Artist Top 10s

Prince: Best of the Rest

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April 21st marks the 8th anniversary of Prince’s death. One of the most talented musicians of his generation; and one of the most cheated when it comes to UK #1s. Just the one, in fact: 1994’s ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’.

(We of course shouldn’t forget two very famous, and very good, songs written by Prince, that were chart-topping hits for Chaka Khan and Sinead O’Connor.)

So here are the Prince tunes that came closest: 8 records and 10 songs (thanks to two double-‘A’s) spread over quite a few decades… I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as up on my Prince as I should be, so I’m not ranking them. We’ll just go by ascending chart position. Hopefully, I’ll learn something about the Purple One as we go…

‘Kiss’ (with the Revolution) – #6 in 1986

We start with the first Prince song I was ever aware of. And as an intro to the man, it ticks most of the right boxes… Outrageous funk, untamed horniness, a painfully high falsetto… check, check, check. But actually, the girl he’s looking for should be a blushing rose: no dirty talk, no flirting… You don’t have to watch ‘Dynasty’, To have an attitude… is the pick of the lines. Fun fact: the ‘ah-ah-ah’ effect is a compressed sample from Brenda Lee’s classic ‘Sweet Nothin’s’. A couple of years after the original, a remake by Art of Noise, fronted by Tom Jones, charted one place higher at #5. No comment…

‘Purple Rain’ (with the Revolution) – #6 in 2016

Title track from both an album and a movie, ‘Purple Rain’ is probably Prince’s signature tune. A gospel power-ballad, about the end of the world, it’s never really connected with me. I can respect it wholeheartedly; but I enjoy other Prince songs more. Originally written as a country song, and intended to be a duet with Stevie Nicks, ‘Purple Rain’ wouldn’t have made this list before Prince died, as it only made #8 originally. Upon his sudden death, this was understandably the song fans flocked to, making it re-chart and peak two places higher.

‘Controversy’ – reached #5 in 1993

Another song that peaked much later. Twelve years after it had failed to chart in the UK, ‘Controversy’ was re-released ahead of a Greatest Hits in 1993 and made #5. It’s tight and funky, with a disco beat, and lyrically lives up to its title. Am I black or white…? Prince asks… Am I straight or gay? In the seven-minute album version, he recites the Lord’s Prayer in full, presumably well aware that it would piss off a lot of people. Prince would spend the rest of his career playing up to similar controversy. For example, when I was at primary school, the one thing we all ‘knew’ about Prince was that he’d had two ribs removed in order to… how to put this… auto-fellate?

‘Sexy M.F.’ / ‘Strollin” (with the New Power Generation) – reached #4 in 1992

It took a while for the UK to catch up to Prince’s talents, but by the early nineties his singles were often charting higher in the UK than in the States. This coincided with what I see people now call Prince’s ‘gangsta period’. He raps most of this tune, classic lines like Can’t you see I’m harder than a man can get, I got wet dreams coming out of my ears… It’s a strangely uncommercial tune, all sharp horns and a monotonously funky beat, and that’s before we come to the x-rated title. So, in the UK it was twinned with ‘Strollin”, in the hope that radio would play that one. In the end, they just played an edit of ‘Sexy MF’ (You sexy mother-AOOW…!) ‘Strollin” is a much more jazzy, innocent number: Strollin’, strollin’, We can have fun just strollin’… and it can’t really compete with a sexy MF shakin their ass…

‘Gett Off’ (with the New Power Generation) – reached #4 in 1991

The crowning glory of Prince’s near-pornographic early nineties era. ‘Cream’, ‘Sexy MF’, and ‘Peach’ are all fun, but nothing matches the utter filth of ‘Gett Off’, from the ear-splitting shriek that kicks things off, through a tale of twenty-three positions in a one-night stand, to a brilliant flute-cum-guitar riff. Other highlights include a nod to that urban legend – Whatcha want to eat? “Ribs”, Ha, toy, I don’t serve ribs – and the crackly, funky James Brown tribute in the middle. If I were to rank these singles personally, then this one would be on top. Prince took himself seriously a lot of the time; but ‘Gett Off’ is a load of fun.

‘When Doves Cry’ – reached #4 in 1984

Early-nineties Prince might have been utter filth, but it’s not as if he was particularly pure and chaste before that… The video for ‘When Doves Cry’ caused consternation, setting up the controversy over the ‘Purple Rain’ album, and the introduction of ‘Parental Advisory’ stickers. The best single from the album, it was his breakthrough in the UK – only his second song to chart. It’s a deeply weird, deeply catchy song, that has no bass line.

‘Batdance’ – reached #2 in 1989

So, yep. Prince’s joint-second biggest hit in the UK is this. Recorded, quickly, for the soundtrack to the Michael Keaton ‘Batman’ reboot, ‘Batdance’ is a deeply, deeply strange song. If you can call it a song, which it isn’t in the traditional sense. There’s a lot going on: samples, audio from the movie, Prince’s raps, spoken asides, the classic Bat-maaaan… refrain all against a clanking, metallic beat… Then there’s a slow and funky middle-section that sounds like the needle has slipped on to a completely different song. Prince lovers may argue this an example of the scope of his talent, others might suggest it’s a classic example of over-egging the pudding. The guitar solo is wild, though.

‘1999’ / ‘Little Red Corvette’ – reached #2 in 1985

One of Prince’s more straight-forward pop moments, albeit one with a deeply cool synth-funk riff, and lyrics about dancing towards the apocalypse. ‘1999’ only made the Top 30 initially but made #2 when re-released in 1985. I wonder if ‘1999’ was ever Prince’s most popular hit, as it seems that the longer we get from the actual year in the title the more its fame is overshadowed by other Prince songs. It charted for a third time, making #10, in… 1999. For the ’85 re-release, it was paired with ‘Little Red Corvette’, which had been an even smaller hit originally. In it, Prince carries on the fine rock ‘n’ roll tradition of comparing beautiful women to cars (baby you’re much too fast…) It’s a fine song: a sort of smokey, disco-power ballad. Recorded in 1982, it’s the sound of the 1980s just starting to come into their own.

Aside from the music, there can be no doubt that Prince was one of, in not THE, ultimate rock star. Beautifully androgynous, deeply strange, myths and legends about him sprouting left, right and centre, and most importantly of all supremely talented. RIP.

The Rolling Stones – Best of the Rest

/ UK #1s blog / 21 Comments

To mark the release of the Stones’ 24th studio album, and their first original recording in almost two decades, let’s delve back into their long chart career, and explore the hits that didn’t make number one.

