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Post by onehitwonder on Nov 7, 2020 22:26:27 GMT 1
Sexy chick is dreadful. Everlong is brilliant, I also enjoy Tina Cousins' version, although it was never released officially.
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masenz
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Post by masenz on Nov 8, 2020 11:03:54 GMT 1
Oh Tina did a version? I only knew about Sex On Fire. I’ll have to try hear it.
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Post by onehitwonder on Nov 8, 2020 12:57:57 GMT 1
Oh Tina did a version? I only knew about Sex On Fire. I’ll have to try hear it. I will send it to you as a a PM, it's not really out there.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Nov 8, 2020 23:33:40 GMT 1
640 - I Would Like by Zara Larsson No. 2 in 2016
Zara Larsson is 22. I’m not sure if that makes her the youngest person currently on the millionaires list but it must be close. She’s from Sweden, and rose to fame there when she appeared on their equivalent of X-Factor aged just 10. She had an intense period of success in the UK charts, this was her fifth top 20 hit in 2016, and the most successful. I preferred the first one, Lush Life, though, this one is generic and a bit dull.
I Would Like was held at number 2 by Clesn Bandit’s Rockabye, which is fair enough because that one’s much better, in the final week of 2016. It wasn’t that massive a hit, six weeks in the top 10 altogether with a fairly standard up then down chart run, but there must be a lot of people who’ve carried on streaming it to get it here.
In 2017 Larsson had her first number one, as featured vocalist on Sympathy by Clean Bandit, she mustn’t have held their keeping her off the top as a soloist against them. Since then she’s only made the top 10 one more time, raising the prospect that her career was all but done before she was even out of her teens. No offence, but I’m not sure she’s that big a loss to the pop world.
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Roo.
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Post by Roo. on Nov 9, 2020 0:53:12 GMT 1
Symphony not Sympathy which is definitely the best song she's done - this one is probably my favourite of her solo work, but calling it a favourite is pushing it, it's just okay.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Nov 9, 2020 8:07:47 GMT 1
Symphony not Sympathy which is definitely the best song she's done - this one is probably my favourite of her solo work, but calling it a favourite is pushing it, it's just okay. Ha ha, I knew that, just didn’t proof read! My thumbs are too big for my phone’s keyboard 😕
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Post by Whitneyfan on Nov 9, 2020 9:02:59 GMT 1
I don't remember that Zara Larsson one at all, and after listening to it I don't feel that I've been missing out on anything - it just sounds the same as a lot of other songs.
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Post by onehitwonder on Nov 9, 2020 10:22:15 GMT 1
I don't remember that Zara Larsson one at all, and after listening to it I don't feel that I've been missing out on anything - it just sounds the same as a lot of other songs. Me neither! I only remember 3 songs: Lush life, Never forget you and Symphony. Good songs all three.
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masenz
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Post by masenz on Nov 9, 2020 10:41:23 GMT 1
In my typical style, I like her alot more when she's no longer scoring hits! All The Time and La La Land are both great pop tracks, whereas her bigger stuff I just found a bit too radio-ready.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Nov 9, 2020 20:51:53 GMT 1
639 - Rockin’ All Over The World by Status Quo No. 3 in 1977
Status Quo are a band who’ve built a career on repetition, two levels of it. The first level is that with the odd exception, all of their biggest hits are almost exactly the same. The second level is that within those individual hits, both lyrically and musically, the same thing is repeated over and over again.
I almost started this review by announcing that I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I li li li like it, I li li li like it, because against my instincts I actually do, but I decided that was too obvious. Also, it would fail to convey the complicated feelings I have of amazement and admiration that it was possible to do what they did and get away with it, but then that’s just the point, their songs really don’t convey anything. A few simple lyrics, a slight twist on the order of the same three chords and they’re away.
So why did I say I like it? The thing is, the moment I hear this track I’m instantly transformed to family parties as a kid, with my Mum and some Aunties in a row with their hands on their hips, frantically head banging to the left, then up straight, then to the right. I can almost smell the port and lemon. They didn’t need complex lyrics, they didn’t want anything different, they just wanted to enjoy themselves. Status Quo’s working class three chord boogie was exactly the soundtrack they were after.
