TheThorne
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*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
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Post by TheThorne on Nov 2, 2015 8:32:42 GMT 1
I wasnt sure what your taste was Phil but so far this list is great, although not a fan of Chicory Tip but I am not a fan of many 70s number ones.
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Post by Earl Purple on Nov 2, 2015 11:37:40 GMT 1
Poking its head out from the mass of "talent" show acts and club bangers in 2012 came this fine effort from the American indie/pop band Fun. The song was written by three of the group members, including lead singer Nate Ruess, and actually dates from the previous year where it was given airplay on independent radio,
and reached #1 in my chart in October.
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Post by Earl Purple on Nov 2, 2015 11:39:04 GMT 1
Grace Kelly and We Are Young were both #1s in my chart. The only other UK #1 between these that was an NM #1 was "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay. And "Candy" by Robbie Williams the only #1 since.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2015 18:07:56 GMT 1
93. Don McLean - Vincent (1972)
A popular trivia question runs along the lines of "name Don McLean's famous UK chart-topper in the 70's" and many would just reply "American Pie". It's along the same lines as A-Ha and The Troggs really; the better song in fact stalled at 2. But I would always put in a good word for "Vincent", the first of two chart-toppers for the man from New York State.
McLean wrote the song after reading a biography of Vincent van Gogh, and the song was his attempt to present the painter as more of a misunderstood, depressed genius rather than the crazy person who cut off an ear. The song title came from one of van Gogh's painting named "The Starry Night", and in fact there are references to several of his paintings dotted throughout the song.
I have always been of the opinion that Don McLean was a very talented song-writer and singer. His song "Castles In The Air" is an absolute guilty pleasure of mine, and I do think that his cover of "Crying" isn't really as bad as many say - it's a bit trendy to dismiss it as inferior to Roy Orbison's original.
McLean does have connections with other well-known songs. He wrote "And I Love You So" which was a huge success for the ultimate crooner Perry Como, and the song "Killing Me Softly" was actually written about McLean.
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Post by Earl Purple on Nov 2, 2015 18:22:50 GMT 1
Don McLean's other #1 "Crying" is now on the list of songs that were #1 in my chart and the UK chart in different versions. I guess "American Pie" may well end up on that list too..
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Post by suedehead on Nov 2, 2015 18:22:51 GMT 1
Don McLean's version of Crying is decent enough, although the Big O's was better. I'll allow someone else to mention Only Fools And Horses.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 2, 2015 23:08:29 GMT 1
The three men I admire the most The father, son and Mickie Most Took the last train to the coast And rendezvoused with Peter Glaze To kill Don Maclean...
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Post by raliverpool on Nov 2, 2015 23:27:38 GMT 1
It's one of the oddities that, of all the number 1 hits, it's one by an act that is surely only remembered by trivia quiz compilers that took off as a football chant for decades afterwards. I remember it as "Frankie, Frankie, Frankie, Frankie Worthington"... Amongst the dart fraternity it is now known as "Ohhhhh Gary Gary, Gary Gary Gary Gary Anderson" after the World #2 and current PDC World Champion:
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Post by Earl Purple on Nov 3, 2015 11:37:47 GMT 1
Not referring to the late Gary Jude Anderson, whom I only know about because of Mick Hargreaves's cover of his song "Bridget", a song I also performed twice at open-mic events.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2015 15:20:08 GMT 1
92. Feargal Sharkey - A Good Heart (1985)
Gezza has already done a more than excellent job of reviewing this in his 1985 Charts thread a few months back. The song's origins are fairly well known; it was written by Maria "Show Me Heaven" McKee about her relationship with Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers, and Sharkey followed this up with the opposite song written by Tench himself with his own view of events - "You Little Thief". A bit like Eamon and Frankee's musical spat in 2004 but about three thousand times better.
"A Good Heart" certainly had some names linked to it. Sung by Sharkey, written by a singer who would go on to top the charts, produced by Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, and with backing vocals provided by Boy George (or not, depending on which website you believe), it was always going to be big.