Over the course of the 1960s, the band scored eight chart toppers, from ‘It’s All Over Now’ in ’64 to ‘Honky Tonk Women’ in ’69. But they didn’t stop when the sixties ended. No, as you may be aware, they kept going. And going. Kept on rolling on. Impressively, their recent comeback single, ‘Angry’, made #34 in the UK, their first Top 40 hit since 2005. But that won’t quite make this list of their ten biggest non-chart toppers. In ascending order, then…

‘Start Me Up’, reached #7 in 1981

The Stones at their Stonesiest. A killer riff, some smutty lyrics, and Mick doing his best Jane Fonda impression in the video. It’s an impressive feat, releasing one of your signature songs two decades into your career. But it also somewhat marked the end of the band as a chart concern – it remains their final UK Top 10 hit – and the start of The Stones TM: the mega-touring, jukebox musical that the band have been for the last forty years. ‘Tattoo You’, the album from which it came, is seen by many as the band’s last great LP, too.

‘Fool to Cry’, reached #6 in 1976

Perhaps the one thing lacking from the Stones’ back-catalogue is a big ballad. (Ok, the next song on the list proves that statement completely wrong…) Anyway, ‘Fool to Cry’ comes close to being that ballad. A slow, bluesy number that takes its time, lingering on some wonderful falsetto notes from Mick. In the first verse he’s feeling low, so he puts his daughter on his knee, and she tells him Daddy, You’re a fool to cry… A bit too sentimental for the Stones? Not to worry, in verse two Mick goes to his mistress, who lives in a po’ part of town… And she says the exact same thing. Much more like it!

‘Angie’, reached #5 in 1973

Of course, if the Stones do have a big ballad, then it’s this one. There was some discussion as to who ‘Angie’ was: David Bowie’s wife, Keith Richard’s daughter, or the actress Angie Dickinson. Whoever it’s about, it’s a beautiful love song, with Jagger’s slurred singing giving the impression that he’s had a shot or two of Dutch courage before suggesting he and Angie call it a day.

‘Tumbling Dice’, reached #5 in 1972

I called ‘Start Me Up’ the Stones at their Stonesiest, but actually… This is the band at the peak of the powers. The lead single from what is widely regarded as their best album (though I’d go for the clean and concise ‘Sticky Fingers’ over the rambling ‘Exile…’) ‘Tumbling Dice’ might be the coolest piece of rock music ever recorded – that boogie-woogie rhythm, Keef’s lazy riff, Charlie’s drums bringing up the rear, the lyrics about being rank outsiders and partners in crime.. To be honest, until watching the lyric video above I had no idea what 90% of the words to ‘Tumbling Dice’ were. But does it matter? Nah. This one’s all about the groove, the attitude, about being the best freakin’ rock and roll band in the world.

‘Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow?’, reached #5 in 1966

It’s easy now, with them in their eighties, to be blasé about how dangerous the Rolling Stones must have seemed in the 1960s. But this mid-decade hit, that begins and ends in a hail of feedback, with ambiguous lyrics that could be about a girl on the streets, taking drugs, or affairs with people’s mothers, proves that they were mad, bad, and dangerous to know… The memorable horn riff is a sign of the direction that the band would take as the sixties progressed. And just to make sure they got some more attention, the band dragged up for the record sleeve. Lock up your daughters, indeed…

‘Miss You’, reached #3 in 1978

A trio of number threes, now. In the late seventies anybody who was anybody had to try out a disco groove and the Stones were no different, in what was seen as a huge departure for them. The band disagree over whether or not it was originally intended as a disco song – Jagger and Wood say no, Richards says yes – but it certainly ended up as one. (There was an even more disco influenced remix released as a 12″.) Meanwhile, Bill Wyman, whose brilliant bassline holds the whole thing together, has claimed he should have had a writing credit. ‘Miss You’ was their last Billboard #1, and their last UK Top 5 hit.

‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’, reached #3 in 1967

It’s funny – this is one of the Stones’ poppier numbers, and yet one of their most controversial. It’s piano and organ driven, seemingly influenced more by Motown and male vocal groups than the band’s normal R&B touchstones. But lyrics like I’ll satisfy your every need, And now I know you’ll satisfy me… were bound to get folks’ knickers in a twist. Radio stations banned it, and Ed Sullivan insisted that the chorus be changed to ‘let’s spend some time together’, an insistence that the band complied with (though Jagger’s theatrical eye-roll meant they weren’t invited back for a while). In some regions it was twinned with ‘Ruby Tuesday’, though the official records don’t list it as a double-‘A’ in the UK.

‘Not Fade Away’, reached #3 in 1964

Where it all began (almost). This Buddy Holly cover was their 3rd single, and their first Top 10 hit. It’s a lot faster, and beefier, than the original, with a touch of the fuzzy, sloppy sounds of the Rolling Stones in their prime, and Brian Jones’ harmonica acting as lead instrument. It came out in early 1964, right at the start of the British Invasion, when bands like The Beatles and the Stones wore their American rock ‘n’ roll influences loud and proud. It serves almost as a timeline of rock’s rapid development through the fifties and sixties: the Stones covering a Buddy Holly hit, which he’d based on the Bo Diddley riff, which in turn goes all the way back to the dawn of the blues.

‘Brown Sugar’ / ‘Bitch’, reached #2 in 1971

Another all-time Stones classic, this time from ‘Sticky Fingers’, with a great riff, a filthy sax solo, and some famously questionable lyrics. For many years I never paid much attention to the nitty-gritty of the song’s subject matter, because it was such an absolute rocker. But then you actually sit down and read the lyrics about slave ships and whipping women at midnight, and wonder if the song is looking at the matter critically, or just celebrating it. Then again, shouldn’t rock ‘n’ roll be provocative? And they’re far from being the Stones’ worst lyrics (‘Under My Thumb’ and ‘Some Girls’ say ‘Hi’…) As if they knew this song would court controversy, they paired it with a more subtle, reflective number, which they called ‘Bitch’… Some countries also list the record as a triple ‘A’-side, with a live cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Let It Rock’ as the third track.

’19th Nervous Breakdown’, reached #2 in 1966

Come to think of it, the Stones’ other number two hit is hardly the most sympathetic towards women (Oh who’s to blame, That girl’s just insane…) Lost a little amongst their biggest ’60s hits, ’19th Nervous Breakdown’ is the Stones at their snottiest. The Kinks are always cast as the decade’s social commentators, but songs like this (alongside ‘Satisfaction’, and ‘Mother’s Little Helper’) are just as biting satire. It tells the story of a flighty society girl, running around, getting on everyone’s nerves, always on the verge of yet another breakdown… Though we’re left to ponder how much of that is down to her terrible choice in men. The highlight here is Bill Wyman’s ‘divebombing’ bass in the fade-out…

I hope you enjoyed this little interlude! Back on with the regular countdown next week. Meanwhile, I’m off to give ‘Hackney Diamonds’ a listen…

Top 10s – The 1980s

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We’ve left them far behind, but before we draw a line under the decade of synths and hairspray, lets rundown the Top 10 records of that era (according to my very scientific ‘Recap’ posts).

