Here's another example of a top notch tune that peaked outside the Top 20 - #30 to be exact - but deserved so much better. Roxy Music has always been somewhat of a cult band, at least in the US, never reaching the Top 10 but a popular group in the UK. Love Is The Drug was their only Top 40 hit. The song retains some of their glam past but injects a Disco/Funk element for the mid 70s. Love the bass and sax and Ferry's sinister vocals and who doesn't appreciate a line like "Lumber up, limbo down!"
Even though I know that this is from 1975, it sounds to me, like it could have been recorded in the the early 80s.
It just so happens that Roxy Music was announced as a 2019 inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today. Not sure if the post above was motivated by that or not (I see that the post was made several hours after the announcement). Roxy Music is one act I need to learn more about; I don't know their material at all.
Yes - the song was way ahead of its time. It was frequently played on college radio stations during the late 70s/early 80s. It’s also played often on Sirius XM “First Wave” station.
I saw a blurb on-line about the R&R inductees but didn't read it so no, that wasn't the impetus for my post.
Really? Really? You're not funning me, are you? (looks up the inductees) YAHOO! IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!! PS - And the ZOMBIES!!!
I was surprised to find out that More Than This didn't even make the top 100, considering how often I hear it on 80s focused radio stations. Anyway, I love these weirdoes, but my favorite era for them was definitely the first two albums, when Eno was in the group. Yes, in the group, actually appearing on stage and stuff. His basic job was to make things sound stranger with his bank of electronic gadgets, he didn't play an instrument per se. Mission accomplished! Here's their first hit single in the UK, Virginia Plain, done live on German TV. This song reached the charts about a month after Bowie broke through with Starman in 1972. PS - is it true that their name comes from the fact that they aren't really rock music, they're rock-sy music, a weird left turn on traditional rock? Or is that just an urban legend?
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover The one Paul Simon solo album we had when I was a kid was 'One Trick Pony'. I don't even own Graceland, so basically my knowledge of his solo work comes from that one album and his various singles. I would put 50 ways down the list; I liked Mother and Child Reunion, Me and Julio, Kodachrome, Late in the Evening, and yes One Trick Pony, all more than this song (and I keep remembering more of them as I write this). Still, it's catchy; I like the snare drum bit, and the lyrics are decent. I can see how it would get annoying if you heard it ten times a day, but I only rarely hear it, so it hasn't worn out its welcome. I always associate it in my mind with another name song, the Name Game. That song is fun to sing with the names of people you know, and in college we would have similar kicks making up verses for 50 Ways with our friends' names. Especially the people with long or hard to rhyme names; extra points if you could figure out a good couplet! Anyway, my favorite stuff of his will always be his sixties classics, but in the 70s and beyond he showed he wasn't just, well, a one trick pony!
I addressed this when we were in the 60s timeline but as much as I dig the song, it was absolute torture for kids like me who's name rhymes with the f-bomb.
All names suck when you're a kid. I wish someone had explained that to me back in the third grade or so. It would have been a lot easier to put up with the constant - and usually deliberate - mispronunciations of my last name, including by some of the teachers.
Maybe a lot of people know it from Bill Murray's rendition in Lost in Translation. That's the movie which introduced me to Peaches' "F* the Pain Away". Which I daresay isn't likely to make it into this thread otherwise
Love this song, but I think the Grace Jones cover manages the rare feat of actually besting an original. I liked Grace when I was a kid, but also kind of thought she was all about the image and being outrageous. When I started picking up her '80s albums a few years ago I realised the depth of my mistake. Sly & Robbie were on fire, the band was on fire, Grace was on fire and those records are utterly brilliant. I so, so, so regret not picking any of them up when I was a teen - I would have loved them to death. Now I'll just have to use them to rock the nursing home to the ground.
"More Than This" is one of those beloved 80s "hits" that were ignored by Top 40 radio at the time but nonetheless became popular due to airplay on the then fledgling MTV. I had heard that the bad was originally called Roxy but had to change their name because another band already had that name.
