One thing that’s surprised me about the charts in the first six months of the ‘80s: nobody seems to have told the record-buying public that disco is dead. They clearly missed the ‘disco sucks’ memo…
Use It Up and Wear It Out, by Odyssey (their 1st and only #1)
2 weeks, 20th July – 3rd August 1980
Here come Odyssey then, with another body-shaking anthem (it does actually include the line shake your body down to the ground) that demands a dancefloor to be filled. This is one of those songs that come along every so often in this countdown, where I go ‘Oh, so it’s this song…’ A song you’ve been hearing in the background for your entire life without ever wondering what it is or who it’s by.
But on further inspection, this is a song I should have been paying attention to. It’s a great slice of disco-funk, with some calypso thrown in for good measure. Like the other disco-influenced #1s of 1980, there’s a lot more going on than just ‘disco’: see either of Blondie’s hits, Fern Kinney, the Detroit Spinners, or our previous chart-topper ‘Xanadu’.
Here’s a question: can a song be simultaneously cheesy and cool? If it can, then this might be the very song. In the ‘cheesy’ corner: the slide whistles and the 1… 2… 3… Shake your body down… chorus. In the ‘cool’ corner: the funky bass and the dod-d-d-dododo scatting at the end. It’s not a particularly verse-bridge-chorus kind of song, meaning that it can be chopped up and remixed in various different ways – as all the best disco records can.
Gonna use it up, Gonna wear it out, Ain’t nothin’ left in this whole world I care about… Actually, the lyrics here are a bit depressive, a bit cynical, for a disco record. The singer is dancing because that’s all there’s left to do. She’s going to dance herself to death, perhaps (or at least into a sweaty, dripping mess.) Add it to your ‘end of the world’ playlist now!
Odyssey were a New York based band, who have had a revolving cast of members, but who were a trio at the time of their sole #1 hit. They are still performing to this day. ‘Use It Up and Wear It Out’ was their second of five Top 10 hits in the UK between 1977 and 1982, a much better return than they ever managed in their native US. Disco really was dead over there…
Finally. One of the seventies’ best groups top the charts, a few months too late. ELO and ONJ are taking us off to a mythical land…
Xanadu, by Olivia Newton-John (her 3rd and final #1) & Electric Light Orchestra (their 1st and only #1)
2 weeks, 6th – 20th July 1980
To be honest, this has never been my favourite Electric Light Orchestra song – is it anyone’s? – but it’s still a good slice of Jeff Lynne glam-pop. The wall-of-sound production and the beefy drums take us back to the height of glam, while the tempo and the strings are very disco. It’s a throwback, already, given the spiky, new-wave chart-toppers that we’ve already heard this year.
It’s also nice to hear Olivia Newton-John warbling away on another #1, after her two ‘Grease’ mega-hits in 1978. It’s a song that requires her to sing in a pretty high pitch, but she carries it off. Her Xanad-ooh-ooh… in the chorus, twinned with the piano riff, is an effective hook, while the Now we are here… backing vocals are pure ELO.
Amazingly, this is already the second #1 single to reference ‘Xanadu’ in the title, the lost city in northern China, seat of the Mongol Khans, ‘found’ by Marco Polo… It has now been named twice as many times as any other place. A place… as Olivia tells it, Where nobody dared to go, The love that we came to know, They called it Xanadu…
All very mystical. Except, in the movie that this record soundtracks, ‘Xanadu’ is a nightclub. A roller-disco. (I, to be fair, knew several nightclubs in my youth best described as ‘places nobody should dare to go’, not without a fair amount of alcohol inside them…) I have never seen the movie: it was awarded a Golden Raspberry but has since been reclaimed as a camp classic. Both ELO and ONJ scored further hits from the soundtrack, including the brilliant ‘All Over the World’.
The one thing I can’t get behind with this record is the ending. The soaring, distorted high-note. It reminds me – and this might just be because both involve Olivia Newton-John – of the stupid ending in ‘Grease’, with the flying car. A simple fade-out would have done much more nicely. But what do I know? Jeff Lynne apparently rates this as his best song.
I started this post with the word ‘finally’, and it really did take a while for Electric Light Orchestra to score a UK #1. ‘Xanadu’ was their 14th Top 10 hit, in a run stretching back to 1972. They would only have one further Top 10, before the hits dried up. (To do them justice, I’ll have to do a ‘Best of the Rest’ at some point.) Olivia Newton-John faces a similar chart trajectory – a few more hits before a mid-eighties drought. Meanwhile, Xanadu itself is still waiting for someone to score another #1 with its name, to complete the hat-trick.
