So far 1976 has been rather blah as far as chart toppers go. This one doesn't help matters but I suppose you should never underestimate the power of movies and TV. It's generic disco that was well on it's way to being pervasive on TV and soundtracks but such were the times. Another highly annoying TV theme is looming as we head to Spring.
Agree with everything you say here, but I'd also add that (to keep their spot in that pantheon) they had to release at least one stunning blockbuster in the 'artistic achievement' department--something that will live forever--and "Who's Next" fits that bill by acclamation. "Tommy" seems to me a worthy alternate selection, and (slightly astray) many consider "Live at Leeds" one of the best concert albums of all time. 'Squeeze Box' is a bit of a guilty pleasure and I've loved it since the first time I heard it Well, fortunately that's going to change with a vengeance! Hope I remember to check the thread!
The best songs of 1976 and the worst Best: You Should Be Dancing (good disco vibes) Convoy (when is a novelty song not funny sometimes?) Saturday Night (cheesy but good) Theme from S.W.A.T. (Nice synths) Rock’n Me (Steve Miller has some good songs) Disco Lady (disco groove) Let Your Love Flow (old country) Love Rollercoaster (nice funky vibes) A Fifth Of Beethoven (nice disco strings) Love Machine (a bit cheesy, but good) Love Hangover (Diana Ross is always good) Play That Funky Music (nice guitar) Theme from Mahogany (good beats) Middle: December 1963 (good music and cheesy lyrics) Afternoon Delight (good beat, but the lyrics are really weird) Disco Duck (too much parodies of disco, and this is one of the songs that started the disco demolition) Shake Your Booty (the horns are a bit cheesy) Silly Love Songs (McCartney’s vocals are good, but the lyrics are so-so) Tonight’s The Night (I like 80’s Rod Stewart better) Kiss And Say Goodbye (kinda bland) Mediocre/Bad: Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (very cheesy lyrics) 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover (I like Graceland better) If You Leave Me Now (a bit cheesy for my tastes, I like David Foster Chicago) I Write The Songs (very cheesy)
That whole thing should have been enveloped inside a "spoiler" alert. It is the type of thing that drives the likes of @Grant nuts (and in this context, I wouldn't blame him a bit).
Of all the TV themes to date, this is the first to go to #1? (The previous highest charter had been The Ventures' version of Hawaii Five-O - #4 in 1969). I love cop show themes, they're some of the coolest pieces of music ever, but they're simply not meant to drag on for four minutes. For example, my favorite theme is Streets Of San Francisco (a Quinn Martin production!) - it kicks down the door, slams you against the wall, cuffs you and takes you downtown for booking in less than a minute. "Theme from S.W.A.T." ain't bad at all, regardless. Can't fault the musicianship - along with the aforementioned Ray Parker Jr. you've got Jeff Porcaro on drums and Jay Graydon on guitar. I could do without that synth mirroring the melody line. Songwriter Barry DeVorzon was also well-known for the title tune of "Bless the Beasts and Children" and a lovely little piano piece from the same movie called "Cotton's Dream" which would be adopted as the theme for The Young and The Restless, and which will be adopted yet again when the '76 Olympics begin ... Producer Steve Barri was of course best known for working with The Grass Roots, and also co-wrote "Dizzy" and "Eve of Destruction". What a diverse array of talent for a freaking disco cop show theme! ----------- The B-side is a competent version of Bobby "Blue" Bland's "I Wouldn't Treat A Dog (The Way You Treated Me)". The synthesizer really gets to do it's stuff here.
I guess it depends on your personal perspective, and what you were primarily listening to at the time. I was all into top 40 radio, and love all of the chart toppers so far. That will mostly continue until mid-1980.
Yes. Why don't people respect the convention of this thread? The songs get posted by the OP one by one every other day in the order in which they attained their #1 status. We discuss the song in question and do not jump ahead. If we were just discussing the whole year's output, that would be different. And, I do realize that some people have no patience.
Never really cared for it or for the TV series. It’s a decent TV series theme, nothing more. I remember this era as having a lot of TV themes songs made into 3 minute songs. The themes for the Rockford Files, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Baretta, etc were all released as singles. I don’t know if this was typical of the industry or not, but it sure seemed that there were a lot of them in the mid-1970s. In the next few weeks, there will be another TV theme song that reaches Number 1.
Here's the album cover, Disco-fied. I like it! Along with S.W.A.T it has the Baretta theme as well as covers of "My Cherie Amour" and the jazz standard "Caravan". It's on Spotify (along with all three of the followup albums!) but I'm a bit afraid to stream it.
IMO things improve at the top in the second half of the year. Thankfully, there are many better songs kicking around the chart to enjoy like this one. Gary Wright of Spooky Tooth fame stepped out on his own and came up with a classic album that spawned two fantastic hit singles that really stood out and helped define the year. I mentioned earlier of the spacey sounds that were popping up in light jazz and R&B and here it found it's way into light rock. Dream Weaver was a favorite with my circle of friends and not just because we enjoyed it while being "spaced out" ourselves.
Yes, Chapman produced Parallel Lines, Eat To The Beat and Autoamerican. (And The Hunter, but let's not go there.)
Why are you posting an annual review of 1976 while we're in the middle of 1976? Save it for the year-end wrapup. I don't mind it when folks bring up other landmarks in the career of the act we're currently discussing, or the impact the current hit had on the charts going forward and how it influenced the industry (especially when the other tracks being discussed never made it to #1), but why on earth would anybody be dumping a huge list of songs into the thread when we're clearly going one-by-one over the #1 hits of 1976 in chronological order?
I sprearheaded a project involving a "SWAT" team for work (office work, not police work). I used this as a my theme song earlier this year. I ws familiar with it previously but shocked it went to # 1. Was it the same fans that bought Convoy, bought this 45?
I totally forgot that Theme From SWAT hit the top. It's kind of generic, isn't it? I'll take Shaft over this any day of the week.
In defense of the band, I'm sure that's exactly what Aaron Spelling asked for - "Give me something that sounds like Shaft!!!" Here's the theme in-context...
Wonder how many of the session cats who played on that TV version, also were amongst those that played on Rhythm Heritage's rendition.
It's funny, I hate '80s production with all the overdone synthesizers, but I do like "Dream Weaver" - which I've seen cited as the godfather of all that. In 1976, of course, it hadn't had a chance to grow stale yet.
I wasn’t a big fan of this song back then (too young to be “spaced out”) but I have come to appreciate its effective use in Toy Story 3.
Very big record, too! I always prefer the album version, which is what my local radio station played.