I’ve already done a Top 10 for the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Follow the links to see how they panned out.

For the eighties, there are six ‘Very Best’ records, and then four records that came so very close. Oh, and an honorary ‘best’ number one, for reasons that will become evident below. Just to be clear, I’m not retroactively ranking these tunes: these are the ones I picked as we meandered through the decade, even if some I look at now and wonder quite what I was thinking… And I’m restricted to one #1 per artist (the only act who could have had two are… I’ll reveal that later!)

‘Atomic’, by Blondie – #1 for 2 weeks in February-March 1980

We kick off with only the 4th chart-topper of the decade, and a punk-disco-new-wave-funk masterpiece. ‘Atomic’ came in the midst of Blondie’s run of five chart-toppers in just under two years – one of the best runs of number ones the charts has ever seen. Debbie Harry’s vocals (plus her rocking a bin-bag in the video), Clem Burke’s drumming, and Nigel Harrison’s bass playing combine to make something truly explosive (you can read my original post here.) And yet, I didn’t name it as a Very Best Chart-Topper, because Blondie already have one, and this record came along a few months later…

‘The Winner Takes it All’, by ABBA – #1 for 2 weeks in August 1980

What more needs to be written about one of the greatest pop songs of all time? Not much, to be honest, and I already wrote a lot about it here. Usually my ‘Very Best’ Awards are dished out in the heat of the moment (see the next song in this list as proof), but I knew ‘The Winner Takes It All’ would be one of them as soon as I started writing this blog.

‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz – #1 for 1 week in April 1982

From two all-time classics, to Bucks Fizz’s forgotten final number one. I can still justify picking it, as this is very sophisticated pop, from a band most people only remember as one of Eurovision’s cheesiest winners (a category for which the competition is unimaginably fierce…) Read my reasons for doing so here. And yet, seriously, this is one of the ten best number ones of the eighties?? No Michael Jackson, no Madonna… but Bucks Fizz? To which I say, yes! Why the hell not?? (Though perhaps I should have chosen ‘The Land of Make Believe’ instead…)

‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, by Bonnie Tyler – #1 for 2 weeks in March 1983

Turn around… The ’80s was very much the decade of ‘bigger is better’, and you don’t get much bigger or better than this power ballad. The first of the great eighties power ballads? That’s up for debate, but it’s certainly one of the very best. Tyler gives a performance of total commitment, unwilling to be eclipsed by the ridiculousness of the song, and yet she seems fully aware that she’s helming something quite ludicrous (other over-earnest balladeers, take note). I named this as runner-up, ahead of ‘Billie Jean’ no less, to the record below… Read my original post here.

‘Relax’, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood – #1 for 5 weeks in January-February 1984

The winner of my 3rd ’80s recap, Frankie and the boys tell us just what to do when we want to… you know what. Chaos ensues: controversy, bans, Mike Read in a tizz… Read all about it here. Meanwhile, in the video, Holly Johnson turns up straight from work to his local leather-bondage-piss bar for a night of wholesome fun. In a twist nobody could have predicted, banning the record turned it into one of the biggest-selling hits of the decade. Though the fact it’s a throbbing, pounding synth-pop banger probably also helped. At the time I asked whether it was a triumph of style of substance, and there may be some truth to that. But substance be damned: it’s just too iconic to have been left out!

‘You Spin Me Round’ Like a Record, by Dead or Alive – #1 for 2 weeks in March 1985

Another synth-pop banger was named as my 4th ‘Very Best’ eighties #1. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, alongside Boy George, and all the New Romantics (there was a lot of make-up around at the time), opened the door for gender-bending oddballs like Pete Burns to score hits. It’s not deep, or very thoughtful, but boy does it get you racing for the dancefloor. It was a sign of the Hi-NRG to come, and was the first hit record produced by Stock Aitken and Waterman (and it wouldn’t be an eighties rundown without them!) Read my original post here.

‘The Power of Love’, by Jennifer Rush – #1 for 5 weeks in October-November 1985

I’m a bit surprised that this makes the cut, but then again there probably is room for one more blockbuster power ballad. Runner-up to Dead or Alive above, ‘The Power of Love’ is a slow-building beast of a love song. (Read my original post here.) And the moody video makes no sense, but provides ample opportunity for Jennifer Rush to wander the streets of New York, showing off her spectacular earrings.

‘It’s a Sin’, by Pet Shop Boys – #1 for 3 weeks in June-July 1987

The final three songs hit a much dancier groove, as the beats per minute rose in the final years of the decade. First up is ‘It’s a Sin’, one of the best pop groups of the decade’s best songs. And yes, you can dance to it, but it’s also a scathing look back at Neil Tennant’s closeted childhood. Never has Catholic guilt sounded so catchy… Original post here. PSBs were the only act that could have featured twice on this list, with their cover of ‘Always on My Mind’ a runner-up in my next recap, which was won by…

‘Theme from S-Express’, by S’Express – #1 for 2 weeks in April-May 1988

Enjoy this trip… The final Very Best Chart-Topper of the 1980s… Uno, dos, tres, quatro…! From the first house #1, ‘Jack Your Body’ in early ’87, sample-heavy dance music had started to break through into the upper reaches of the charts. At first, I felt the random samples stitched together seemingly for novelty value rather than sonic pleasure sounded dated. But S’Express were the first act to really get it right, to prove that effective sampling could create something wonderful. Original post here.

‘Ride on Time’, by Black Box – #1 for 6 weeks in September-October 1989

Runner-up in my last ’80s recap, and sneaking in just a couple of months before the deadline, the last song in our countdown is what I called the first modern dance record in my original post. It’s still all samples, and not all of them obtained legally, but you’d be forgiven if you mistook it for an original club banger. Plus, it contains one of the great mondegreens (the lyrics are clearly ‘right on time’) that confused even Black Box themselves when it came to naming their biggest hit.

Honorary Inclusion

‘Stand by Me’, by Ben E. King – #1 for 3 weeks in February-March 1987

I couldn’t not find a place for one of the best pop songs ever recorded. Back in my 86-87 recap, I was torn between naming this outlier as the ‘Very Best’, and giving it to the much more contemporary ‘It’s a Sin’. The Pet Shop Boys won out, but I invented an honorary award so that Ben E. King could take his rightful place at top table. It didn’t even make the Top 20 on its original release in 1961, but was taken to the top of the charts through a combination of the classic movie and a Levi’s advert (Levi’s adverts being one of the less-likely providers of #1s at the time – this was the first of three…)

And so we can finally bid the 1980s adieu. Next up, I head on into 1992…

Pet Shop Boys – Best of the Rest

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Time for a ‘Best of the Rest’ rundown for one of the most consistent hitmakers of the eighties and nineties. In fact, Pet Shop Boys’ run of Top 10 hits spans exactly twenty years, from their first #1 ‘West End Girls’ in 1986, to 2006’s ‘I’m With Stupid’.