In which Blondie return after only six weeks away – that’s a very short time between chart-toppers, really – with another disco-rock stomper.
Call Me, by Blondie (their 4th of six #1s)
1 week, 20th – 27th April 1980
About a year ago, when records like ‘Tragedy’ and ‘I Will Survive’ were monopolising the chart’s top-spot, I killed disco off. It had peaked, I said. New-wave, post-punk, electronica were about to take over. But it’s not been that simple… Acts keep sticking a disco beat on their songs and scoring hits: Pink Floyd, Fern Kinney, Dr. Hook… And the masters of it, Blondie.
As with ‘Atomic’, there’s another whip-snapping intro, a drum-roll, and a beat that grabs you along for the ride. And what a ride. Colour me your colour baby, Colour me your car… Not sure what that’s all about, to be honest, but this isn’t the sort of song where you stop to think about the lyrics.
Again, as she did in the band’s previous #1, Debbie Harry is letting loose compared to the ‘Parallel Lines’ hits. Call me! she hollers at the top of her voice… On the line, Call me call me any anytime… It’s pretty clear what kind of call she’s talking about (think Donna Summer in ‘Hot Stuff’…) Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any day, any way…
‘Call Me’ didn’t feature on any Blondie album – it was recorded for the soundtrack of ‘American Gigolo’, starring Richard Gere, which perhaps explains the unrepentant lyrics and why it followed so hot on ‘Atomic’s heels. The soundtrack version is a full eight minutes long, with beefier synths, and a verse about being taken out and shown off, as all the best gigolos want to be. The producer behind the soundtrack was none other than Giorgio Moroder, which means he’s now been involved in three UK chart-toppers with three different acts, and this won’t be his last…
Few bands have the sort of golden runs that Blondie were having in 1979-80. In just over a year they have had four chart-toppers, all of which I’d say were at least eights out of ten. (If you insist: ‘Heart of Glass’ 9.5, ‘Sunday Girl’ 8, ‘Atomic’ 9, ‘Call Me 8.5) Their one release that didn’t top the charts in amongst all this was ‘Dreaming’, a #2 and another stone-cold classic, much more post-punk than disco (and another 8.5, since you ask.)
Sadly, they have but one chart-topper to come, and – without wanting to give too much away – one that isn’t quite in the same league. And of course they’ll have a huge comeback almost twenty years later, but as great as that #1 is I would count it as something separate. Anyway. Let’s leave Blondie here, at the peak of their powers, and their chart success. A band that sound great anywhere, anytime, any day…
As vital as The Jam’s polemic first #1 was, you wouldn’t want every chart-topper to be that angry… Luckily for us, here come the (Detroit) Spinners with a relentlessly positive classic.
Working My Way Back to You / Forgive Me, Girl, by The Detroit Spinners (their 1st and only #1)
2 weeks, 6th – 20th April 1980
They are far from the first well-established band to try a disco-ified take on the old vocal-group sound. In fact, they’re pretty late to the party. This record could have been a hit from any point since 1975. And you can approach this in one of two ways… Way A) rolling your eyes at the cheese, and at the drunken memories of every wedding disco you’ve ever attended, or Way B) joining in with the undeniable fun.
I’ll keep working my way back to you babe… The singer’s made a mistake, told some lies, thought he could have his cake and eat it, but now he’s feeling remorse… With a burning love inside… And I love his very deep voiced counterpart: Been prayin’ every day… It has a bit of a karaoke-backing track feel, but that’s part of the charm. It gives you no choice but join in.
When you do, you realise how much of a dick the singer has been. He played around, he loved to make her cry… That matters not. He is coming back, and we are left in no doubt as to his success. ‘Working My Way Back to You’ was (yet another) UK #1 that began life as a song by The Four Seasons, in 1966. Theirs is a very ‘sixties’ version, as good if not better than this cover.
Here, the Spinners had it spliced with a few bars from ‘Forgive Me Girl’, a composition by producer Michael Zager (nothing to do with Zager & Evans, unfortunately), giving us our 2nd recent chart-topping medley after Boney M’s last-but-one Christmas number one. You wouldn’t realise that these were two songs mixed together – ‘Forgive Me Girl’ works perfectly as the bridge – and I’m left relieved that this isn’t another double-‘A’ side (as they take twice as long to write about!)
