vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 16, 2020 15:48:21 GMT 1
Oh, and the b-side is, I would submit, more iconic...
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Post by suedehead on Sept 16, 2020 18:17:21 GMT 1
So, that’s fifty down and just ten to go. Five of them are from the 1960s, three from the 1980s and one each from the 1970s and 1990s. Whether that says anything about the quality of number ones over the years is open to question.
We start with the first of those three songs from the 1980s and its place in the top ten might surprise some people. After all, David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s version of Dancing In The Street is not exactly universally loved but I think it is a very good cover version and that’s what counts here.
Dancing in The Street was co-written by Marvin Gaye and the first hit version was recorded by Martha And The Vandellas in 1964. That version reached number four in the UK. The Bowie and Jagger version was recorded for Live Aid in July 1985. The two singers were on opposite sides of the Atlantic at the time of the show and technology at the time was not sophisticated enough for them to perform together live, so they made a video instead. In that video, Bowie is surely the epitome of effortless cool.
Inevitably the song was released as a single and, equally predictably, it went straight to number one at the beginning of September, making it Bowie’s fifth chart-topping single and Jagger's only one away from the Rolling Stones. The Stones spent eighteen weeks at the top of the singles chart but none of them at the right time to qualify for this particular top 60.
The release of Dancing In The Street meant that another one-off collaboration performing a cover of a 1960s song, UB40 and Chrissie Hynde’s version of I Got You Babe, spent just a week at the top. Bowie and Jagger spent four weeks at number one, the last coinciding with my 25th birthday. Live Aid was also responsible for The Cars' Drive returning to the chart after it was used as the background music to a film showing the dire situation in Ethiopia that led to the whole Band Aid / Live Aid charity campaign.
Chart-watchers of the 1980s will think of 1984/5 as the time when three different songs called The Power Of Love spent time in the top forty.The best of the three was long gone by this time but the one that was OK and that one that was unspeakably awful were both in the top twenty in the relevant week. Much better songs in the chart than those two included Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell and White Wedding, Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill and The Cure’s Close To Me.
Dancing In The Street was the second Bowie collaboration to top the chart after Under Pressure with Queen (whose performance was a major highlight of Live Aid) in 1981. That song was also dismissed at the time but is now more widely acknowledged as a great single with top performances from both vocalists.
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Post by raliverpool on Sept 16, 2020 21:37:36 GMT 1
I'm a huge Bowie fan, and I know it is for charity but that cover of the Martha & the Vandellas classic is not good. Quite frankly I'd rather listen to The Laughing Gnome.
But thanks to the power of youtube it is improved by this video:
However, he redeemed himself as he planned to start his Live Aid set with the song "Five Years", which was the opening track from his classic 1972 album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars". However, the day before the concert he chose to drop this song to allow time at the end for that Eithopian short appeal film to be shown with The Cars "Drive" as the musical bed. As a result the subsequent 15 minutes saw the highest number of public donations.
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Post by suedehead on Sept 16, 2020 22:03:39 GMT 1
I'm a huge Bowie fan, and I know it is for charity but that cover of the Martha & the Vandellas classic is not good. Quite frankly I'd rather listen to The Laughing Gnome. But thanks to the power of youtube it is improved by this video:# However, he redeemed himself as he planned to start his Live Aid set with the song "Five Years", which was the opening track from his classic 1972 album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars". However, the day before the concert he chose to drop this song to allow time at the end for that Eithopian short appeal film to be shown with The Cars "Drive" as the musical bed. As a result the subsequent 15 minutes saw the highest number of public donations. I said Dancing In The Street's placing would be controversial! Just like placing Ride On Time at the very bottom (although that might change when it becomes a top 61 next week). I watched the whole of the UK leg of Live Aid and the Cars video made a huge impact. Whoever put that together pulled off an absolute masterstroke.
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Post by suedehead on Sept 17, 2020 16:13:53 GMT 1
I said at the start that two British bands had two songs in the list. We have already had the two Police songs but the other band has not yet appeared at all. Given that there are still five songs from the 1960s to come, it is not hard to guess that the band in question are The Beatles.
