Every UK #1 Single Of 1973 Discussion Thread

I loved her guesting on 'Happy Days' as Leather Tuscadero, the late 70s US hit "Stumblin' In" is very good writing/singing, and I even love "48 Crash" too, but "Can The Can" is a bunch of hollerin' racket to me, just a chinnichap glam exercise. I can't believe this made it to number one but I'm glad it did. Obviously, Suzi won the popular vote with the kids, that's what rock n roll is all about, GREAT to see a woman beltin' it out like the men but the song in question, to me, is a tuneless stomp!

 

That's kinda my take on it as well. I like the idea of the song, but the song itself?

 

These were re-released again last month, with the following tracks.

@Bobby Morrow I much prefer your bonus tracks, with singles and B sides.

Sweet Fanny Adams (Extended)

1. Set Me Free
2. Heartbreak Today
3. No You Don't
4. Rebel Rouser
5. Peppermint Twist
6. Sweet F.A.
7. Restless
8. In to the Night
9. AC-DC
10. In to the Night
11. Set Me Free
12. Rebel Rouser (Steve Priest Lead Vocal Version)


Desolation Boulevard (Extended)

1. The Six Teens
2. Solid Gold Brass
3. Turn It Down
4. Medussa
5. Lady Starlight
6. Man With the Golden Arm
7. Fox on the Run
8. Breakdown
9. My Generation
10. I Wanna Be Committed
11. Medussa
12. Burn on the Flame
13. Turn It Down
14. Are You Coming to See Me
15. Fox on the Run
16. Lady Starlight - Andy Scott


@plentyofjamjars67 Your US release is completely different! The original UK release was the first nine tracks from above.

A1 Ballroom Blitz
A2 The Six Teens
A3 No You Don't
A4 A.C.D.C.
A5 I Wanna Be Committed
B1 Sweet F.A.
B2 Fox On The Run
B3 Set Me Free
B4 Into The Night
B5 Solid Gold Brass

 

Can the Can was on the album in Australia. She first toured here about the time of Devil Gate Drive and has done so almost every year since. On the last tour she was her own support act.

 

I'm mildly surprised to read how low Suzi Quatro's profile is on her home continent because it feels like she is probably better remembered in Australia than almost any other glam act (Bowie obviously excepted). I guess that's what over thirty tours to a country that is used to seeing international acts once every decade or so will do!

Her leather-clad rocker chick image is certainly more enduring and universal than her contemporaries and there's no denying her influence in some circles. Still, I've always found her music to be a bit of a case of style over substance. @sunspot42 stated above that they like the idea of Can the Can more than the song itself, I kind of feel that way about Suzi Quatro in general; although granted, I'm only overly familiar with the singles.

Can the Can is a pretty typical Chapman/Chinn affair. There's a memorable, yet very basic chorus, a driving beat and exuberant vocals. I can understand why it was a big hit but it might be my least favourite glam #1 of 1973. Having said that, I do really enjoy Devil Gate Drive and 48 Crash.

 

I only have 4 Suzi Quatro albums. The 1973 self-titled debut, 1974’s Quatro, 1978’s If You Knew Suzi.... and this one from the following year:



This is one of my favourites. She’s still rockin’, but the songs are perhaps more focused on being hits than before. Despite this, only one was. She’s In Love With You made #11. It would be her final UK top 40 UK hit.

 

My favorite Suzi deep cut.

 

Her third album, Your Mama Won't Like Me, is really funky. Lots of electric piano. Highly recommended!

She was so big in Australia we even got a double live album Alive 'n Kicking.

 

It did seem, if nothing else, that women were as capable as men of putting out, in your words, "tuneless stomps."

 

Her albums were all reissued by Cherry Red a few years ago. Most had bonus tracks and were nicely packaged. Sadly it looks like these are beginning to go OOP now.

 

I have to agree with @bob60 in that 1978’s If You Can’t Give Me Love was one of her very best singles... It’s the highlight of the aforementioned If You Knew Suzi album. For some reason, the UK LP didn’t feature the Stumblin’ In duet with Chris Norman. That really should have been a hit here.

 

Yes, I was pleased with them. I’d have never bought Sweet Fanny Adams if it didn’t have all those singles and B-sides as bonus tracks... WTF was wrong with acts back then releasing albums that omitted their biggest hits of the day?