The Spinners had been around since 1954, and had been charting in the US since the early sixties. Which means that by the time their one and only British chart-topper came around, all four members were in their early-forties. One of the original ‘man-bands’, then! They join the aforementioned Four Seasons, and The Tymes, and even The Tams, in scoring #1s beyond their eras thanks to the popularity of soul and, of course, disco. They are still an active group, too, with one founding member, Henry Fambrough, still present.
Why, though, were the plain old Spinners marketed as The Detroit Spinners, and sometimes the Motown Spinners, in the UK? Well, all thanks to a British folk group who had already laid claim to the name. A couple of decades later the Americans would repay the compliment by forcing Suede to become the considerably less cool London Suede for their US releases…
Let’s slow things down a bit, with this next number one. A soft, slinky beat, some strings, and a breathy vocal…
Together We Are Beautiful, by Fern Kinney (her 1st and only #1)
1 week, 9th – 16th March 1980
Fern Kinney’s voice reminds me a bit of Anita Ward’s: high-pitched and slightly nasal. But it doesn’t grate in the same way. This record doesn’t grate like ‘Ring My Bell’ at all – for better or worse. ‘Ring…’ might have been annoying; but you remembered it. ‘Together We Are Beautiful’ isn’t annoying, really, but it does wash over you without leaving much of a lasting impression.
He walked into my life, And now he’s taking over… It’s a decent opening line, that the song fails to build upon. I’ve gone with better looking guys, He’s gone with prettier lookin’ girls… It’s a middle-aged love song – settling down with someone on a deeper level. Fern doesn’t need love affairs any more… Except the lyrics still descend into stock-standard, love song cheese: I am the rain, He is the sun, And now we’ve made a rainbow… Ick!
What saves this song from being truly cloying – and when Kinney starts wishing that the whole world could fall in love like her and her man, it comes very close – is that it’s delivered in such a fluffy, tongue-in-cheek way that you can easily treat it as a camp novelty. It does drag on a bit, though: another song that shouldn’t have come anywhere near the four-minute mark.
The disco earthquake may have passed, but there will still be aftershocks like this for some time to come. Fern Kinney had been a backing singer who had given it up to be a housewife, before having one final crack at a solo career. And it worked – for this record… She is a bona-fide one-hit wonder. ‘Together We Are Beautiful’ had been around in different versions for a few years, before Kinney had her go.
I had a very vague memory of hearing this song years ago, in an advert that featured a guy with a miniature-sized version of Arsenal and England centre-back Tony Adams… And I am reassured to find out that I hadn’t dreamt it. It was used in a 1999 deodorant ad, which you can now enjoy in all its glory. What would we do without YouTube…?
Getting us back on track after (yet another) country detour… Though you could argue that there’s a country twang to the main riff on this one… sort of… Anyway, where were we? Oh yes! Blondie go atomic!
Atomic, by Blondie (their 3rd of six #1s)
2 weeks, 24th February – 9th March 1980
Add this one to the list of great intros: a sort of beautiful cacophony, a remix of the way church bells go wild after a wedding, or on Christmas morning… Ding! Dang! Dong! Apparently its based upon the nursery rhyme ‘Three Blind Mice’ of all things! And then it clicks into that riff. (This intro was, for some reason, cut from the single edit… but let’s just pretend that version doesn’t exist.)
Oh-ho, Make it magnificent, Tonight… Is there a better song to listen before a night out than ‘Atomic’? Back when I was young and going to nightclubs, this was often playing as I picked out a shirt, did my hair, and prayed that the bouncer would ignore the fact that I still looked about thirteen… Oh, your hair is beautiful… Debbie Harry would sing, as if she could see me in the mirror. Oh tonight… Atomic! It’s a fine, fine song. But is it better than ‘Heart of Glass’…?
In some ways they’re very similar. Both rock with a disco beat (or disco with guitars…) and both with a synth breakdown in the middle – of the album versions, anyway. Here, actually, it’s time to quickly resurrect the single-edit that I killed off earlier, as that shortens the breakdown, cuts the bass guitar solo, and repeats the iconic, deep-voiced Atomic! line. It works better as a pop song, which I suppose was the point. ‘Heart of Glass’ was chopped up into various different mixes, too…
The biggest difference between last year’s Blondie and this year’s Blondie is Harry’s voice. On ‘Heart of Glass’ she was restrained, and sarcastic. On ‘Sunday Girl’ she was quite cute. She belts this one out, though, full-throated. A huge echo effect is put on her closing Oh-oh Atomics… adding to this record’s epic feel.
