I always have to qualify these type of comments (especially at this point in the discussion) with the fact that I didn't hear much radio before about 1971 due to young age. So I didn't hear the radio "at the time". So the post above about oldies radio not playing it in later times is very relevant to me. I should have included that in my original post.
I feel that all that product cheapened the brand. Now, Elvis didn't do much bad material, but if he could have just concentrated his efforts on just one or two great albums a year, I think he would have had a better legacy in the 70s. I really don't know why some people don't understand it. Young people have broad ranges of taste, too. My growing up from the age of seven to seventeen in the 70s, and my peers really dug Carpenters, Melissa Manchester, Captain & Tennille, Barry Manilow, Neil Sedaka, and many others, as well as Kiss, Bad Company, Chic, Commodores, and Earth, Wind & Fire. Sure, there were some people concerned about image and identity politics, but most just liked the music, no matter what it was. This whole issue has been debated on this forum ad nauseum. So, I don't see any difference between that and the 60s. The Archies were on the Calendar/Kirshner labels, and those labels were only distributed by RCA. When that contract was up, Don Kirshner sold the label to CBS and they put Kansas on it. The Archies were in full control of Don Kirshner. He did that because cartoon bands can't fire him. Most of the majors didn't. Elektra and Warner Brothers were two more that didn't have a clue. Capitol tried. This is why, in the late 60-s and early 70s, the major labels created Black music divisions, and that ultimately hurt Black/soul/R&B/whatever you want to call it music. Why? The records, even less so, got marketed to top 40 or rock radio. And, since there were now separate divisions, less money was directed to those departments, and most of the budget went to pop/rock music. And, yeah, it's all about race, so I can't go further. You can all figure it out. The only thing that helped was the increased popularity of the music in the 70s.
With Capitol, from 1973-80 it was most obvious because on R&B/soul product the label backgrounds were red and the logos at the time were black. As opposed to pop and C&W product which to 1978 was Portland orange and tan, and afterwards was dark purple and silver. And this even extended to their company sleeves, which from 1973-78 were black and green (and from 1978-80, silver and green). There was no equivalent of this separate label coloring scheme for the other "majors."
Does anyone remember that Samuel L Jackson movie A Time to Kill from the nineties? When that came out, I remember that every time one of my friends would mention it, someone else would start singing the title of it to the tune of the Romeo + Juliet theme 'A Time for Us'. To this day I always recall that random memory when I hear this song and silently mouth 'A tiiime to kiillll....'.
1969 wasn't a great year for #1 soul records but if you factored out Motown, most of the 60s was the same way. The 70s would see an uptick, again with Motown but also the funk, Philly sound and Disco. '69 saw Country and MOR flexing their muscle in a continuation of what was going on the year before and one more genre got it's day in the sun. The Edwin Hawkins Singers took an unlikely Gospel song into the top 5 in the summer and while I consider myself non-religious, there's no denying the power of a good gospel song to move your soul. And as Grant would say, mono is the way to go!
Mancini played the hit version of the Romeo & Juliet theme, but Nino Rota wrote it and a lot of other great movie music besides. Here'd one from hal Wilner's Amacord Nino Rota:
Capitol hired an Capitol Records attorney Larkin Arnold to head the Black music division in 1976. His philosophy was that pop and Black music should remain separate, but the labels for soul artists were deep red with black lettering started in 1973. Note that Capitol put soul artists on the orange label with green lettering in 1975.
Again, I said it wasn't a great year for #1 Soul records. Nothing about the year in general or the impact the songs had on music. But you did get one thing right, it is my opinion. Just as what you state is yours. Nothing said here is definitive outside of our own minds.
I didn't mean for my post to sound confrontational. Sorry if it did. You are correct, as 1969 didn't have many #1s. That means a few songs hogged the #1 spots that year.
Apologies, too. I'm a tad touchy today because it's Labor Day and I have to work. If it's any consolation, I agree the year was very good for Soul music in general and would explode in the 70s.
Next up we have "In The Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)" By Zager and Evans, #1 from July 12 - August 22, 1969.
A critic said it better than I could - "In The Year 2525" is what you'd get if Henry Kissinger wrote pop songs while stoned on acid.
The record was Hey Jude huge here. They'd play it every hour on the hour. It wore out it's welcome pretty quickly.
MAD Magazine did an article about Americans getting addicted to motor scooters, losing the use of their legs and getting invaded by China. That's what I think of when I hear In the Year 2525.
I find this song to be the BEST #1 of 1969.... haunting, with such provocative lyrics, and such an unusual style. This might just be the only time that a Spanish march reached #1, although "White Rabbit" which is also a Spanish march, got to #8 three years previous. The song does a great slow build, with small dashes of psychadelia and folk thrown in. That final coda is amazing "Now it's been 10,000 years, man has cried a billion tears.... for what he never knew. But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight, so very far away... maybe it's only yesterday." Just mind blowingly brilliant.
I thought it was brilliant when I was about 10. As an adult? Not so much. Overwrought and awkward. But I will give it bonus points for being utterly bizarre, and I'm still stunned that it not only went to #1, but stayed there for weeks. The fact that this and "Aquarius" spent the most time at #1 in 1969 says quite a lot about the public's attitudes at that time. I don't think the pop charts have ever been quite that topical, before or since.
2525 is another in a long list that I like but not a whole lot. It's probably a little above average if that entire group is considered. I know it gets a bad rap but I don't really see why.
I think it's just captivating, and more profound than anything the Beatles ever came up with. If I had written the song, I would have changed a word or 2 and made it more pessimistic in tone. Instead of "God is gonna shake his mighty head, he'll either say he's pleased where man has been, or tear it down, and start again"... I would have written it as "He'll either see a place where man has been", meaning we either destroyed ourselves, or are mired in such depravity, that he has to wipe the slate clean and start over.
This is a tune I thought was garbage at the time it was released, when I was age 13. Hearing it again for the first time in decades, I think I was being too generous.