Sharkey had already accomplished much to be proud of. As lead singer with The Undertones from the mid-70's until around 1983, he had performed on some tremendous tracks including "My Perfect Cousin" and "Teenage Kicks", with guitarist John O'Neill proving himself a skilled songwriter for the group, and they were heavily influenced by some of the real big-hitters of the punk scene, in particular The Ramones.
After leaving the group due to, ahem, musical differences, Sharkey was invited by Vince Clark to take vocals on a song that he'd written called "Never Never". The result is one of the best songs of 1983 and it's difficult to think of a different singer who could have improved on Sharkey's performance. Had it reached number one it would have been in this top 100 for sure.
The rest of The Undertones more or less formed That Petrol Emotion, but Sharkey was always going to have the bigger commercial success.
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Post by Earl Purple on Nov 3, 2015 15:27:44 GMT 1
"Never Never" isn't far away in our 1983 charts in the retro forum. Perhaps you should join in with that?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2015 9:54:35 GMT 1
91. Gary Puckett & The Union Gap - Young Girl (1968)
Apparently Gary Puckett didn't much care for this song, or some of the other "power ballads" written for the group by Jerry Fuller; perhaps that explains the terrible miming in the video, but this is a great track, good enough to reach the top 10 again when re-issued in 1974.
Puckett grew up near the city of Union Gap in Washington state, and played in several local bands before forming The Outcasts, who tended towards his preferred musical style of hard rock. However they were still unsuccessful, so went for a change of image and under their new group name achieved this massive hit, which also reached number 2 in their native country.
The song is of course written from the point of view of a man who realises that his girlfriend is under-age, and his attempts to make her leave before he does anything stupid. There is of course nothing wrong with the sentiment, but when the song was covered years later in "Glee", they decided to change the lyrics to make them less controversial, which is missing the point entirely, but then again Glee is fairly pointless anyway. Another interesting version was covered by ABBA's Anni-Frid.
For a while, Puckett and Co. were hot names, performing at Disneyland and The White House (in front of Prince Charles), but after they ended their relationship with Jerry Fuller, the hits dried up and the group members went their separate ways. Gary Puckett left the music scene, moving into acting and theatre work, but in the 1980's he joined reunion tours with the likes of Herman's Hermits and The Monkees, and eventually, in 2010, performed in the city of Union Gap.
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TheThorne
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*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
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Post by TheThorne on Nov 4, 2015 17:50:29 GMT 1
I used to love this song my dad used to play it in the car when I was young. The government should be made to listen to this to remind them not every bloke who gets with an underage girl is a paedo, girls lie and can easily look 21 and be 15 but these days that argument doesn't wash you get locked up, seriously lots of the girls in my school who were underage had boyfriends with cars and jobs. How times change.
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Post by Earl Purple on Nov 4, 2015 19:01:11 GMT 1
On the side of the "legalities", I think that for a girl who is close to the age of consent and a man who is just over that age, it is not considered "paedophilia" in the eyes of the law although it is technically still illegal.
You mention ABBA who did of course do a song of their own on the subject "Does Your Mother Know".
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 10:19:11 GMT 1
90. The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name (2008)
Lead singer Katie White nearly gave up on the music industry before forming The Ting Tings. She had previously been a member of several unsuccessful groups, even appearing on stage at one point with Atomic Kitten and Steps, which would normally be enough to make anyone give up completely.
To make ends meet she took a job as a bartender in a Manchester recording studio, and during her time in the city she met Jules De Martino who was working as a music producer but was also a talented musician in his own right. The pair realised they shared the same musical tastes and formed The Ting Tings, named after a Chinese ex-colleague of White.
Their first two singles didn't trouble the top 30, but "That's Not My Name" entered the charts at number one. It had actually been originally released some 12 months earlier but vanished without trace, but by now the group had achieved exposure with appearances at Glastonbury and on TV with Jools Holland. The song itself was based on White's frustrations within the music business, and has a style not too dissimilar to "Mickey", with it's mixture of a staccato opening and a very singable chorus. The official video had similarities to Toni Basil's effort also.