I’d go as far as describing ‘Atomic’ as life-affirming. A song that will psyche you up, pick you up, cheer you up… A song that does everything pop music should. Which is funny, because there’s a school of thought (in so far as pop songs have ‘schools of thought’…) that interprets this song as apocalyptic i.e. it’s the song you’d play just before the bomb goes off. That’s not something I subscribe to, though.
Anyway, I still have a question to answer though: is it better than ‘Heart of Glass’…? Actually, who cares? They’re both brilliant songs. Blondie were brilliant, on top of their game at this point, and will be along again soon with another classic hit. And another one that’s totally atomic!
Recap time! Our fifteenth recap, taking in just under two years, from spring 1978 to the early, early weeks of 1980. It would have been great had this recap fallen right at the end of the seventies, but hey…
Our two most recent #1s have felt like a step forward, not just because they were the first two of the ‘80s, but because they’ve been so bold, so vibrantly dripping with (post) punkish attitude. The Pretenders swaggered into the new decade with ‘Brass in Pocket’, while The Specials shouted about birth-control – live – in ‘Too Much Too Young’. The eighties have begun with a bang. Can it last? (Well, sorry… no. Just wait till you see who’s up next!)
But, let me take you back a couple of years, to a time when disco still ruled the airwaves. The genre would explode in a puff of glitter, after a glorious run of chart-toppers, in early 1979. Before that, though, ’78 was probably the most disjointed, undefinable year of the decade. There were sixteen weeks where songs from the ‘Grease’ soundtrack occupied top-position, two shots of religious, disco-calypso from Boney M, a flashback to the MOR days of ’76-’77 from the Commodores, 10cc went reggae, Rod Stewart asked if we think he’s sexy… while The Boomtown Rats scored the very first new-wave #1. There were some long stays at the top – five weeks seemed to be the average – and some very high sales: ‘Rivers of Babylon’ and ‘You’re the One That I Want’ are in the Top 10 of all time.
But then, on New Year’s Eve 1978, The Village People sounded their klaxon, everyone ran to the dancefloor, and we were off on a thrilling run of chart-topping singles. One of the best ever. ‘YMCA’, ‘Tragedy’, ‘I Will Survive’ and ‘Heart of Glass’ perfected disco, meaning that the genre was completed, finished, not needed again. By the time Anita Ward came along, ringing her bell, it felt a little old hat. Blondie, in particular, had taken things a step further, mixing synths and guitars into the mix. The new-wave future had arrived…
Actually, the future seemed to be arriving every few weeks by the summer of 1979… Gary Numan and his Tubeway Army scored a couple of impossibly cool, completely electronic number ones. Bob and his Rats returned, with a rock opera about a school shooting. The Police brought a reggaeish, post-punk to the charts. The Buggles asked if this new-fangled video age was all it was cracked up to be… By the end of the year, Pink Floyd – releasing their first single in twelve years – had a Christmas number one about teachers and their means of mind-control…
There were anomalies in all this. The charts never quite do what you want them to. Right at the start of this run, Brian and Michael had a huge folksy singalong about the artist LS Lowry. Art Garfunkel had a low-key ballad about dead rabbits (and, of course, scored the year’s biggest-selling single). Cliff came back! With his best number one, ever! Country and Western kept popping up when you least expected it to…
I said at the time that I felt 1979 was the best year of the decade in terms of variety and quality of chart-toppers. I may not have loved every single one – in terms of my own personal enjoyment I’d say the glam years of ’72-’74 were ‘better’ – but the experimentation and sheer love for pop music that shone through in these closing months of the ‘70s was something else. And a very refreshing change after everything had gone a little soft-rock in our previous recap.
Which means there might be stiff competition when I have to choose the best of this past bunch. But first… the lesser awards. The ‘Meh’ Award, for example. Like I said, not many of the past thirty #1s have been dull. But I have three. I considered ‘Bright Eyes, but Art already has a ‘Meh’ award to his name, and to give a legend like him two out of two just seems mean. I also toyed with The Police and their second number-one, ‘Walking on the Moon’, which just didn’t connect with me. But, edging them out… not once, not twice, but three-times as dull… The Commodores with ‘Three Times a Lady’: a sludgy relic from the days when David Soul and Leo Sayer were ruling the charts.