Neil and Chris were a bit short-changed, for my money, in terms of their chart-toppers. Far worse acts have had far more than just four number ones… But, I’ve said it before and may as well say it again, the chart gods are fickle. Here then are PSB’s ten biggest non-number one hits. Unlike similar posts I’ve published in the past, I’m not ranking them – this is all based on cold hard chart-positions. It’s just ‘Highest Charting of the Rest’ as a title doesn’t have quite the same ring to it…

‘Before’ – #7 in 1996

Perhaps not the most instant PSBs track, ‘Before’ was the lead single from their sixth studio album, ‘Bilingual’. There’s a hook there, in the cooing synth line, and a chilled mix of disco and nineties dance. The brief for the video, meanwhile, was clearly to aim for ‘peak 1996’, years before people had though of ‘peak’ anything.

Can You Forgive Her? – #7 in 1993

It’s very Pet Shop Boys to make love sound like a panic attack. You’re short of breath, Is it a heart attack…? It’s both compulsive and threatening, with nice brassy synths. It’s not hard to read a subtext in the lyrics about a woman making fun of a man who prefers disco to rock, and who claims that’s she’s off to find a real man instead… Another striking video, that I imagine looked very impressive at the time.

‘Domino Dancing’ – #7 in 1988

As we’ve seen from our regular rundown, the mid-to-late eighties saw a mini burst of Latin-tinged pop. PSBs got in on the act for the lead single from their third album. I think the guitar and Spanish rhythms mixed with with their regular synths works well, but Neil Tennant sees it as the end of their imperial phase (as well as failing to break the Top 5 in the UK, ‘Domino Dancing’ was their last Top 20 hit in the US). The video features two ridiculously handsome (and permanently topless) twinks competing for the attentions of the same girl, before giving up and wrestling one another on a beach. Rolling Stone described it as ‘probably the most homo-erotic pop video ever made’, and it’s hard to disagree…

‘Absolutely Fabulous’ – #6 in 1994

La-La-Lacroix, darling… A charity single next, for Comic Relief. Lines from the sitcom of the same name are stitched around a thumping techno beat, as Neil Tennant does very little apart from intone Abso-lutely fa-bulous… over it all. It’s an pastiche of the big eighties and nineties dance hits – ‘Pump up the Jam’, ‘Ride on Time’, ‘Rhythm of the Night’ to name a few. Techno, Techno, Bloody techno darling… Few charity singles manage to be this catchy and remain (relatively) funny, so it’s a shame that this has been all but forgotten, even if the duo don’t recognise it as an official single and have never featured it on a Greatest Hits. Strange fact: this was PSB’s highest-charting single in Australia.

‘It’s Alright’ – #5 in 1989

A thirty-five year old song about dictators in Afghanistan, and forest falling at a desperate pace… Glad we’ve made progress since then, huh! To me this sounds like Pet Shop Boys-by-numbers. Nothing wrong with it, but not a patch on their greatest singles.

‘How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?’ / ‘Where the Streets Have No Name (Can’t Take My Eyes of You)’ – reached #4 in 1991

This bitchy number – with lines like: You live within the headlines, so everyone can see, You’re supporting every new cause and meeting royalty – is about the pomposity of pop stars in general. Or is it about someone in particular…? Neil Tennant claimed later that it was about a ‘female pop star from 1989’. Make of that what you will… It features guitars, which is rare for a PSBs single.

It was paired with two covers – U2 and Frankie Valli – melded into one soaring disco anthem. An early form of the mash-up, both songs work well with a churning dance beat and Tennant’s ethereal vocals.

‘So Hard’ – reached #4 in 1990

Another atypical love song, about a toxic relationship in which both parties make it so hard for ourselves… Tennant’s vocals rarely break a sweat, there are some wonderfully dated ‘barking dog’ synths, and a low-key gem of a chorus. ‘So Hard’ was the lead single from their fourth album, and the video is set in the wonderful city of Newcastle. It apparently features Paul Gascoigne’s sister Anna, as well candid clips of Geordies out for a night on the toon.

‘Left to My Own Devices’ – #4 in 1988

Everything great about the PSBs in a just under five-minute edit: a dramatic string intro giving way to a pulsing disco beat, NT’s trademark deadpan delivery, lyrics that are as camp (I could love you, If I tried, I could, And left to my own devices, I propably would) as they are pretentious (Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat). Oh and, of course, you can dance to it.

‘Go West’ – #2 in 1993

The mark of a good cover is that you no longer imagine it being performed by the original artist. The Village People took their version, inspired by an old rallying cry used to spur pioneers to head out into the great unclaimed (apart from by, you know, the natives…) American West. PSBs kept most of the original, including the chord progression based on Pachelbel’s Canon, but added lots of glorious other things: horns, a male voice choir, a big female diva (posing as the Statue of Liberty) taking it home at the end. They originally covered it for an AIDS charity concert, then decided to release it, scoring their biggest hit in five years. We can assume the video was inspired by the breakdown of the Soviet Union, with lots of sturdy Russian-looking men heading towards a ‘promised land’. The CGI is so dated that it now looks like a brilliantly judged attempt to be retro.

‘What Have I Done to Deserve This?’ (with Dusty Springfield) – #2 in 1987

I’m not ranking these, but it just so happens that the best is saved for last. For not only do we have Pet Shop Boys in their imperial, huge hits without even trying, phase… (Coincidentally, Neil Tennant is credited with first using the phrase ‘imperial phase’ to describe an artist at the peak of their powers.) Anyway, I digress… We also have Ms Dusty Springfield! Almost two decades into a career slump, filled with alcohol and drug abuse, as well as abusive relationships. Despite this, the sixties diva remained a star, initially turning the duet down because she hadn’t heard of the PSBs. A couple of years later, after hearing ‘West End Girls’ on the radio, she agreed. Neil Tennant was a huge fan, and pushed for her inclusion, despite their label wanting someone less ‘washed up’.

Dusty also took twenty or so takes before she was happy with her vocals. But when she was happy, her voice became an integral part of an ’80s classic. When she comes in for the chorus, slightly raspier but still Dusty, after Tennant has dead-panned the first verse, it’s a goosebumps moment. The song itself is perhaps of its time, a comment on society in the Thatcher-Reagan years: You always wanted a lover, I only wanted a job… It’s also a very subversive number, every bit as gay as ‘Relax’, just less in-your-face, with the lesbian Springfield and the gay Tennant playing a very odd couple.

This record came agonisingly close to the top, peaking at #2 in both the UK and the US. It also sparked a late-career renaissance for Dusty. Tennant and Lowe would go on to produce her comeback album ‘Reputation’ in 1990. She died from cancer in 1999. Pet Shop Boys continue to record and perform to great acclaim, almost forty years later.