 

In Australia Peppermint Twist was the single.

 

I listened to this album on youtube and liked it. "She's In Love With You" is simple, yet catchy enough and most of the tracks are pretty cool on a first time listen. Speaking of four letter words, what is she saying at the end of "Hollywood"?

 

It’s quite a catchy album. Less rocky, perhaps, for Suzi.

Good to see that Chinn & Chapman were still writing hits for her at this stage. She’s In Love With You was more melodic than Can The Can.

 

Can The Can
Classic Pop Rock...
Chinn & Chapman wrote some great singles.
48 Crash, was my fav but this is a great single either way.
5/5

 

There used to be a ten minute Rock program on the ABC at 6.30Pm called GTK (Get To Know) and that's the first place I saw Suzi Quatro. Everyone at school the next day was talking about her and radio soon caught up.

 

I kind of like that style on the other hand. Often you get bored with the hits, and they may not fit the flow of the album.

 

I can understand where you are coming from, and certain artists may well have lost some sales because of this. Reading these threads, T.Rex and Suzi Q spring to mind.

This is also a very valid point, and some bands don't want fans to buy albums with tracks that they may have bought on single: they may believe that this is ripping off the real fans.

You can't please all the people all the time.

Some artists don't always please their record company and vice versa!

 

I have no idea what it was like over there in the 70s music buying world but it seems to me that by then the idea of not putting your singles on albums was shooting yourself in the foot, sales-wise. It also seems like more of a 60s practice that you-know-who developed because they could consistently bring the goods. Not that Suzi and The Sweet didn't, it's just that once a single ran it's course and disappeared, wouldn't you want that song to remain available to the buyer on an album? That tracklisting of a bunch of unknown titles would look a lot better with that big hit placed in there. But, OTOH, it's nothing but a ballsy move to not include it, for whatever reason.

 

Next up is 10cc’s Rubber Bullets. Number one for a week from 23rd June.



"Rubber Bullets" is a song by the English rock band 10cc from their debut self-titled album.

"Rubber Bullets"
Written by Kevin Godley, Lol Creme, and Graham Gouldman and produced by 10cc, "Rubber Bullets" was the band's first number one single in the UK Singles Chart, spending one week at the top in June 1973. It also reached No. 1 in Ireland and No. 3 in Australia, but it fared relatively poorly in the United States where it peaked at only No. 73. A tongue in cheek homage to the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock with a Beach Boysinfluence, the song attracted some controversy at the time because of the British Army's use of rubber bullets to quell rioting in Northern Ireland.

The song features a double-speed guitar solo, created using a technique also used the same year by Mike Oldfield for his Tubular Bells album. In a BBC Radio Walesinterview, guitarist Eric Stewart explained:

“ That's a double track solo on that. It's, it's very, very high, of course, going through a Marshall stack, then I slowed the tape to half speed – seven and a half [inches per second] – and recorded it, you know, going [plays singles picked notes slowly] and when you speed it back up you've got an octave up, but there's a screaming fuzz on the top of it, that's an octave higher than it was recorded. So it's a very unusual sound done in that way, just an experiment. Because 10cc, we love to experiment, we used to love to waste time. And having the beauty of having our own studio, we didn't have a clock in there so we weren't restricted. ”
Stewart also recalled.

I was amazed, but pleased that the BBC never banned the track, although they limited its airplay, because they thought it was about the ongoing Northern Ireland conflicts. In fact, it was about an Attica State Prison riot like the ones in the old James Cagney films.

 

The less intricate B-side, Waterfall. Comments on YouTube compare this to Neil Young or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, which I can see. Good song.

 

The UK single.





Italian PS.



Netherlands PS.

 

Rubber Bullets - This was a load of fun. Love the line "I love to hear those convicts squeal. It's a shame these slugs ain't real".
They were terrific at Knebworth festival and finished the set with a long freak-out rendition of the song (which got everyone on their feet).
In two parts here:



Part 2:
Rubber Bullets - Knebworth 1976: Part 2

 

It happens well into the 80s. Putting the single on the album diluted the singles sales. Despite all the talk about how from the late 60s bands were all about albums, a hit single could still be a big money spinner.

Most record shops I frequented would usually have a ton of old singles that you could still get years later.