On to the ‘WTAF’ Award, for being interesting if nothing else. Plenty of interesting #1s this time around. The Tubeway Army… ‘Cars’… The Buggles… But giving it to one of them would be because they sounded new and exciting. Not ‘weird’, as such. No, if you want weird, you have to choose between Ian Dury and his rhythm stick, or Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt II’. When I made my notes for this post a few days ago, I assumed I’d go with the Floyd. But, really, that record is just an Eagles-beat with some kids shouting. Whereas The Blockheads gave us a punky disco world-tour, from the deserts of Sudan to the gardens of Japan, full of shouting in German and spiky saxophone, sung by a self-proclaimed cripple poet. ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ has it.
The main events, then. The fifteenth Very Worst Chart-Topper, joining luminaries such as Donny Osmond, Jimmy Young, and… checks notes… Elvis. Should I give it to Brian and Michael’s irritatingly parochial celebration of Lowry: ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’? No. A) That was fundamentally catchy. And B) ‘One Day at a Time’ exists. Yes, Lena Martell somehow preached her way to three weeks at the top with a self-righteous slice of country. It was by far the worst of the past bunch. Sweet Jesus!
Finally, then. Fanfare please. The Very Best Chart-Topper of the last thirty. I said earlier that there was a lot of competition but, to be honest, there’s only one winner this time around. I loved ‘YMCA’, ‘Rat Trap’, ‘I Will Survive’ and the ‘Grease’ hits… But towering above them all are Blondie, and ‘Heart of Glass’. One of the coolest songs ever to have topped the charts, and the perfect choice to sum up this moment in pop history, as we stand on the verge of a new decade, a new era…
To recap the recaps:
The ‘Meh’ Award for Forgettability:
‘Hold My Hand’, by Don Cornell.
‘It’s Almost Tomorrow’, by The Dream Weavers.
‘On the Street Where You Live’, by Vic Damone.
‘Why’, by Anthony Newley.
‘The Next Time’ / ‘Bachelor Boy’, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows.
‘Juliet’, by The Four Pennies.
‘The Carnival Is Over’, by The Seekers.
‘Silence Is Golden’, by The Tremeloes.
‘I Pretend’, by Des O’Connor.
‘Woodstock’, by Matthews’ Southern Comfort.
‘How Can I Be Sure’, by David Cassidy.
‘Annie’s Song’, by John Denver.
‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, by Art Garfunkel.
‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’, by Rod Stewart.
‘Three Times a Lady’, by The Commodores.
The ‘WTAF’ Award for Being Interesting if Nothing Else:
‘I See the Moon’, by The Stargazers.
‘Lay Down Your Arms’, by Anne Shelton.
‘Hoots Mon’, by Lord Rockingham’s XI.
‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, by The Temperance Seven.
‘Nut Rocker’, by B. Bumble & The Stingers.
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, by Gerry & The Pacemakers.
‘Little Red Rooster’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘Puppet on a String’, by Sandie Shaw.
‘Fire’, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
‘In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)’, by Zager & Evans.
‘Amazing Grace’, The Pipes & Drums & Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard.
‘Kung Fu Fighting’, by Carl Douglas.
‘If’, by Telly Savalas.
‘Wuthering Heights’, by Kate Bush
‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.
The Very Worst Chart-Toppers:
‘Cara Mia’, by David Whitfield with Mantovani & His Orchestra.
‘The Man From Laramie’, by Jimmy Young.
‘Roulette’, by Russ Conway.
‘Wooden Heart’, by Elvis Presley.
‘Lovesick Blues’, by Frank Ifield.
‘Diane’, by The Bachelors.
‘The Minute You’re Gone’, by Cliff Richard.
‘Release Me’, by Engelbert Humperdinck.
‘Lily the Pink’, by The Scaffold.
‘All Kinds of Everything’, by Dana.
‘The Twelfth of Never’, by Donny Osmond.
‘The Streak’, by Ray Stevens.
‘No Charge’, by J. J. Barrie
‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, by David Soul
‘One Day at a Time’, by Lena Martell.