Roy Orbison: Best of the Rest

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December 6th marks the 34th anniversary of Roy Orbison’s death, at the tragically young age of fifty-two. The ‘Big O’ stood apart from other early rock ‘n’ rollers, with his sombre stage persona, his vulnerable, melancholy songs, and his semi-operatic voice.

After his hit-making days ended in the mid-to-late sixties, a decade in the wilderness beckoned. Personal tragedies also unfolded – the deaths of his wife and his two eldest sons in a car crash and house fire respectively. The eighties saw a rediscovery of his work, with hit covers of his songs by Don McClean and Van Halen, and the formation of The Traveling Wilburys supergroup in 1988, alongside Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, George Harrison and Tom Petty. On the cusp of a triumphant comeback, Orbison died from a heart attack on December 6th 1988.

I’ve already written about his three chart-toppers (‘Only the Lonely’, ‘It’s Over’ and ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’) – classics the lot of them – and so to mark this day I’ll cover his five next-biggest UK hits…

‘In Dreams’ – #6 in 1963

A candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman, Tiptoes to my room every night… Only Roy Orbison could give a lyric so ridiculous-and-yet-terrifying the weight that it deserves. He dreams of his ex-lover then wakes, bathed in sweat, and alone. (Of course he’s alone – it’s a Roy Orbison song.) It’s got the same build-up as one of The Big ‘O’s very best songs, ‘Running Scared’, which barely scraped into the Top 10. ‘In Dreams’ is not quite as good, but builds to a fine crescendo. Roy, as was his way, hits a note that most humans are incapable of imagining, let along singing. ‘In Dreams’ was used to famous effect in David Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’, a move that initially shocked Orbison but one that he came to accept after seeing the film several times (and perhaps, if we’re being cynical, seeing the publicity it brought his music…)

‘Too Soon to Know’ – #3 in 1966

A country cover that, I must admit, I’d never heard before. And yet it’s one of his biggest UK hits. It must have sounded quite unfashionable in the swinging charts of 1966 and yet… When was Roy Orbison ever truly in fashion? Or out of fashion, for that matter? He ploughed his own, spectacular furrow. It’s sweet, but lacking the oomph of Roy’s biggest and best hits.

‘Blue Bayou’ – #3 in 1963

Another bit of country-pop, with a cool bassline. And with Orbison’s angelic tones in the chorus, this is no normal country tune. No matter what genre he turned his hand to – country, pop, rock ‘n’ roll – he couldn’t help doing it a bit different. As a kid, I had no idea what a bayou was, but always thought it sounded nice: where you sleep all day, and the catfish play… I’m still not one-hundred percent certain what a bayou is, but I’d definitely like to hang out there…

‘You Got It’ – #3 in 1989

The comeback hit that never was. Well, it was a hit – one of his biggest – but Roy wasn’t around to enjoy his return to the top end of the charts. And ‘You Got It’ is almost the perfect comeback – a slight updating of Orbison’s sound, with some help from Jeff Lynne, but still a record that could easily slip in amongst his classics from the early sixties. The video above was filmed just a few weeks before his untimely death. It feels churlish to wonder if it would have been such a big hit had he not died… Maybe it would, as it’s a great song.

‘Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)’ – #2 in 1962

Interesting that this rockabilly ditty is Roy Orbison’s biggest non-#1. It’s nice enough: a repetitive refrain that turns into a sort of mantra as the song progresses, and it builds to a crescendo as all the best Orbison songs do. But it’s not an all time classic. Not a ‘Crying’, a ‘Running Scared’ or a ‘Blue Angel’ (my personal favourite). The video above is worth a look if not for the song then for the spectacularly uninterested audience. What did he say just before launching into the song…?

Roy Orbison, then. One of the most original chart stars going, with one of the very best voices.

Roy Orbison, April 26th 1936 – December 6th 1988

Electric Light Orchestra: Best of the Rest

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ELO are one of those bands whose back catalogue is so stuffed with hits that their tally of number one hits is genuinely shocking. Just one! ‘Xanadu’, which featured in my countdown a few months back, featuring the sadly departed Olivia Newton-John. I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while, but have barely been managing to keep up with my regular posts, let alone any diversions like this. Still, better late than never… Here, then, are eight of ELO’s ‘other’ hits – chosen for a mix of chart position and my feelings towards them:

‘Roll Over Beethoven’ – #6 in 1973

Putting the ‘Orchestra’ in Electric Light Orchestra, the band’s second Top 10 hit mixed Chuck Berry’s rock ‘n’ roll original with elements of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Roy Wood, previously of The Move, was the driving force behind ELO’s early hits but quit the band before this single had even been released (he quickly went on to form Wizzard). Shout out as well to ‘10538 Overture’, another, more psychedelic, slice of orchestral rock that gave the band their very first hit.

‘Livin’ Thing’ – #4 in 1976

With Wood gone, the weight of the band came to rest on Jeff Lynne’s shoulders. ‘Livin’ Thing’ was the first big hit of the band’s second iteration, and it’s a classic. Why does it have an Arabian, Spanishy, vaguely spaghetti-western sounding intro that bears little relation to the rest of the song….? Jeff Lynne’s approach to pop music appears to be completely based around a ‘why not?’ sort of philosophy, and more often than not it works.

‘Mr. Blue Sky’ – #6 in 1978

Their most famous song. Their best song? That would depend on my mood… And on the weather. On a sunny day this is unbeatable. On a dark and dingy one, it might get a little tiring. It perhaps say s something about me that my favourite part of the song is where Mr Night comes creeping over… It’s very Beatles-y, particularly ‘A Day in the Life’, and that can never be a bad thing.

‘The Diary of Horace Wimp’ – #8 in 1979

A perfectly weird song. Emphasis on the ‘perfect’. For me this song sums up why ELO are such a great pop group. The classical, the experimental, the downright weird bits that this song is chock-full of never take away from the catchiness of the song. (Too many prog acts seem to think that just because they’re very clever and very talented musically they don’t have to bother writing songs people actually want to listen to…)

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‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ – #3 in 1979

ELO go disco, as pretty much every act in the world was doing in 1979. The pounding drums at the start make me very happy, as do the Bee Gee falsettos in the chorus. Don’t bring me down… Is it Bruce? Proust? No, it’s apparently ‘Groos’, which is a phonetic spelling of the German word from ‘greeting’. Personally I think Bruce would have worked much better… Still, ‘Groos’ was enough of a hook for ELO to score their second biggest UK chart hit.

‘Confusion’ – #8 in 1979

The follow-up to ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ dialled things back a few steps. It’s much more typical ELO, with all manner of fun flourishes from the drums and the synths, and the robotic vocal effects. But it might just be their sweetest song: a big comfort blanket of a song, with just enough of a hint of melancholy.

