It was jazz, but it was so non-pretentious and accessible. Once I figured out how to special order records, I got a bunch of that Vince Guaraldi soundtrack stuff in high school. It is possible that his first Peanuts record A Boy Named Charlie Brown is my most played album of my life, but it's difficult to know.
And the Royal Guardsmen song is great fun.
I agree, I like plenty of downer songs.
What I am mystified by is the lack of adoration that I have heard for the Sounds of Silence over the years. I expect that love for "Backstabbers" or "Sitting On the Dock of the Bay", but in the back of my mind, I'm wondering if someone has cracked the code and is voting multiple times? It's not an accusation, and I mean no insult to Paul and Art (or Virgindog), but it's just made me raise my eyebrows a bit.
75 years before today’s virtual #1 song…
It’s October 1916, and the #1 song is “If I Knock the ‘L’ out of Kelly (It Would Still Be Kelly to Me)” by Marguerite Farrell. It’s an Irish drinking song, and the entire thing is just a vehicle to make a joke out of the letter ‘L’ versus the word hell. So, see, a sign painter misspells the name ‘Kelly’, by leaving out an ‘L’, but reasons with the sign owner that no one will care…it looks about the same. But by the end of the chorus he admits:
But if I knock the 'L' out of Kelly,
Sure he'd knock the 'L' out of me.
It’s all just a little silly wordplay. But the song does have that catchy sing-a-long feel. Listen if you need a 100+ year old, acoustically recorded pick-me-up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sF8HGz7k6w
50 years before today’s virtual #1 song…
It’s October 1941 and the #1 song is “Piano Concerto in B Flat” by Freddy Martin. Look at Freddy trying to class up the pop music charts. This is the Tchaikovsky piece that is famous enough on its own, but it was also the first segment of the “Hooked on Classics (Part 1)” medley that reached #10 in early 1982. Freddy’s version is heavily modified from Pyotr’s original composition, eventually featuring harmonizing saxophones playing the melody.
It’s been 7 years since Freddy’s first #1 hit. He will pop up several more times in the 40s, having a chart topper every year or so. His style is usually more straight-forward pop, but with a decidedly sweet approach, a la Guy Lombardo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkAPG_Mk4vk
I only have #12, Bitches Brew, which is a wierd but interesting experiment and #10 Miles Ahead with Gil Evans, which I like pretty well. I really think I'd like Sketches of Spain, but I've been too lazy to get it.
I read and I learn how to put all of this into context. I knew this song vaguely, but never cared enough about it to want to understand it. While it seems similar, it is so much less interesting than “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”. Mark does not seem like a nice guy…or at least he wasn’t back then. I wouldn't have known the name Mark Wahlberg if you had asked me about him before today. There’s just not much for me to love. Even Loleatta Holloway’s contribution isn’t enough.
But I have to admit that the piano soloing going on in the second half of the song is at least interesting. Curious how they chose to use such a jazzy feel in the song. Put me (a little bit) in the mind of “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)”, sort of, in mixing that jazzy feel with hip-hop. But we’ve got a little more than a year before that song hits. I’m sure there probably were plenty of experiments between jazz and hip-hop over the years, some better than others. I didn’t expect to be mentioning jazz in today’s review, but I listened and there it was. As for today’s song–a 4 or 5.
1. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – Rolling Stones
2. I Just Want To Be Your Everything – Andy Gibb
3. Dancing in the Dark – Bruce Springsteen
4. Walk in the Black Forest – Horst Jankowski
5. Eyes Without A Face – Billy Idol
6. Infatuation – Rod Stewart
7. Undercover Angel – Alan O’Day
8. Margaritaville – Jimmy Buffett
9. What’s Love Got To Do With It – Tina Turner
10. Jump (For My Love) – Pointer Sisters
There were some good songs here, but this is surely my least favorite collection of top 10s that we've ever compared.
50 years before today’s virtual #1 song…
It’s September 1941 and the #1 song is “Blue Champagne” by Jimmy Dorsey. For reasons that I haven’t been able to figure out, Jimmy Dorsey had a monster year in 1941. This is his 7th of 7 #1 songs during the year. I really like this one. It’s a down-tempo song, but not really a ballad. It has those trademark Glenn Miller saxophone harmonies and an interesting melody line. I guess there really is blue champagne (I had to look it up–I don’t know my alcohol), but Bob Eberly is singing about being blue, lamenting a lost love. Perfect background music if you’re wishing to recreate an early 40s environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr28CN325kY
25 years before today’s virtual #1 song…
It’s September 1966 and the #1 song is “Cherish” by The Association. It’s the first of 2 #1 hits by the band. Tom wasn’t really a fan.
https://www.stereogum.com/2014896/the-number-ones-the-associations-cherish/columns/the-number-ones/
He gave it a 3. It’s so much better than that. Musically, the song is a champion. It has a gorgeous sound. The lyrics are weaker than the music...a bit too sappy. I included it on a mix-tape for my high school girlfriend (not current...this was 33 years ago), and even her mom (who was probably graduating high school about the time of this hit) turned up her nose at its sweetness. (Maybe she would rather I had included Samantha Fox songs on the mixtape?) The recording is pretty nice with all of those sweet harmonies. But it’s a song that could be a wonderful instrumental (as is the Pat Metheny version that Teawls included in TNOCS that day).