The Very Best Chart-Toppers:
‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray.
‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado & His Orchestra.
‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis.
‘Cathy’s Clown’, by The Everly Brothers.
‘Telstar’, by The Tornadoes.
‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles.
‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum.
‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye.
Regular readers of this blog will know that, when I don’t think an act has had quite enough glory in terms of their #1s, I rank a Top 10 that takes in all their chart hits… I’ve done Status Quo, T Rex, Dusty Springfield, Buddy Holly… (If you’d like to, you know, check them out.)
For Donna Summer, the high priestess of disco, I’ve decided not to rank her Top 10 (I partly can’t be bothered, and I partly don’t think I’m enough of an authority on her back-catalogue…) So, instead, here are simply my faves from among her other big UK hits. And by ‘other’, I mean not her mind-blowing, game-changing, solitary chart-topper ‘I Feel Love’. You can read my post on that here. In chronological order, then:
‘Love to Love You Baby’ – #4 in 1976
Donna announced herself on charts worldwide with this sensuous slice of low-key disco. Actually, it’s more than ‘sensuous’, it’s ‘steamy’. Actually no, it’s more than just ‘steamy’, it’s downright ‘sexual’. She loves to love her baby, and has all the moans and groans to prove it. The BBC refused to promote it, so obviously it became a huge Top 5 hit… It was one of the first disco records to get an extended remix. A seventeen-minute (!) extended remix to be precise.
‘I Remember Yesterday’ – #14 in 1977
If I were ranking these songs… This’d be my #1. Summer’s ‘I Remember Yesterday’ LP, a collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, was an album with a concept – a disco-based journey through different musical ages. The title track saw the duo take on the Jazz Age. Disco music that you can do the Charleston to? Yes please! And how about Donna’s top hat and tails in the video above?
‘Love’s Unkind’ – #3 in 1978
From the roaring twenties, to the girl-groups of the fifties and early-sixties. It’s a little strange to hear a woman who spend much of her breakthrough hit faking an orgasm suddenly singing a song about schoolgirl crushes: Just the other day I was prayin’ he would give me a chance, Hopin’ he would choose me for his partner for the High School dance…
‘Rumour Has It’ – #19 in 1978
Pure disco, but with added funk and some rocking guitars. I love the strutting, synthy bassline in this one. Only reached #19, though…
‘Last Dance’ – #51 in 1978
It takes a lot of guts to write and release a disco song that takes a full two minutes to actually become a disco song. The slow build up to disco perfection… It’s also clever marketing to write a song that practically begs the DJ to play it at the end of every single night. Deserved much better than a forgettable #51 peak.
Speaking of criminally low chart positions… You don’t often talk about memorable disco ‘riffs’, but this is probably the ultimate. Donna’s sitting home and is, let’s be honest, horny. Dialled about a thousand numbers, Almost rang the phone off the wall… (I highly doubt it’d have taken her a thousand attempts to find a willing man, but still.) I love the unashamed sexuality here, especially from a woman, who just wants to bring a wild man back home. Even that time Prince Charles did the ‘Full Monty’ dance to it couldn’t ruin this classic…
A song written in solidarity with prostitutes, after Summer’s assistant was wrongly accused of being one by a police officer. Like everybody else, They want to be a star… Another disco classic, just as the genre was about to implode. Maybe that’s why it charted so low in the UK, though it was a huge US #1. Toot, toot… Beep, beep!
‘Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)’ – #18 in 1982
In the eighties, Summer moved away from her partnership with Moroder, and released a 1982 album produced by man-of-the-moment Quincy Jones. Full of nice period-details: the sax, the squelchy bass, the MJ-esque high notes… It showed that Donna was going to keep you dancing long after disco had died.
‘This Time I Know It’s For Real’ – #3 in 1989
Every diva needs a comeback. After Moroder and Jones, Summer turned to Stock, Aitken and Waterman… And it worked, delivering her into the UK Top 10 for the first time in a decade. In my humble opinion, this is one of the best examples of that tinny, plastic SAW sound – precisely because they reigned in the tinny, plastic sound just enough. Get used to it, though, because in a few years pretty much every song that features on this blog will be drenched in it…
There are no two ways about it… Our next number one sounds like the soundtrack to a porno. And that’s before we get to any actual bell ringing…
Ring My Bell, by Anita Ward (her 1st and only #1)
2 weeks, from 10th – 24th June 1979
It’s all chucka-chucka guitars, and a distinctive pew pew sound that sounds like a futuristic arcade shooter (apparently it’s an electronic drum giving us this tight beat). They don’t sound much like bells, though. The chimes in the chorus do: You can ring my bell… Ding-dong-ding-dong…
I’m not sure… Should we be treating this as a novelty? It is very in your face in its attempts to be catchy. Plus, Anita Ward’s voice is an acquired taste. She sounds like she’s going for cute and innocent as she welcomes her man home after a day’s work: Well lay back and relax, While I put away the dishes… But it comes off a little nasal and grating, especially as she hits the chorus’s high notes.