For the next year or two, the group were ever-present at music awards, often taking top honours for the single and accompanying album "We Started Nothing". But in truth they were more or less a one-hit-wonder, their follow-up single did make the top 10 but they have had nothing of note since.
At one point they also recorded a cover of Altered Images' "Happy Birthday", which may or may not be of interest to certain people on this board ......
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 15:19:13 GMT 1
89. The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me (1980)
There are only a handful of Police songs that I can honestly say I like, and this is the best of their five chart-toppers. Of their other singles, only "Invisible Sun" and their mis-heard ode to Sue Lawley really interest me; their mix of pop and reggae seems a bit dated now.
By 1980 they here however one of the most successful bands in the world; sell-out tours, million-selling albums, and three members who did actually have some genuine musical ability. Gordon "Sting" Sumner, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, but even at this stage there was some friction within the group. Copeland had originally formed The Police after his tenure with prog-rockers Curved Air ended around 1975 (their "Back Street Luv" is a classic), and Sting had come on board as lead singer. However it became clear that it was Sting who was the media darling, and this, coupled with his increasing influence over the band's direction, were major reasons that caused the two strong personalities to clash.
Sting wrote DSSCTM, although he claims it isn't specifically about his time as a schoolteacher; he does however have sympathy with the character in the song - a young teacher who develops a crush on a pupil, they try to keep it a secret but pretty soon they are outed. It topped the charts for four weeks and ended as the biggest-selling single of the year.
The group went their separate ways around 1984, although Sting and Copeland did appear at Live Aid a year later. And then the following year saw an awful remix of the song back in the UK top 30. The less said about it the better, and it is probably a blessed relief that a similarly-themed remix of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" was withdrawn at around the same time.
The group have split and reunited more times than I've had hot dinners, including being cajoled into performing when all three of them attended Sting's wedding in 1992. There were other appearances together, including famously a reunion tour from 2007-2008.
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Post by Earl Purple on Nov 5, 2015 15:33:05 GMT 1
DSSCTM was rather "hyped" up at the time, it was almost certain to enter at number 1, and obviously it was in the chart the same time as Baggy Trousers, also about school but from a pupil's point of view and for me a better song, however yes it is a good Police song.
I always assumed that the girl had a crush on the teacher, and he was trying his best to "resist" whilst at the same time being tempted, but that the teacher had actually not overstepped the mark, tempting though it was.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 16:36:05 GMT 1
DSSCTM was rather "hyped" up at the time, it was almost certain to enter at number 1, and obviously it was in the chart the same time as Baggy Trousers, also about school but from a pupil's point of view and for me a better song, however yes it is a good Police song. I always assumed that the girl had a crush on the teacher, and he was trying his best to "resist" whilst at the same time being tempted, but that the teacher had actually not overstepped the mark, tempting though it was. Yeah Baggy Trousers was the better song, and in fact until I checked in my first ever Guiness Book Of Hit Singles in 1986, I always assumed it had reached number 1. I think we're both right, they had a crush on each other. And it's purely a coincidence that it follows just after "Young Girl" in my list
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Post by suedehead on Nov 5, 2015 21:47:16 GMT 1
DSSCTM is the closest you've come to including a song I don't like. It's OK, but I wouldn't choose to listen to it.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 5, 2015 23:49:09 GMT 1
91. Gary Puckett & The Union Gap - Young Girl (1968)
Puckett grew up near the city of Union Gap in Washington state... ...which was also the site of a battle in 1855 in which the US Army bravely overcame a band of injuns armed with some very pointed mangoes. Hence the Civil War-esque get-up. The Union Gap were extremely ill-served by Billboard. Both "Young Girl" and follow-up "Lady Willpower" topped the Cashbox and Record World charts. Yet "officially" they only have a pair of no. 2 hits. They weren't the worst done by though...
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