...I did some - an action that, if my family had been Catholic instead of High Church Episcopalian, the priest would have felt obligated to at least tut-tut - to that picture of the future Mrs. Murdoch! A coupla years later whenthe Patti Smith Group went Top 20 I had the LP with her - Coming, uh, up!!!!!!!!! - said single in it and I read in her Rolling Stone interview that she hoped fans committed (un-)said act to to her LP cover and I TRIED it - She didn't do much for me, I'm sorry. pua, post: 20163186, member: 62637"]Here's another example of a top notch tune that peaked outside the Top 20 - #30 to be exact - but deserved so much better. Roxy Music has always been somewhat of a cult band, at least in the US, never reaching the Top 10 but a popular group in the UK. Love Is The Drug was their only Top 40 hit. The song retains some of their glam past but injects a Disco/Funk element for the mid 70s. Love the bass and sax and Ferry's sinister vocals and who doesn't appreciate a line like "Lumber up, limbo down!" [/QUOTE]
...Well, they influenced much of that " Post-Punk/Dance Wave ". trees, post: 20163506, member: 2937"]Even though I know that this is from 1975, it sounds to me, like it could have been recorded in the the early 80s.[/QUOTE]
..." Record stores/ department s', or such as. My phone tend to do stuff like this. You really coulfn't guess this??? ques, post: 20159503, member: 28599"][/QUOTE] OK, you stumped me. What's a "delartdepa"?[/QUOTE]
There was a song, 15 or 16 years from this, by a famous alternative rock group, that to this day I cannot hear without "Love Is The Drug" coming up in my head. Other than that, I will not offer any more specifics until we get to the era in question.
Terry Bradshaw, you just won the Super Bowl! What are you going to do now? Become a country singer! This was his only Hot 100 entry, getting all the way to #91 in March '76.
And a Four Seasons whose personnel was radically different from their previous #1, "Rag Doll." Oh, to be sure, Frankie Valli was still part of the group (though he basically did a cameo, appearing only on the phase-shifted bridge - and having forsaken his falsetto years before, no small part a combo of vocal changes and well-publicized hearing issues), but every other member was new - and original member Bob Gaudio was now their producer and co-writer (by now with future wife Judy Parker). Gerry Polci handled the main lead, and the falsetto was from Don Ciccone (ex Critters of "Mr. Dieingly Sad" fame - heaven forfend a certain "lucky star" beginning a decade hence was of even the remotest relation to him, G-d I hope not). Their previous hit (and their big comeback, coming as it did after Mr. Valli's), "Who Loves You," in its chorus, seemed to conjure up the famous catchphrase of Telly Savalas on his 1973-78 TV series Kojak ("Who loves ya, baby?"). But back to this record. At the time this was released, moved up the charts, and reached the summit, Warner Bros. was rearranging its pressing arrangements. Since 1962, virtually all their product had been pressed by Columbia. But within this period they began to have Capitol press their LP's and 45's, with Columbia now a backup. Still, as with most Warners' product, the copy I have o' this is a Columbia pressing, the variant of which is below: Notice Jobete Music was a co-publisher at this point - no doubt a byproduct of their ill-fated Motown run.
Absolutely love this and Who Loves You. Both come from the same absolute stinker of an album! Two huge hits and a bunch of songs that make the word filler seem like a compliment. But I love the production of both, especially the fat reverb drum sound that opens Decenber 63. Well deserved come back songs, with just enough of Frankie’s vocals to really make those songs special. I think that was it for this group? I’m not aware of a follow up album. Strange, but Frankie was doing okay on his own.
I always liked this one, but I forget that it made it to the top of the charts. It's an odd tune to be coming from The Four Seasons - it sounds like some kind of a cross between Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire. Gaudio had written a slew of hits for the original Four Seasons, as well as "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" for solo Valli. I think the prior year's, Gaudio-penned "Who Loves You" might be a better cut than "Oh, What A Night" - it made it to #3 - but they were certainly (and surprisingly) on fire. This was the end of the run for the band anywhere near the top of the charts, although Valli wasn't quite done yet...
The Four Seasons were my first favorite group, when I was just out of diapers - which is to say, starting just about the time this record became a hit. I remember it from when I was very little, but I don't think I knew it was the same group that sang my beloved "Let's Hang On" and "Walk Like a Man". (Of course, as W.B. pointed out, in a way it wasn't!) I did have a copy of "Who Loves You" (which I never liked much) in my collection, so you'd think I'd have put two and two together, but I didn't until years later. Amusingly, in Jersey Boys, this song is presented as being about Bob Gaudio losing his virginity while on tour with the original Four Seasons in 1963. While anything is possible, that is most likely not what the song really is about: Gaudio's original lyrics had the song set 30 years earlier and about the end of prohibition. It was his then-girlfriend/later wife who wrote the lyrics we know and love. There's also a French-language version, "Cette Année-là"...when I first learned of that, I figured the lyrics were probably a lot racier than the original. Not even close: they're all about various events of 1962 - the first Beatles single, the death of Marilyn Monroe, etc. - but the biggest American group of that particular year gets no mention whatsoever. How meta, huh?