‘Ring My Bell’ was originally a teenybopper song about kids calling one another on the phone. Once Anita got her hands on it, the words were, well, spiced up a bit. You can ring my bell, Anytime, Anywhere, Ring it, Ring it, Ring it ring it, Aaah! What smut! Actually, it’s one basic innuendo stretched out over four minutes, or eight (!) if you go for the 12” (though I do like the tribal drums that take over towards the end of that version).
I’ve seen this record featured in some ‘Worst Chart-Toppers’ lists. Which is harsh. It’s kind of fun, and, for better or worse, catchy as Covid. File under: fine in small doses. Such is the way pop music moves though, coming hot on the heels of Blondie and Ian Dury, the disco riffs in this one already sound very last year.
In the UK at least, Anita Ward is a bona-fide one-hit wonder (in the US she managed one other chart hit – a #87). She faded alongside disco, and suffered a serious car crash in the ’80s. She is still performing to this day, though, and seems to have carved out a niche for herself performing ‘Ring My Bell’ at New Years Countdown events. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do…
Honestly, I’ve been struggling to start writing my posts on these recent number ones. Not because they’ve been poor – perish the thought! – or boring. More because they’ve been great singalongs, and I’ve been enjoying singing along…
I Will Survive, by Gloria Gaynor (her 1st and only #1)
4 weeks, from 11th March – 8th April 1979
How can you focus on the nuts and bolts of a song like ‘I Will Survive’, when all your instincts are telling you to drop a shoulder and channel your inner diva? I will try my best though. First up, that piano intro. That piano flourish. (Personally I’ve always wondered if Axl Rose intentionally winked at it in ‘November Rain’.) It’s not a tune, or a riff, but it’s instantly recognisable. And then an equally recognisable opening line: At first I was afraid, I was petrified…
Gloria Gaynor’s voice comes in quite airy and delicate, like a young girl, wide-eyed and innocent. This lasts for precisely three lines, as the piano and the sleazy guitars click into a disco rhythm, and some hard-edged sass enters her voice: And so you’re back, From outer space… She’s not been waiting all dewy-eyed for her ex. Nope. In fact, she’s pretty pissed off that he’d even think of trying it on again. Go on now go, Walk out the door, Just turn around now, Cause you’re not welcome anymore… The tables have turned, Gloria’s grown up and gotten over him. She will survive!
This is perfect disco, perhaps the pinnacle of the genre, released just as the bubble was about to burst. It feels like the five years since our first disco #1 have been building to moments like this, and not just because ‘I Will Survive’ is possibly the genre’s most famous song. But this record is about the lyrics as much as the music, which is actually quite minimal. The drums and horns keep a tight beat, yet it doesn’t swirl and soar like earlier disco hits have done.
My favourite bit is the pause before the final chorus. Oh… You think she might be doubting herself, wondering if she does actually still love him. But no. Go on now go! She comes back more resolute than ever, sends him on his way, and seals the song’s place as a feminist anthem. ‘I Will Survive’ is perhaps the very definition of a signature hit, a song that despite a near fifty year recording career covering twenty albums, Gloria’s never getting away from. She’s still very much active, and actually won a Grammy just last year for her most recent Gospel album.
It’s no secret that this is also something of a gay anthem. Although about a woman and her relationship with a man, any song called ‘I Will Survive’, serving this much attitude, was always going to be big with the LGBTQs. Can a drag queen even call herself a drag queen if she hasn’t lip-synced to this? Existential questions such as that aside, this feels like a bit of a turning point. The beginning of the end for disco? Certainly the end – for now – of this glittering run of chart-toppers we’ve been on. One half of a very famous duo is coming along pronto to slow things right down…
The UK Number Ones Blog 