There’s no point being a musical snob here, this is a great song that has been enjoyed by a huge number of people over the years, and fully deserves its, er, status as a millionaire.
Rockin’ All Over The World spent 3 weeks at number 3 in November 1977. We Are The Champions by Queen spent the same three weeks at number 2, but oddly on week 3 the number one swapped, from The Name Of The Game by Abba to Wings’ all conquering Mull Of Kintyre. It was certainly a time of iconic hits, and presumably very high sales too because I find it hard to omagine Quo adding many more in the digital era, but they’ve got here nonetheless.
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Post by Whitneyfan on Nov 9, 2020 20:59:23 GMT 1
That is a brilliant song indeed by Status Quo. I have to say that they may be renowned for using the same chords on most of their hits, but I have seen them twice live at festivals and they have stolen the whole day both times.
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Roo.
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Post by Roo. on Nov 9, 2020 21:34:58 GMT 1
Uuuugh, Status Quo.
My mum is a huge fan and all the attempted brainwashing over the years never worked, it just made me dislike them even more!
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Nov 10, 2020 12:06:48 GMT 1
638 - History by One Direction No. 6 in 2016 (first charted in 2015)
This summer, before starting this thread, I made a playlist of all 742 songs and started shuffling it regularly when doing housework. I was not surprised to find there were a lot of songs which I didn't know, but I was surprised to find my wife did know this one. She doesn't follow music closely, but she does work in a primary school, I think that tells us a lot about this band's appeal.
I guess, that just goes to show that it's not a bad idea to pay attention to young children, because this isn't a bad pop song at all, it's quite charming and grows on you slowly. My only problem with it is I wonder why they shouted it rather than singing, I can only assume it's either because they couldn't agree which of them should sing it so they decided they all would at the same time, or because it was an attempt to hide the fact that none of them are that good at singing. The elephant in the room with the whole boyband concept is that so often they find themselves recording songs that could be sung perfectly well by one person, managing this contradiction sometimes risks ruining the material. It certainly doesn't help here.
History spent 3 weeks at number 6 in 2016. It was One Direction's last top 10 hit, so far at least. I am not familiar enough with their own history to know whether people knew it would be at the time or whether that was announced later, but it's definitely one of their better ones.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Nov 11, 2020 18:03:40 GMT 1
637 - I Hear You Knocking by Dave Edmunds No. 1 in 1970
When I saw this one on the list I was immediately familiar with the song, it's one of those I can't remember a time when I didn't know it, but a sudden question occurred to me for the first time - who even is Dave Edmunds? Odd that this has remained a mystery I've never thought to look into until today.
Well, David William Edmunds is a singer songwriter who was born in Cardiff in 1944. He was in a band called Love Sculpture who split up soon after having a decidedly odd top 5 hit in 1968 with a song called Sabre Dance. I Hear You Knocking was his first solo single, a rock cover of an old blues song that was originally a hit in the US in 1955 for someone called Smiley Lewis. It was an instant success, or instand for those days anyway, entering the charts at 16 before climbing straight to number one and staying there for 6 weeks. In the process it became the Christmas number one for 1970, at a time when the concept was not yet widely recognised but no doubt the sales were still higher than at the rest of the year. When it did eventually give up the top spot its successor was Grandad by Clive Dunn.
I may be wrong, but I don't get the feeling that I Hear You Knocking is still widely remembered. I imagine its on this list because its original sales took it close to a million anyway, and there it sat for several decades until the digital era when a few people looking up the hits of the early 70s on streaming services caused it to tip onto this list. Given the scale of its original success, it has every right to be here.