‘All Over the World’ – #11 in 1980

From the ‘Xanadu’ soundtrack, one of ELO’s purest pop moments. The songs appear much better remembered than the movie, and you can understand why when there are low-key gems like this…

‘Hold on Tight’ – #4 in 1981

The band’s last UK Top 10, ‘Hold on Tight’ is a late-era glam rock stomper. I am a sucker for songs that slip into French for no discernible reason (see also Blondie’s ‘Sunday Girl’). Thanks to this record, I now know the French for hold on tight to your dreams, and can only hope for a reason to one day drop it into a spot of parlez-ing.

Hope you enjoyed this interlude. In my next post, we’ll be getting on into 1986…

The Supremes: Best of the Rest

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Writing a post on Phil Collins’ chart-topping cover of ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ made me realise how little we have heard from The Supremes on this blog. In fact, most of the comments on that post turned to the joys of the Supremes, rather than the merits of Collins’ cover. Which inspired this post!

There was a huge disparity between the girl-group’s US and UK chart fortunes. One #1 in Britain (‘Baby Love’), to twelve Billboard #1s between 1964-69! Here, then, are the ten Supremes singles that came closest to matching their only number one… ranked by chart position, rather than by preference.

‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ – reached #8 in 1966

Perhaps a little surprising that this doesn’t come in higher up. The ‘morse code’ guitar lick that comes in and out is great – this is possibly one of their ‘rockier’ hits – and I just noticed the galloping, hand-played drums. It’s not in the very highest echelon of Supremes songs, though. Not for me. It was later covered in a sprawling, psychedelic version by Vanilla Fudge, which manages to outdo the original, and then taken back to #1 in the US – and all the way to #2 in the UK – by Kim Wilde.

‘Stop! In the Name of Love’ – reached #7 in 1965

An even bigger surprise, that this one would be so low down the list. ‘Stop!’ is another classic, one of their best-loved tunes, and a song that practically begs you to do a certain dance move. More songs need exclamation marks in their titles, no? The video above is from a TV performance, but the trio seem to be singing live, showing off just how good their voices were.

‘Up the Ladder to the Roof’ – reached #6 in 1970

While The Supremes couldn’t match their home success in the sixties, by the 1970s they were scoring hits in the UK that struggled on the Billboard charts. ‘Up the Ladder to the Roof’ was their first release without Diana Ross. Jean Terrell is the new lead singer, and she has a throatier voice which she uses to full effect in the final chorus. I hadn’t heard this one before, however, and I’m not sure it will linger very long in the memory.

‘The Happening’ – reached #6 in 1967

From a movie, apparently, of the same name that’s been completely forgotten. This was the final single they released as ‘The Supremes’, before Ross got top billing. And it’s one of my favourites: playful, light, catchy as anything, frantic, slightly demented… Not everyone shares my enthusiasm for it, but that’s just fine.

‘Reflections’ – reached #5 in 1967

And here’s the first of their songs released as ‘Diana Ross & The Supremes’. It feels like a bit of a fresh start, the trio’s classic sound updated with some space-age, psychedelic sound effects. (Which I’m not sure the song really needs, but OK…)

‘Nathan Jones’ – reached #5 in 1971

Their best post-Diana moment? (Ok, there’s one more song to come that could claim that title…) But ‘Nathan Jones’ is my personal favourite. It takes the group’s sound in a very trippy, early-seventies directions, especially in the extended mix above, and is one of the few Supremes records where lead vocals are shared. I’m always amused by the normal-ness of the title. There must be tens of thousands of Nathan Joneses in the world, haunted by this song…

‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’ (with The Temptations) – reached #3 in 1969

The last four songs in this countdown all peaked at #3, starting with this A-List Motown collab. It’s every bit as smooth and classy as you’d expect a record by two of the 1960s great vocal groups to be. Diana Ross’ verse is excellent here, with a real playfulness in her voice…

‘Stoned Love’ – reached #3 in 1970

How about this, their joint second-highest UK chart hit is a Jean Terrell number…! The Supremes call for world peace… by getting stoned. Goodness. Either that, or by rhinestoning another fabulous dress… Both might work. Motown tried to distance themselves from the suggestion that it was about drugs, though the lines about lighting up the world suggest otherwise to me…

‘Where Did Our Love Go’ – reached #3 in 1964

Their breakthrough hit… The Supremes first US #1, and their first UK Top 10 hit. My favourite of their big hits? Probably. The boot stomping intro is iconic, especially in stereo as it travels across the room. The rest of the song is quite understated, compared to some of the bells and whistles tunes we’ve seen above. In fact, the girls thought the same, and were unsure about recording it to begin with, thinking it lacked a hook (further proof that most pop stars can’t spot a hit song if it bites them on the arse…)

‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ – reached #3 in 1966

And we end with the song that inspired this ‘Best of the Rest’, the one that made #1 in 1983 thanks to Phil Collins. It’s a bouncy, upbeat classic, though not one of my very favourite Supremes songs. It is, though, probably their most famous hit – it’s by some distance their most listened to song on Spotify – even more famous than the one Supremes single that charted higher.

I hope you enjoyed this short journey back to the sixties/early-seventies. Back on the regular countdown, things are getting even more ’80s… Coming soon!

ABBA: Best of the Rest – Part 2

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Yesterday I ranked the songs that didn’t quite make my Top 10 of ABBA’s non-#1s. Here, then, is the main event…

10. ‘Does Your Mother Know’ – reached #4 in 1979

The only ABBA hit on which one of the boys took lead vocals, and their final glam-rock stomper. The lyrics are very of their time BUT, crucially, Bjorn acts like a true gentleman towards this teenage tearaway. Take it easy… Does your mother know? You can picture him helping the girl out the club, giving her a bottle of water, and waiting with her until the Uber arrives.

9. ‘Under Attack’ – reached #26 in 1982

One that benefits from not being over-played… This was the last single released before the band split up in December 1982. Sadly it didn’t help them go out with a bang, and limped to a Top 30 peak over Christmas. I love it though: it keeps the moodiness from ‘The Visitors’ album in the verses before dishing out a classic ABBA chorus. Never has a line like: Under attack, I’m being taken… sounded so positive.

8. ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ / ‘I Still Have Faith in You’ – reached #9 / # 14 in 2021

The comeback hits. One of which, astonishingly, restored ABBA to the Top 10 for the first time in forty years. I’m treating them as a double-‘A’, as in days gone by that’s presumably what they would have been released as. I don’t really know where to place them, how to assess them with regards to the rest of their output yet, so have plonked them right in the middle. One things for sure: both songs hold their own with those from decades before. ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, to my ears, combines ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘One of Us’, two of the band’s best. ‘I Still Have Faith in You’ I found a little underwhelming on first listen, but in time it’s grown into an epic that could only have been created by one band.

