EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

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

  1. tmoore

    tmoore Forum Resident

    Location:
    Olney, MD
    It's a long time from 1979 to when you're talking about. I DO remember all of this --there was a lot in between there. (I think you and I are about the same age, so I'm not saying anything you don't already know)
     
    Grant likes this.
  2. Grant

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

    Check on the R&B thread in late 1982. You'll find rap with a purpose.
     
  3. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Yeah, but he produced some great material even during this period, and most of it isn't as overplayed as his stuff from periods when he was still hot. In fact maybe my favorite Elton John song is from The Fox, a record which isn't generally well-regarded.

    I actually have 21 at 33, which I got used for next to nothing at a kind of a thrift store 10 years ago, and it's not terrible, either. I love love love the big hit from it, "Sartorial Eloquence" is great, and so is "Two Rooms At The End Of The World".

    The sessions were clearly pretty productive - a bunch of The Fox was recorded at the same time, including maybe my favorite EJ single ever.
     
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  4. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
     
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  5. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I like 21/33 as well. Some of his Geffen stuff is okay. In fact, I like almost everything on the Geffen Greatest Hits Vol 3. But liked very few of the albums except Two Loe For Zero. Then Made In England came out and I was really hoping for greatness going forward as I love that album. But imo he continued very inconsistent, and completely came off the rails when his albums started being recorded with his vocals being very raw sounding with no effects. Just don’t think he’s a good enough singer for that, but a lot of people here love Peach Tree Road, Captain And The Kid (I do like This Train Don’t Stop Here No More, but only after I saw the poignant video) etc. I just don’t think he ever again came even close to his albums up to Westies. I think a lot of that goes to the exceptional band he had until he fired them. What a bone headed move, and I bet he would agree with that now. And obviously his studio producer Gus Dudgeon was a genius as well. Elton was wise to record just his parts and then leave the studio and allow everyone else to do what they did best. You have to give an enormous amount of credit to everyone in Elton’s camp. The results speak for themselves. After he fired everyone he only had one more huge album, and that was bought on the strength of the previous huge album, not because Westies was really very good (and as most know, an entire new band was used, though they did a great job imo).
     
  6. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Pretty much hate good times. It doesn’t even have the novelty vibe going with the “freak out” shout out of Le Freak, where at least I get why it was a smash. Good Times for me is just a very drab, boring song. And people loved it! I guess you get Chic or you don't. I want to like them, I do respect their work, but for me their music just goes on and on and never goes anywhere.
     
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  7. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Very much in your camp. Sometimes you can’t force yourself to like things you just don’t like. I’ve repeatedly tried with the likes of Dylan and other superstars, but sometimes you can’t get there.
     
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  8. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Couldn’t agree more. And yet, it would be easy to assume they should have been the Casablanca of disco instead of. On the other hand, Motown created many career long artists and disco created almost none. Perhaps there’s something to that. Obviously Motown was the better place to be. Geez, every Motown song you mentioned are far better than most disco songs imo, as much as I enjoyed the genre.
     
  9. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I thought The One was pretty good. "The Simple Life" is maybe the best single he cut post-Too Low For Zero. That or "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore".
     
  10. Grant

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

    Their music does go somewhere. The magic is in the ensemble: the bass, the guitar, the drums, and the keyboards. The three violinists who were permanent members were part of that too.

    Nile Rodgers said in his book that he and 'Nard made an agreement from the beginning that every song had to have a double meaning. Maybe the dual meanings aren't always obvious to the listener, but they are there. That's part of the fun.
     
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  11. Grant

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


    I cannot agree with your assertion that disco didn't create any long-term artists. First of all, we have been talking about Chic, and the various members and guest singers they used, like Luther Vandross and the founders themselves. Famous remixer Tom Moulton carved out a career in disco. Donna Summer's producer Giorgio Moroder. Whether you want to call them disco or not, there's the O'Jays. Kool & The Gang found their second like in the disco era. The only problem is that many, or even most of the disco stars, or those who made their mark in the disco era have passed on: Van McCoy, Donna Summer, Eddie Kendricks, Jacques Morali, and many others I can't think of at the moment.

    In the disco era, Motown was seen as one of the worst places to be for disco because of the way the company was run. At a time when artists and producers were independent, Motown was stubbornly still trying to hold on to their outdated 60s business model. It's no wonder so many of its artists left the label like Gladys Knight & The Pips, Teena Marie, Diana Ross, and The Four Tops. Some came back, like The Temptations after a miserable stint at Atlantic, and the others had to fight for their artistic freedom. Ross left for the same reasons, but had better success at RCA for a few years.
     
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  12. Glenpwood

    Glenpwood Hyperactive!

