Every UK #1 Single of 1978 Discussion Thread.

Two American artists and a Dutch band to comment on.

The Boss with a great cut from the outstanding Darkness On The Edge Of Town album. Too good for the UK top 40!

Warren Zevon with the title track from the album the album that gave us Werewolves Of London. Sadly didn't come close to the UK singles chart, but for anyone who hasn't checked out Warren, then do yourself a favour and do!!

Gruppo Sportivo. Crazy Dutch band with wicked sense of humour and some catchy tunes. Bought 10 Mistakes after watching them on Old Grey Whistle Test. Hey Girl is off Back To '78.

A hybrid CD, Back To 19 Mistakes is the easiest to track down.

This track is is off 10 Mistakes and they performed it along with another great single, Beep Beep Love on OGWT.

 

Dreadlock Holiday a good song and worthy number one, from the Lol and Kevin less 10cc. Clever and catchy, and for some reason it has become a staple diet of a number of oldies radio stations, where it gets more airplay than it did in 1978!

I didn't buy the single, but it is the opening track on Bloody Tourists, which was the last 10cc album I bought.

Dreadlock Holiday, their 3rd number one, was their last top 40 hit, until a re-release of I'm Not In Love, hit number 29 in 1995.

 

Strange how the hits just stopped...Though Godley & Creme would have two or three more chart successes in the eighties.

 

Yes, for a band that had a succession of hit singles, over several years, a number one hit in Dreadlock Holiday simply ended the hot run.

Godley & Creme, who left to develop the Gizmo THE GIZMOTRON

Their 1985 song Cry was accompanied with a video that used analogue cross-fading techniques that in its' digital form became "morphing". The pair also directed many iconic videos.



They also gave us the wonderful, Under Your Thumb single: a cheerful tale!

 

I really like Dreadlock Holiday, but then I'm a pretty big fan of 10cc - up to this point. Bloody Tourists is their last really good album.

 

I sincerely hope he wasn't!

I've ordered Nightflight To Venus, only 40 late on the strength of this review. If it isn't a fair reflection of the music contained on the album, I'll sue and I'll put them out of business!

 

Maybe if you didn’t get it 40 years ago you won’t now?

At least the singles are decent. And I seem to remember their version of Heart Of Gold was quite nice.

 

I have ordered it!

 

I meant ‘get it’ as in appreciate it back then.

 

Sorry, been up since 4.30.

Enjoyed most of the singles back then; it's just taken a bit of time to take the next step!

 

If you like this you can get Oceans Of Fantasy next!

 

Where they out-Beatles the Beatles with Two Of Us.

 

From 30th September John and Olivia were back at the top. For a paltry 7 weeks this time. It was Summer Nights, Of course.




Summer Nights" is a popular song from the musical Grease. Written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, its best-known version was recorded by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John for the big-screen adaptation of the musical, and released as a single that same year.

"Summer Nights"
"Summer Nights" became a massive hit in both the United States and United Kingdom during the summer of 1978. Included on the movie's soundtrack album, the song was one of several hit singles from the movie. Parts of the song were introduced to a new audience when it was re-released in the 1990s as part of a megamix of several songs from the movie version.

In the movie version of Grease, Travolta and Newton-John played the lead roles of Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson.

The song's genesis stems from a summertime love affair between Danny and Sandy, which had ended upon Sandy's revelation that she was moving back to Australia with her family. However, Sandy soon learns that her family is staying in the United States and subsequently enrolls at Rydell High School, where Danny is also a student. (In the original stage version, Sandy Dumbrowski, who like many other characters in the play is a Catholic of Polish descent, originally attends parochial school. Danny, on the other hand, lied to her and claimed to attend Lake Forest Academy, a prestigious real-life private school in Chicago. Sandy's parents' decision to pull her out of Catholic school and put her in public Rydell High exposes Danny's ruse.) However, it quickly becomes clear that there are unresolved feelings of love between Danny and Sandy.

Separately and unknown to each other, both Danny and Sandy meet with their respective group of friends and share their perspectives of their summertime fling. Danny, the leader of a greaser gang known as "The T-Birds" (the "Burger Palace Boys" in the stage show), brags about the physical aspects of the relationship; Sandy remarks to the schoolgirl clique "The Pink Ladies" about her emotional attachment to Danny. The resulting conversations are played out through the song.

Of the cast members, only Travolta and Newton-John provided vocals for the previous single from the soundtrack, "You're The One That I Want", but other members of the cast contributed backing and cameo lead vocals to "Summer Nights". The only vocal contributions on the soundtrack from Kelly Ward (Putzie) and Michael Tucci (Sonny) are their single questions in this song (Sonny also had no solo lines in the musical; the two songs from the musical by Putzie's stage counterpart were cut from the film). Stockard Channing (Rizzo)'s solo line "'Cause he sounds like a drag" was spoken rather than sung. The background lyrics quote two songs, "Da Doo Ron Ron" by The Crystals and "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" by The Rivingtons (later made famous as Part 2 of "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen), that were released in 1963; this is an anachronism, as the song is set in fall 1958.