7. ‘Head Over Heels’ – reached #25 in 1982

The single that broke their run of 18 uninterrupted Top 10 hits… But I think it’s a mini-classic. It’s ABBA at their frothiest, and is definitely the lightest moment on ‘The Visitors’ album. It helps that you rarely hear it these days – perhaps if it was as played as ‘Dancing Queen’ I’d be ranking it lower. The video, in which Frida plays a messy It girl, is cheap and cheerful, but Good God those jumpsuits! She’s extreme, If you know, What I mean…

6. ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’ – reached #3 in 1979

Until their re-evaluation in the ’90s, the ABBA flame was kept alight in gay bars. Most claim ‘Dancing Queen’ to be their gay anthem, for obvious reasons, but surely they were never gayer than when Frida and Agnetha were demanding a man after midnight. Those exclamation marks after each ‘Gimme’ in the title are everything, as is the pounding, horse-hoof beat, that sounds as close as disco ever came to splicing with a spaghetti-western soundtrack. It was later sampled by Madonna for one of her best songs, however I can’t listen to it now without hearing it sung in the style of Kathy Burke.

5. ‘SOS’ – reached #6 in 1975

I’ve heard this referred to as ABBA’s heavy-metal moment, ABBA’s emo moment, ABBA’s finest moment… I’d say it’s simply pure power-pop perfection. ‘SOS’ was their first big post-‘Waterloo’ hit, and it set them up for half a decade of chart domination. Even this early in their career, with both couples still happily together, ABBA’s melodies and hooks were underscored by melancholy. Even Pierce Brosnan couldn’t ruin this one…

4. ‘The Day Before You Came’ – reached #32 in 1982

Just what is this record about…? Is it the day before meeting the man of your dreams? Is it the day before your death? Your murder? Suicide?? A biting satire on the meat-grinder that capitalism throws us through in the name of a career…? Whatever it might be about, this six-minute, chorus-less epic is probably the most experimental moment of ABBA’s career. The hits were drying up, so why bother trying to write a hit? It was also the very last song they ever recorded (until the comeback). Legend has it that Agnetha recorded her vocals alone, in a darkened recording studio, before walking out and drawing ABBA to a close. Those vocals contain some of the band’s best lines, picking out the mundanity of this woman’s life. I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two… and There’s not, I think, a single episode of ‘Dallas’ that I didn’t see… She isn’t at all sure of what happened that day, really; a very unreliable narrator. You could write a dissertation on the many way this song can be interpreted. Who know, someone might already have. Strange, sinister perfection.

3. ‘Voulez-Vous’ / ‘Angeleyes’ – reached #3 in 1979

Apart, neither ‘Voulez-Vous’ nor ‘Angeleyes’ would get this high… As a double-‘A’ side, though, their combined forces get third place. (And, without giving the game away, the highest-placing of ABBA’s ’70s hits…) Both songs are disco heaven, and both are about a sleaze-ball of a man. The same sleaze-ball? In ‘Angeleyes’ the girls want to warn his new lover not to trust him, to warn her away… While in ‘Voulez-Vous’, in the heat of the dance floor, they give in and ask him bluntly: Voulez-vous? Take it now or leave it…

2. ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ – reached #7 in 1981

In which ABBA move from disco, into electronic dance. The bass slaps (I believe that’s the term), the beat is unrepentant, and the lyrics are classic ABBA (how many dance tracks have words like ‘incomprehensible’ in them…?) My favourite bits are the violins that come in at the end, and the synthesised drops before the choruses, but really it’s all great. This was never intended to be a single, and when it was released it was only put out on 12″, which explains the relatively low peak. Though it was, at the time, the best selling 12″ record ever.

1. ‘One of Us’ – reached #3 in 1981

The first song the band released as two divorced couples; and the last genuine hit single they had. A coincidence…? It has everything you want from an ABBA single: singing through the tears, glorious harmonising from the girls, just the right number of cheesy touches (the parping bass, for example). I’m not sure it’s their best song, but something about it just hits a sweet spot – the Wishing she was somewhere else instead… line is perfection – and so it gives me great pleasure to name ‘One of Us’ as the best of ABBA’s rest.

ABBA: Best of the Rest – Part 1

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We’ve covered all nine of ABBA’s UK #1s, from ‘Waterloo’ to ‘Super Trouper’, but I’m not ready to bid them farewell just yet. Here then, are the rest of the band’s 17 non chart-topping UK Top 40 hits, ranked, and split over two days. Bear in mind that I do not actively dislike any of these songs, even the lowest placing. While the records at the top of this list do, I’d say, rank alongside the best of ABBA’s chart-topping hits. Here we go…

17. ‘I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do’ – reached #38 in 1975

The worst of the rest (but still an earworm). This is ABBA at their schlager-iest: the saxophones, the wedding bells, the silly title. The band were struggling to follow up ‘Waterloo’, to score a hit away from Eurovision, and when this limped to #38 it looked as if the game might have been up. Luckily their next single did significantly better, and the rest is history…

16. ‘I Have a Dream’ – reached #2 in 1979

ABBA’s final single of the seventies was this Christmas Number Two. Sorry, that sounded a bit rude. It’s not that bad, but I’ve never connected with it. Listening to ‘ABBA Gold’ as a kid, this was the one song I wished would end sooner than it ever did, and then along came Westlife’s rotten cover version. I still feel the same way: it’s a bit plodding – the sitar doesn’t help – and children’s choirs in pop songs are, as St. Winifred’s showed us, dangerous things.

15. ‘Chiquitita’ – reached #2 in 1979

Another number two – again, not being rude – from 1979, and from the ‘Voulez-Vous’ album. I can see that this is a well-made piece of music: the baroque piano, the chorus that demands to be belted out, the terrifying snowman in the video; and a well-loved moment in the ABBA canon. But it still leaves me a little cold. ‘Chiquitita’ could well be the lover of ‘Fernando’, and I’d rank the two songs together: catchy choruses, but nowhere near peak-ABBA.

14. ‘Money, Money, Money’ – reached #3 in 1976

If it were down to the video alone, this’d be near the top. The close-ups, the strobe lights, the diamond encrusted kimonos… As a song though, it’s fine. It’s worth a sing-a-long if it comes on the radio. It sounds a bit like it’s been snatched from a musical that nobody has ever seen, and it has one hell of a key-change. Apart from that, the best bit is when Frida pouts the line I bet he wouldn’t fancy me… Um, I bet he probably would, love.

13. ‘Ring, Ring’ – reached #32 in 1974

The title hit from their first album in 1973, albeit only charting in a re-release after the success of ‘Waterloo’. This is such an early hit – their first Swedish #1 – that the band hadn’t yet assumed their iconic acronym (they released it as Bjorn and Benny, Agnetha and Frida). They had a few glam-rock stompers – ‘Waterloo’, ‘So Long’, this. In the video, Bjorn looks like he’s stumbled in after an audition for The Sweet. ‘Twas the style of the time.