    I think most of the budget for Miss Wilson's solo album was spent on cocaine & champagne rather than production or top drawer writers. It didn't help her album was essentially only made to settle a lawsuit between her and Motown over her rights to using the Supremes name. They dropped her from the label within 6 months of this flopping.

    Her former co-members in the group, Scherrie Payne & Susaye Greene, would make a much better record that came out around the same time, Partners. No killer single on it, but tracks like "Another Life From Now" and "In The Night" are glorious. Worth checking out if you liked the final incarnation of the act.
     
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  13. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    I think the fact is boomers hate hip hop because they were told from birth that they were the center of the universe, and while some of the earliest rappers were in fact boomers, it was a genre that really blew up with Gen X coming of age in the 1980s. Hip hop's continued relevance showed that boomers are no longer the center of the world and they seem to hate it more than Gen X people dealing that millennials replaced them, of which are now beginning to be replaced by Gen Z.


    Rap is 40 years old now, old rock dudes refusing to give it credit are like the Sinatra fans in the 90s who still considered rock "noise".
     
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  14. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    The Fox is very underrated
     
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  15. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Beginning of the end, meaning, I'm just starting to see the types of songs that will drive me away when they start to dominate; but the domination is still years away, thank heavens!

    I'm pretty familiar with the charts through the end of the eighties, but after that it gets much more dicey. At the rate we're going, it will probably take us close to three more years to get to the point where I'm done. But when we get there, yeesh... I just can't imagine talking about the relative merits of *18* Mariah Carey #1 songs. Good grief.:shake::winkgrin:
     
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  16. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    I do like Gil Scott Heron a lot, but I think of him more as spoken word with musical backing. Rap adjacent, maybe, but not rap per se. Jack Kerouac used to do stuff like that, too.



    The thing that bugs me the most about rap and hip hop is, of all the musical styles that have come and gone in my lifetime, why did the ones I like the least have to have such staying power? Seriously, couldn't we have had 40 years of folk rock or psychedelia or soul or funk or surf music or bubblegum or pretty much ANYTHING else? If music were doing its job and refreshing itself every five years or so like it used to, rap would be a distant memory or nostalgia trip instead of the endlessly repeating thing it is now.
     
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  17. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    I'm not a boomer, though. I was 12 in 1979; I definitely self identify as Gen X. Theoretically, I was just young enough to embrace rap; I was certainly aware of it in the early 80s, even if it wasn't ubiquitous until later in that decade.

    I was pretty irritated by the Big Chill, even though I not-so-secretly loved that style of music more than the stuff that was current. You can simultaneously enjoy the music and still think Boomers are full of themselves; these are not mutually exclusive opinions!
     
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  18. Grant

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

    o_O Are you aware that baby-boomers started hip-hop in the 70s and were the first to hear and embrace it?
     
  19. tmoore

    tmoore Forum Resident

    Location:
    Olney, MD
    I am Gen X (about two years too late for boomer), but not a fan of hip hop. I don't hate it -- I'm just not a fan.
    I am the youngest of 8, all the rest are boomers. So it is safe to say I have a boomer mentality.

    Part of why I am writing this is to point out that a person's age doesn't necessarily fit them into a specific category.
     
  20. Grant

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

    Then i'm schizo, because i'm a boomer who also identifies with, Gen-x'ers, and Millennials.:help:
     
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  21. Jo B

    Jo B Forum Resident

    Location:
    Minnesota USA
    Great song. It was the inspiration for the distinctive bass line in a 1980 #1 hit.
     
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  22. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Next is the #1 song of 1979, "My Sharona" by the Knack, #1 from August 19 - September 29, 1979.

     
  23. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    During the Knack's run, and going back to early July....Maxine Nightingale sat atop the Adult Contemporary chart for 7 weeks with this song that hit #5 on the hot 100. One of my favorite songs of 1979.... and as much as I love it, I think it REALLY needs a bridge.
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2019
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  24. tommy-thewho

    tommy-thewho Senior Member

    Location:
    detroit, mi
    Love My Sharona!!
     
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  25. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    If "Heart Of Glass" hadn't already made it clear back in April that New Wave acts were going to be a force to reckon with on the pop charts, the massive success of this number - just as the school year began in 1979 - erased any doubts. This was a loud blast of stripped down, guitar-heavy rock with retro elements, but in no way was it a Happy Days retro pastiche. There was something "nervy and pervy" about The Knack - a trait shared by other prominent New Wave acts like The Cars - making the music a polar opposite to the polyester lounge lizard dominated disco not just in content but in spirit as well.

    One of the first singles I ever bought, and just as loud and obnoxious and infectious today as it was 40 years(!) ago.
     

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