"Summer Nights" was originally written for the stage show's transition to Broadway. The original Chicago version of the musical (staged only once since the 1970s) had a different song, "Foster Beach," at that point.


‘Summer Nights" reached No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and spent two weeks at No. 3 on Cash Box Top 100. The song was an even bigger hit in the UK, spending seven weeks at No. 1. Combined with an earlier nine-week run with "You're the One That I Want," the Travolta-Newton-John duet team spent 16 weeks at No. 1 during 1978 in the UK.

In 2004 it finished at #70 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.

In 2010, Billboard ranked it No. 9 on their "Best Summer Songs of All Time" list.

 

The B-side, Rock & Roll Party Queen by Louis St. Louis.

 

The thrilling UK single.





Germany picture sleeve.



France PS.

 

My thoughts.

Summer Nights is probably the best production number in Grease. When TOTP showed the film clip (quite a few times) in 1978, it played like a pop video. Not that we had many of those then! As for whether Summer Nights is a great song, it’s probably not... It’s catchy enough, a bit cluttered and with the vocals hard to make out occasionally, but it’s not a 7 weeks at number one single! In America it made #5. That seems fair, I’d say.


Summer Nights was perfectly timed to coincide with the movie opening in the UK in September. People could now see John Travolta in all his glory and buy the record on the way home. If they didn’t have it already, of course The song is cleverly written with ‘Sandy’ and ‘Danny’ giving different accounts of their romantic night together. “He was sweet. Just turned 18”, coos Olivia. Yes dear, just like you.


Whatever your thoughts on Grease and it’s music, both were now everywhere. Frankie Valli’s title track, Travolta’s Sandy and Olivia’s Hopelessly Devoted To You were all doing the rounds. The soundtrack album was number one where it stayed for a dozen weeks. The movie was a massive box office draw. When I went to see it with friends, there were queues down the street. The audience sang along with all the songs and howled with laughter at all the risqué jokes. I don’t recall any of this when I saw Xanadu 2 years later.


So, Summer Nights went through the roof. It gets regular airplay on oldies stations even today. Still, as good as it it, I think the single doing so exceptionally well was down to the movie opening and Travolta’s youthful allure.

Japan PS.



Netherlands PS.



Spain PS.

 

Record Mirror’s review of the film. Turkey with corns.

 

Summer Nights’ third week at the top.

 

I hate to think what that smudge is at the bottom of the scan.................

 

Summer Nights is meh for me. I prefer You’re The One That I Want.

 

From the week ending 7 October 1978, when 'Sandy' entered the UK Singles Chart at number 36, 4 songs from 'Grease' were in the charts at the same time.

Then, in the week ending ending 04 November 1978, when 'Hopelessly Devoted to You' debuted at number 24, the number of 'Grease' titles on the Singles Chart increased to 5, with 2 of them occuping the top 2!

UK Singles Chart for the week ending 04 November 1978
01 (01) John Travolta And Olivia Newton-John - SUMMER NIGHTS
02 (03) John Travolta - SANDY
24 (NEW) Olivia Newton-John - HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU
26 (23) Frankie Valli - GREASE
61 (60) John Travolta And Olivia Newton-John - YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I WANT

One week later, three of these 5 songs were in the top 5:

UK Singles Chart for the week ending 11 November 1978
01 (01) John Travolta And Olivia Newton-John - SUMMER NIGHTS
03 (02) John Travolta - SANDY
04 (24) Olivia Newton-John - HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU
31 (26) Frankie Valli - GREASE
68 (61) John Travolta And Olivia Newton-John - YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I WANT

During all that time, the soundtrack album was at number one on the UK Albums Chart (for a total of 13 weeks).

 

It seems that Olivia & John Travolta never performed either of the 2 Grease duets together on a TV show or a concert at the time, at least there's nothing on YouTube, only performances from the 2000s. The only TV performance from 1978 that I found is by Olivia and Donny Osmond.

 

If Travolta and Olivia ever performed YTOTIW in 1978, I never saw it. They promoted Grease together of course. Perhaps that was enough?

 

The medley of Nightflight To Venus and Rasputin is pure space-disco at its finest. Coupled with their rendition of Painter Man, makes a great album overall.

 

Some great songs here: Grease domingating the Top 10, Rose Royce being frustratingly avoided the Number One, a surprising MOR song by Dean Friedman, ELO with a fantastic song (one of their best, to be honest), another hit by The Smurfs and Father Abraham, soft rock by Frankie Miller, Donna Summer's rendition of the Richard Harris classic, Jonathan King rediscovering Eurodisco (originally an European hit by La Bionda), punk by the Buzz's and Sham 69 and creeping up in the charts... our next number one.

Oh, and at number 52 a then unknown band called Police of which great things were expected.