts for 1973
    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
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