The first of the two, at number nine, dates from 1963. According to the Official Charts Company, The Beatles had their first number one in May that year with From Me To You. Other charts compiled at the time put Please Please Me at number one at the start of the year. The next official single was She Loves You and that duly became the band’s second (or third) number one. It entered the chart in August and went to the top in its third week, replacing Bad To Me by another Liverpool band, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. It stayed at number one for four weeks meaning it was there for my third birthday.
The relevant chart also included two Phil Spector classics - Da Doo Ron Ron and Then He Kissed Me, both by The Crystals. The Shadows were in there with Shindig while two members of that band, Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, had a hit of their own with Applejack. The Tremeloes (or Bryan Poole and The Tremeloes as they were at the time) had two songs in the top forty - Twist And Shout and Do You Love Me.
The latter Tremeloes song was the one that ended She Loves You’s run at the top. However, the fab four remained in the top three for the next seven weeks. By the end of that seven weeks, yet another Merseyside act, Gerry And The Pacemakers had spent four weeks at number one with You’ll Never Walk Alone. After that, She Loves You returned to the top for a further two weeks before The Beatles replaced themselves when I Want To Hold Your Hand went to number one and stayed there for five weeks. The seven weeks between two runs at number one in the same chart run remains a record.
For thirteen years, She Loves You was the best-selling single of all time in the UK. It lost that title in 1977 when the McCartney-penned Mull Of Kintyre / Girls’ School took his band Wings to the top of that long-term chart. That, in turn, gave way to the original Do They Know It’s Christrmas (McCartney was on the 12-inch version) before that gave way to the song at number 49 in this list.
As with so many Beatles songs, She Loves You has been recorded by many other artists. Among the more bizarre are The Chipmunks and six spoken word versions by Peter Sellers in various different accents.
She Loves You was part of a run of eleven successive number one singles for The Beatles from official releases. One of two unofficial releases that also charted in that run was a version of My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean (simply called My Bonnie on the single) recorded with Tony Sheridan. I first heard that song courtesy of the obscure compilation album that also included the original Sutherland Brothers version of Sailing.
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Post by suedehead on Sept 19, 2020 17:41:38 GMT 1
I said at the start that I have tried to use a combination of my thoughts at the time and my later views when ranking these 60 songs. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is an example of a song that rose a few places because I chose to reassess my original assessment. The next song has gained far more than just a few places.
I can’t say for certain when I first heard Freda Payne’s Band Of Gold. I’m not sure whether it was around the time of my tenth birthday, when it was at number one, or some time later. I do know that I didn’t particularly like it. My initial assessment was very wrong, meaning that I have placed the song at number eight. Ten-year-old me (or however old I was when I first heard it) would not have expected it to be the highest-placed song from the 1970s but it is.
Band Of Gold was written by one of the all-time great songwriting teams, Holland-Dozier-Holland. Among the songs they can include on their CV are Stop In The Name Of Love, Where Did Our Love Go, How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You and Reach Out I’ll Be There. Band Of Gold was initially published under the collective pseudonym Edythe Wayne as the three writers were involved in a legal dispute with Motown at the time. The musicians on the Freda Payne version of the song included Ray Parker Jr, now best known for the original Ghostbusters theme.
Band Of Gold entered the chart at the end of August, climbed thirty places in its second week and took over at number one in its third week. It replaced a Motown classic, Tears Of A Clown by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, a song with both Robinson and Stevie Wonder included in the writing credits. It was still number one the following week in the chart relevant to this thread.
Band Of Gold was not the only Holland-Dozier-Holland composition in the chart that week. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were in there with Jimmy Mack. Also in the top forty were Elvis Presley’s The Wonder Of You, Lola by The Kinks and Dusty Springfield’s version of How Can I Be Sure, David Cassidy’s version of which was at number one just two years later. As it was my tenth birthday, it is worth noting that Ten Years After had a song in the chart.
For the last two if its six weeks at number one, Band Of Gold held Deep Purple off the top. Black Sabbath were also in the top five for those two weeks. Freda Payne’s run at number one was ended by Matthews Southern Comfort with their lovely version of the Joni Mitchell-penned Woodstock. After such a stunning start to her chart career, it is somewhat surprising that Payne never had another major hit and didn’t spend as much as a solitary week in the albums chart.