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Post by Whitneyfan on Nov 11, 2020 18:54:53 GMT 1
I had no idea 'I Hear You Knocking' was a cover (You learn something new every day!), but I do really like Dave Edmunds' version.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Nov 12, 2020 12:34:45 GMT 1
636 - You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon No. 4 in 1986
The first single from Paul Simon's Graceland album put him back in the top 10 as a solo artist for the first time in 14 years. The political context in which the album was released is complicated and contraversial for a wide range of reasons - did collaborating with South African artists break the boycott of the apartheid era nation or did it break new ground by show the world that black and white artists could successfully collaborate together? Was bringing African sounds to a global audience cultural appropriatrion for financial gain or a leg-up for musicians who were struggling to gain an audience? - but what was sometimes missed was that the music itself was largely apolitical, and in the case of You Can Call Me Al it was simply wonderful, innovative, catchy pop music.
Maybe it was the simple brilliance of You Can Call Me Al as a radio friendly, globally focussed pop song that enabled it to become a hit despite the controversy. On the other hand, it sounds to me like something that you would expect to spend several weeks at number 1, maybe the protests led by the likes of Billy Bragg, Jerry Dammers and Paul Weller (all of whom I have massive respect for both as musicians and for their political views) were the reason it didn't do better. On the week this song peaked at number 4, the top 3 was freakishly, arguably even historically weak, with, from 3 to 1, Rain Or Shine by Five Star, True Blue by Madonna (which allegedly she didn't even like herself) and Every Loser Wins by Nick Berry. Quality rise, in that top 4, You Can Call Me Al certainly stands out.
Over time I guess the controversy has faded into history, but the brilliance of this song hasn't. It must be shifting plenty in the digital era to now be a million seller because it's original sales wouldn't have been all that high. Interestingly it popped back into the charts for a week at 96 in 2011, I have no idea what sparked that particular sales spike but you can only assume it's selling fairly consistently these days. Always more of an albums artist, Paul Simon himself has never returned to the top 10, and hasn't charted anything new at all since 2006. He did a worldwide tour in 2018 billed as his farewell tour, and considering he's now 79 that seems fair enough.
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Post by Whitneyfan on Nov 12, 2020 12:46:19 GMT 1
'You can call me Al' is definitely a brilliant song - although I'm one of the people who like 'Rain or shine' and 'True blue' even more ('Every loser wins' a bit less though).
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Post by greendemon on Nov 12, 2020 12:55:33 GMT 1
'You Can Call Me Al' is great!
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Nov 13, 2020 16:39:34 GMT 1
635 - 17 by MK No. 7 in 2018 (first charted in 2017)
The idea of either an artist or a song having only 2 characters in its name seems quite odd, here we have both on the same track, just 4 characters in total. You would think the internet era would make something like that even less likely, conventional wisdom being that to be successful these days you need to be searchable, Googleable in fact. Nevertheless, despite these obstacles 17 by MK is a million seller. So what on earth is it?
Well the first thing that surprised me is that MK (US DJ Marc Kinchen) is a genuine chart veteran. His debut UK hit came in 1995 when he was just 15 years old, when Always (featuring Alana) reached number 12. Nope, I have absolutely no memory of it either, but the OCC's website never lies. He had a couple more minor hits, one in '95 and one in '97, before disappearing altogether for 19 years. I'd be tempted to assume he was an entirely different MK, but in fact Wikipedia confirms it is all the same guy.
The second big surprise for me came when I listened to 17 a few times and realised I quite like it. It's not exactly my kind of thing, and I'm sure it's soundtracked millions of workouts since 2017. I've not been in a nightclub for about 10 years, not been in a gym since it was raining at break time at school, and I'm quite happy about both of those facts, but I can see the appeal. It's a track with two layers, for an in your face dance record the song is quite subtle.
To date this is the peak of MK's UK chart career, his only top 10 appearance in fact, although he did make the top 20 again in 2018 alongside Jonas Blue and Becky Hill on Back And Forth. Maybe he's going to leave it another 19 years before trying again.
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Post by paulgilb on Nov 14, 2020 1:11:21 GMT 1
It only charted at #69 in 1995 - the #12 peak was a re-mix in 2014.
And I had no idea how young he was when he originally released the track!
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