My only complaint is the end of the song. It should fade out, but it ends on that chord that I would need Vivek (hey, where is that guy?) to interpret for me. I don’t like it very much. A production gamble that doesn’t pay off. Otherwise the song is wonderful, and totally up my alley. I’d give it a 9 for sure, some days better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2eEwOIR6zc
That and the "Venus" intro were complete non sequiturs to be included on that medley.
It's funny, though, on the single version of the Stars on 45 medley, "We Can Work It Out" was the latest Beatles song included. Most of them were early Beatles songs.
Ii rememberr thiss songg afterr playingg itt, butt itt definitelyy isn'tt onee thatt leavess muchh off ann impressionn. But paying a little attention to it, those harmonies are legit. They sound pretty good. And they are supported by a song with a chorus that has quite the hook. It's the sort of chord progression that I totally approve of. In fact, quite a few folks are saying things like that, and yet, folks rate it relatively low. Overall the song just doesn't have enough substance to bite into. I'll go easy on them and give the song a 7 for good ideas, and good singing, but something about its overall production keeps it from being great.
Saxophones win the day. You can't deny Chuck Berry's greatness, but the sax in "Tequila" is so awesome. And despite the dopey lyrics of "Short Shorts" (anybody remember it being used in Nair commercials?), that song has some swagger with some good saxophone, too.
Is it really this easy to disprove? Was there some other metric they used that wasn't tracked on a separate chart, but was still an objective measurement? I actually don't know...just thinking that there must be more to it than just averaging the two charts to come up with the HOT100.
But this is good stuff, bagpapi34. We love numbers.
You guys are right on. Not everything that Mr. Bolton but out was rot. This one was totally acceptable, along with a couple of others. But there were also some steaming piles of...stuff.
Ha! I was totally embarrassed to admit that I would still listen to Donna Summer and Andy Gibb and A Taste of Honey and Amii Stewart and all that...especially in middle school. Even high school, really. It was dumb, but you know how teenagers can put other people down because of their taste in music? I was too ashamed I guess. (No more.)
Tom in the formerly adjacent cube says he liked it back in 1991, but then it got old. He doesn't leave it on if it shows up on the radio. He gives it a 5.
50 years before this virtual week…
It’s June 1941 and the #1 song is “My Sister and I” by Jimmy Dorsey. It’s interesting that as I am covering the years 1916 and 1941, both years have war going on in Europe, but America has avoided entering the conflict. (In 1966 and 1991 America had already entered wars). Here’s a song that was inspired by a book entitled My Sister and I: The Diary of a Dutch Boy Refugee. The book is allegedly the diary of a 12 year old boy whose family becomes refugees from battles in Holland, stopping first in England and finally travelling to America. It wasn’t a sure thing that a boy had written the diary. Some felt the pro-British and anti-German sentiments in the book may have been a pro-war propaganda tool. If it wasn’t a legitimate diary, it was never clear who actually wrote it.
But it did inspire this song. In it, the brother (the diary’s author) sings about trying to accept their new life abroad while missing their home, but he repeatedly breaks off his lines and sings, “...but we don’t talk about that.” It makes for an interesting narrative, and maybe helped turn Americans ever so gradually towards entering the war. Of course, six months later, Americans would no longer need to be convinced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oHPymCILN8
25 years before this virtual week…
It’s June 1966 and the #1 song is “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones. A dark and eerie song, it was definitely a new direction for the Stones. Here’s Tom’s review of it:
https://www.stereogum.com/2013274/the-number-ones-the-rolling-stones-paint-it-black/columns/the-number-ones/
Tom gave it a 10. Three Stones #1 hits so far, each earning Tom’s 10. This is the best of the three so far. I don’t love the Stones' dark and bad boy version of rock as much as I like the Beatles, but they really channel something here. Between the sitar and eastern melody and that bass...it’s very powerful. Even the imagery--painting everything black...blotting the sun out of the sky. It’s an enjoyable trip. A “glorious little nightmare” as Tom said. Not a 10 for me, but then I’m not sure I’d give anything by them a 10. (That’s just me).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmmCwSqNbl4
Tom in the formerly adjacent cube says this song was huge, playing every 45 minutes on the radio and at every dance everywhere. He doesn't go bonkers over it, but gives it an 8.
Comments