12. ‘Thank You for the Music’ – reached #33 in 1983

Their signature hit? Until quite recently, this was ABBA’s chart swansong. Originally recorded in 1977 and included on ‘ABBA – The Album’ but not released as a single until after they’d officially split. A few years ago I’d have ranked this rock-bottom: I thought it tipped too far into camp theatricality. And it still does… But I’ve grown to like it. Who knows, in another decade this might be my favourite? I always imagine Freddie Mercury singing it with Agnetha – the little ‘mm-hmm’ in the second verse is pure Freddie. Can you imagine..?

11. ‘Summer Night City’ – reached #5 in 1978

The band’s first foray into disco, ahead of the ‘Voulez-Vous’ album. While I like the impetus and the drive of this one, I don’t think it’s quite in the same league as their later disco hits, which I’ve ranked higher up the list. And, just confirm, the lyric is: Walking in the moonlight… and not what you think you heard.

A little hors d’oeuvre then, before the main event. Still some classics mixed in there. Same time tomorrow: The Top 10…

Top 10s – The 1970s

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We have finally reached the end of the seventies! And so, to celebrate, here are the ten records that I – in my recaps – named as the very best of the decade. Note that this is not me retrospectively ranking my faves. I am beholden to decisions made several months, if not a year ago, for better or worse, and it has left us with an interesting rundown….

I spent the 1960s respectfully choosing the classics: The Beatles, The Stones, The Beach Boys, ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ and ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’. You can check out my sixties Top 10 here (and while you’re at it why not have a glance at my ’50s Top 10 too.) For the seventies, though, it seems I went a little rogue… Those of you expecting to find ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘I’m Not In Love’, or ‘Wuthering Heights’ will have to look elsewhere…

I am limiting myself to one song per artist, regardless of how I ranked them at the time. Interestingly the only act that would have had two songs qualify was… Wizzard! As it is they are left with just one. And I was surprised that one of my favourite bands of the decade, Slade, came nowhere near to placing any songs in this list. Anyway, here we go:

‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, by Simon & Garfunkel – #1 for 3 weeks in March/April 1970

This first song was runner-up in my late-sixties/early-seventies recap. It is a classic, a sweeping hymn, a modern standard. Every time I think I’m bored of it, that it is a little too proper to be a pop song – it is one of the few songs recorded post-1955 that my gran liked, for example – then I listen to it… The Oh, If you need a friend… line gives me shivers, every time. But I was feeling rebellious, and I awarded first place to…

‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry – #1 for 2 weeks in February/March 1971

One of the grimiest, seediest, downright strangest number ones of the decade, if not of all time. The complete opposite to Mungo Jerry’s huge feel-good hit from the year before. In my original post, I described ‘In the Summertime’ as the soundtrack to a sunny afternoon’s BBQ, while ‘Baby Jump’ was the soundtrack as the party still raged on past 4am. Bodies strewn across the lawn, couples humping in the bushes, someone throwing up under a tree… That kind of thing.

‘Metal Guru’, by T. Rex – #1 for 4 weeks in May/June 1972

‘Best song’ in my 2nd seventies recap. T. Rex’s final UK #1 is everything that made them great condensed and distilled into a perfect pop song: power chords, beefy drums, nonsensical lyrics… From the opening woah-oh-oh-oh it is an extended, non-stop chorus of a tune, and a true classic.

‘See My Baby Jive’, by Wizzard – #1 for 4 weeks in May/June 1973

The height of ridiculous, over-indulgent, glam… And all the better for it. It is a truth universally acknowledged that any song beginning with anti-aircraft guns will be great. Roy Wood threw the kitchen sink at this, Wizzard’s first of two #1s, and everything stuck. I named it runner-up to ‘Metal Guru’, and then named the follow-up, the equally OTT and equally wonderful ‘Angel Fingers’ as runner-up to the song below…

‘Tiger Feet’, by Mud – #1 for 4 weeks in January/February 1974

Winner in my 3rd seventies recap, you could argue that tracks like this marked the beginning of the end for glam rock. From 1974 onwards the genre was swamped with rock ‘n’ roll tribute acts: Alvin Stardust, The Rubettes, Showaddywaddy, whose hits were catchy but, let’s be honest, dumb. Except, sometimes dumb and catchy is what you need, and when moments like that come along then you can do no better than turn to ‘Tiger Feet.’ Relish the video above… The riff, the repetitive chorus, a man in a dress, backing dancers that look like they’ve just come from the away end at Highbury… Fun fact: There has never been a ‘Best Of the 70s’ compilation that didn’t include ‘Tiger Feet.’

‘Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love)’, by The Stylistics – #1 for 3 weeks in August 1975

Here’s the outlier… I was genuinely surprised to find that this one qualified. I named it as runner-up in my 4th recap apparently, ahead of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and ‘I’m Not in Love’, which were punished for their ubiquity. But this is a great tune, and it feels right that a slice of soul should feature in this Top 10, as it was one of the sounds of the mid-seventies.

‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie – #1 for 2 weeks in November 1975

One of the seventies’ Top 10 #1 singles is a re-release of a sixties hit? A mere technicality… We needed some Bowie, and this was his only chart-topper of the decade. I named it as best song in my 4th recap. An epic in every sense of the word.

‘Dancing Queen’, by ABBA – #1 for 6 weeks between August and October 1976

Friday night and the lights are low… Frida and Agnetha are looking out for a place to go. You know the rest. Everyone on planet earth knows the rest. The ultimate pop song? The famous glissando intro is instantly recognisable, and is referenced in ABBA’s comeback hit ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’. But. I only named it as runner-up in my 5th recap, because, well, Donna Summer went and did this:

‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer – #1 for 4 weeks in July/August 1977

The future arrived in the summer of ’77, beamed in on a spaceship piloted by one Donna Summer, with Giorgio Moroder as engineer. I rated it above ‘Dancing Queen’ precisely because it isn’t the ultimate pop song – it’s harsh, uncompromising and aggressively modern. You have to be in the mood for ‘I Feel Love’, which is why it hasn’t been overplayed to death, but when you are in the mood then woah. And it still sounds aggressively modern almost forty-five years on.

‘Heart of Glass’, by Blondie – #1 for 4 weeks in January/February 1979

Winner in my final ’70s recap, just two days ago. Blondie brought us a new-wave classic: a little disco, a little punk, a little classic rock, but beholden to none of what went before. Debbie Harry gave an impossibly cool lesson in how to be a rock ‘n’ roll frontwoman, too. 1979 – probably the best year of the decade in terms of chart-topping quality – was a-go go go. I know I love the glam years, but line these last three songs up – ABBA, Donna Summer and Blondie – and a better 10 minutes of popular music you’ll struggle to find.

So, there ends the 1970s. Next up, I’ll be cracking on with the eighties…