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Good Old Days
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Post by Good Old Days on Sept 19, 2020 18:29:41 GMT 1
Band of Gold - for me is 0/10 song She Loves You - maybe my favourite Beatles single
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Post by paulgilb on Sept 19, 2020 23:03:41 GMT 1
I think you mean Holland-Dozier-Holland (Lamont being Dozier's first name)
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 20, 2020 8:19:27 GMT 1
"Band Of Gold" wasn't a Motown classic. It came after HDH quit the label to start up their own label Invictus. And it was Motown's Funk Brothers on backing. But it is, in spirit, the last great sixties Motown sound hit. By now Motown was moving on to social realism and fairly bland soul.
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Post by Whitneyfan on Sept 20, 2020 16:17:07 GMT 1
Band of Gold - for me is 0/10 song Really? I think it's brilliant. Have you heard Belinda Carlisle's version?
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Post by suedehead on Sept 20, 2020 17:13:47 GMT 1
After the highest placed song of the 1970s, it’s time for the last song from the 1990s. At number seven it is a full 23 places ahead of the second highest song from that decade. The song comes from 1992, the year I went to Pride for the first time. It was the first festival to be designated Europride and was, at the time, a free event.
The main act at that Pride event were The Shamen. They weren’t particularly well-known at the time although, by the time the festival came round, they had had a top ten hit with the brilliant Move Any Mountain. They just happened to have a new single to promote and LSI (Love Sex Intelligence) gave them a second top ten hit. It was, though, something of a surprise when their next single, Ebeneezer Goode went to number one in mid-September, toppling Snap’s Rhythm Is A Dancer. It was also a relief as it kept a godawful cover of Baker Street off the top.
The following week it held on. Had it not done so, Dr Alban’s It’s My Life would have topped the chart which would have meant no 1990s number one came anywhere near the top 20 in this list. It proved to be yet another birthday chart with a Bob Marley song in it; Iron Lion Zion was in the top ten. Also in the chart were the Manic Street Preachers’ version of the Theme from MASH (a track from a brilliant collection of covers of number one singles to mark the fortieth anniversary of the NME), Suede’s Metal Mickey (their first top forty hit) and Peter Gabriel’s Digging In The Dirt.
Ebenezer Goode’s four-week run at the top was probably helped by the publicity generated by the all-too-predictable howls of outrage from certain sections of the press. In particular, they suggested that the line “Ezer Goode, Ezer Goode, Ebenezer Goode” might not just have been about using a shortened form of the name Ebenezer. I don’t know what the fuss was about. Of course Es are good. Writtn Nglish would look rathr odd without thm.
The Shamen’s energetic form of dance music that appealed to indie fans was replaced by the soporific Sleeping Satellite by Tasmin Archer.
The Shamen were a classic example of a band whose star shone fairly briefly. LSI and Ebenzer Goode were taken from their fifth album, Boss Drum. Only two of the previous four albums reached the top forty and each of them spent just a week there. Boss Drum spent a total of nine weeks in the top ten, peaking at number three, and spawned two further top ten singles. Their remaining three studio albums managed just a single week in the top forty between them.
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Post by Whitneyfan on Sept 20, 2020 17:17:07 GMT 1
'Sleeping Satellite' is amazing... but I love 'Ebeneezer Goode' too
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Post by suedehead on Sept 20, 2020 19:22:11 GMT 1
'Sleeping Satellite' is amazing... but I love 'Ebeneezer Goode' too For me, Sleeping Satellite is a dull song sung competently
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Post by suedehead on Sept 20, 2020 19:27:22 GMT 1
The remaining six songs, then include four from the 1960s and two from the 1980s. Even anyone who knew nothing of my taste in music before reading this thread will have guessed that the current number one, WAP by Cardi B featuring Meghan Thee Stallion, would not have been challenging the stranglehold of those two decades at the top of this list. The only decision to make would be exactly where in the bottom three to place it.
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Post by suedehead on Sept 21, 2020 18:13:08 GMT 1
At number six we finally get to the number one on the day I was born. Most avid chart-watchers will, at some point, have wanted to know what topped the chart on the day they were born. For some of us, it took some time to be able to find out. The internet didn’t exist and there were no chart books. It wasn’t really until a book listing the top twenty charts came out at some point in the 1970s that my interest in historical charts began, simply because the information hadn’t been readily available before that.
Naturally, once I had got a copy of the book, I wanted to find out what my birth-date number one was and soon discovered that it was Apache by The Shadows. At the time, The Shadows were known as Cliff RIchard’s backing band. They had started life as The Drifters but had to change their name because of the American group of the same name.
The American Drifters formed before the UK version although they didn’t have any UK chart success until after Cliff Richard and The Drifters had notched up a few hits. The US band went on to enjoy many hits over here through the sixties and into the seventies. At least, then, this dispute over nomenclature involved a genuinely successful band challenging another. Some subsequent naming disputes involved people so obscure that they were barely a household name in their own household. Solo singers who named themselves Suede and Oasis spring to mind.
The Shadows’ (or Drifters’) twangy guitar sound was a major feature of early Cliff Richard hits so perhaps it was not a surprise when they started to record music of their own. Their first single without Cliff (and, indeed, without vocals) was Apache, released in July 1960 and which entered the chart that month. By the time they climbed to number two, they found themselves stuck behind one of their songs with Cliff Richard, Please Don’t Tease. A week later, the positions were reversed and The Shadows had (sort of) replaced themselves at number one.
Apache stayed at the top for five weeks meaning that it was still there when I entered this world. In the early weeks of The Shadows’ chart run, guitarist Bert Weedon was also in the chart with a version of Apache but that left the top forty in the week that Hank Marvin and co climbed to the top. Among the other songs in the top forty for Apache’s fifth week at the summit were Roy Orbison’s Only The Lonely, Shakin’ All Over by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and, erm, TIe Me Kangaroo Down Sport by the then popular entertainer Rolf Harris.
The Shadows’ five weeks at number one was ended by Tell Laura I Love Her by Ricky Valance who died earlier this year. It was a story of a teenager who was killed in a stock car race, trying to win enough money to get engaged to his girlfriend. It was one of several “death records” that were popular at the time.
The Shadows had a further four number one hits as a standalone band. By the 1970s, they were largely recording cover versions of hit songs. Cliff Richard and the Shadows are (I believe) the only British chart act to have split into two acts who each represented the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest. Richard came second in 1968 with Congratulations and third five years later with Power To All Our Friends. The Shadows came second in 1975 with one of their few vocal numbers Let Me Be The One.
Earlier this year (before you-know-what made it impossible), The Shadows reassembled to recreate the song and to talk about their bid to knock Cliff off the top.
Bruce Welch of the Shadows produced some of Cliff’s later singles including Devil Woman. He also had a decent hit single himself with Ebony Eyes (not the song by the Everly Brothers who had two entries in my birth-date chart).
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Post by greendemon on Sept 21, 2020 18:16:48 GMT 1
A classic Shadows song - much better than what was number one on the day of my birth (Boris Gardiner - I Want To Wake Up With You)!
I'll have to content myself with being born on the same day that Peter Gabriel's 'In Your Eyes' came out.
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Post by suedehead on Sept 21, 2020 18:29:13 GMT 1
In Your Eyes is a fabulous song. I Want To Wake Up With You, less so.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Sept 21, 2020 19:36:59 GMT 1
Have you ever gone down the internet rabbit hole of discovering Apache’s defining role in the history of hip-hop? It’s one of my favourite stories about music.
Essentially, a studio act called The Incredible Bongo Band recorded and released a cover in 1973 (it’s brilliant, adapted from the original to include all manner of instruments rather than just the guitar, but that’s an aside to the main story). Uniquely, the track includes a one and a half minute bongo solo, and some kids from housing projects in New York got into the habit at parties of using two copies of the single on different turntables, just playing the bongo part so there was a constant beat. They would then take it in turns to shout rhymes over the microphone, often about people to introduce them as they arrived at the party. They were literally inventing rapping.
The drums were later sampled by Afrikaa Bambara, and from there went on to appear on records pretty much throughout the history of pop, from the Sugarhill Gand to C&C Music Factory to TLC.
So there you have it,The Shadows unwittingly facilitated the invention of hip hop. Completely improbable, but history like that in my opinion is what makes popular music so endlessly fascinating.
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Post by suedehead on Sept 21, 2020 21:25:18 GMT 1
Thanks for that!
I've added a paragraph about the song that replaced Apache.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Sept 21, 2020 22:25:17 GMT 1
I had to edit my post because I realised when I reread it I’d written “Uniquely, the track includes a one and a half minute bingo solo”.
That really would have been unique, quite difficult to rap over though. 😂
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