I give marks out of 10 to every song – based on whatever criteria you like, here’s your opportunity to say what you’d have given more than 6 to from 1976. Tick as many as you like.
Loading ...And use the comments to discuss the year as a whole, if you like.
Tom in FT /Popular • featured content/Pop/popular year poll • 9,617 views
All, 1–25, 26–50, 51–75, 76–100, 101–125, 126–150, 151–175, 176–200, 201–225, 226–250, 251–275, 276–300, 301–325, 326–350, 351–375, 376–400, 401–425, 426–450, 451–475, 476–500, 501–525, 526–551.Back up to post. More comments: All, 1–25, 26–50, 51–75, 76–100, 101–125, 126–150, 151–175, 176–200, 201–225, 226–250, 251–275, 276–300, 301–325, 326–350, 351–375, 376–400, 401–425, 426–450, 451–475, 476–500, 501–525, 526–551.
All the UK number ones since 1952, reviewed in order and rated by whim. As featured on Radio 2, The Times, Metro, Paul Cornell's LiveJournal, etc etc.
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Didn’t Numan turn that ad down?
He sang on the jingle, but declined to turn it into a single.
Johnny Wakelin ‘In Zaire’ a reminder of the time in the mid-70s when the Ali fights with Foreman , Frazier seized hold of the public consciousness in this country arguably like no other sporting occasions (obviously aside from football) ever has. Records in the charts, pubs getting legal lock-ins to show the fights, little kids like me on junior school playgrounds talking about them, Ali himself everywhere. And I remember me and my friends that summer thought this record was about as good as it gets.
About as synonymous with that summer as the drought, the Montreal Olympics (which I would have been glued to about now) and that Colonel Callan Mercenary Trial in Angola (which to me seemed to be on every news bulletin for weeks on end that year!).
#294, I do remember a section removed from LOTP, possibly accidentally. I don’t remember ever hearing a re-recording.
A bit like the BBC playing “Addicted to love” but their copy had a groove-jump in it and no-one noticed for ages.
There is no LOTP re-recording as far as I know. A couple of weird edits have turned up on various re-issues over the years: 2 bars of vocal-free track between the bike crash and the last verse, and (weirder) the first line of the 3rd verse (“one day my dad said find someone new”). I don’t think the master tapes were dug out and digitalised til the Myrmidons Of Melodrama comp in the 90s.
Re 290, AndyPedant, I meant the Red Bird archive was re-issued for the first time, not LOTP. But I might be wrong there too. Why’s it a “silly thing to say”? It’s one of pop’s great opening lines, that’s probably why it was quoted.
Wichita ‘silly’ as in irony/in joke type of thing of the kind which often springs up between groups of blokes about something in the public consciousness such as the already proverbial LOTP.
I suppose vaguely similar to the Wurzels adlibbing ‘Who Loves You Baby?’ on the back of the ubiquitousness of that at Kojak line in 1975/76 in ‘Combine Harvester’.
Well, it’s been a while, but there is a TOTP this week, but hey it does look like a whole bunch of repeat performances.
The Chanter Sisters get another showing (or a new performance), having climbed to number 48 since their last appearance when they were at number 50.
(spoiler) they eventually climb to number 43.
307: they only had a brief play out over the end credits on the previous ‘appearance’
I have to admit that that performance of Sideshow was one that would have made me *less* likely to buy it.
Probably my favourite Ruby Flipper number since Mike Oldfield in the parched garden.
Not a bad show – despite a few bland acts
Thin Lizzy – ‘Jailbreak’ – looking and sounding great
Dr Hook- ‘A little bit more’ – meh
Chanter Sisters – ‘Sideshow’ – hypnotically awful – did they lose their luggage on the flight from Nashville? that might explain their outfits
Walter Murphy ’5th of Beethoven’ – a forgotten delight from the days of disco – interesting to compare disco’s habit of appropriating familiar melodies with acts like KWS
Jimmy James & the Vagabonds – another inexplicable appearance from JJ –
Status Quo – Mystery Song – lean and mean
Liverpool Express – You are my love – deeply drippy
Ej/KD – DGBMH – top pop
Bee Gees – You should be dancing – great song, deserves longer
Just what the disenfranchised youth of riot-torn Britain need to see in 2011: 98-year-old Jimmy James bellowing “Revolution is no solution.”
I thought you were going for “tonight there’s going to be a Jailbreak, somewhere in this town ….”
But we are now living in a situation wherein that self-same situation depends on the Chanter Sisters pearl.
@312 “Tonight there’s going to be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town” has gone down in history as one of the great comedy stupid rock lyrics. “Er, try the jail, mate,” is the obvious riposte.
But it makes perfect sense in the context of the album, where the WHOLE CITY (the whole world? the whole, er, dimension?) is a jail.
In fact, check out the original liner notes on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jailbreak_%28album%29) for some full-on Neo-Marxist anarchism. Not as heavily theorised as early Scritti, maybe, but a lot more rocking.
@314 Yeah. but some towns do have more than one jail… even the Isle of Sheppey has three….
@315 That’s also a fair point, if apparently not the one that Lynott had in mind. I’m not saying I approve of this Lizzy-mockery, just reporting that it does, in fact, go on.
(Lizzy looks wrong, somehow, as the short form. Skynyrd, Sabbath and Zeppelin work that way. Maybe it’s one of those band names, like AC/DC, that can never be abbreviated.)
Yeah, and police stations have jails too…
Not sure how much “A Fifth of Beethoven” can be described as ‘forgotten’. It’s on Saturday Night Fever after all.
More importantly (?), Walter Murphy then went on to write the theme tune to Family Guy. (‘then’ refers to quite a span of time here.)
Thought that musically it was pretty good this week – and thought that the charts were of a ridiculously high standard (a few novelty tracks excepted)overall as has been the case since these repeats started.
However despite this TOTP at this point was so cheap and nasty – everything from the inexcusable Shangri-las picture to the lack of any (proper)coverage (or in some cases any)coverage for big hits like the Manhattans (Top 5), James and Bobby Purify, War, Isley Brothers etc
And the perenial reliance on working-mans club pop-soul.
ps having said all that I though the Chanter Sisters (although raw soul like this is not my type of music) seemed very competent for those who like that sort of thing and put on a pretty vibrant appearance display.
But did David Hamilton mention them “flying in from Nashville” to make it look as though TOTP was featuring transatlantic artists – when in realty the Chanter Sisters were/are British backing-singers – who were probably coming home anyway…
well, it worked for The Beatles (flying in from Hamburg) …
Anyway, was that Chanter Sisters performance one of those that killed off sales? One had the voice and the style in a Ruth Jones way, but the blonde one? Bad dancing and straining for the high notes. Coupled with a lousy BBC Orchestra backing, la ti do.
A shame, the record’s really good.
I cannot understand why Liverpool Express were on yet again. Please tell me that we’re never going to seem these muppets again.
I think the Gals looked well yummy this week.
I, like Marcello, smiled at the “revolution is no solution” line as history argues that this ain’t necessarily so. Mind you, I don’t think opportunist thugs looting Dixons is much of a solution on any day of the week.
and it doen’t scan too well for that song.
Slik do “The Kid’s a Punk” next up.
#322: Jimmy James addresses the rebels in Tripoli: “REVOLUTION IS NO SOLUTION! WE OUGHT TO REALISE”
Quipped the veteran singer from his hospital bed: “As I regained consciousness…”
#324: It is wrong and foolish under the guise of love and liberty that we should capitalise and rob and fell Midge Ure for the James Dean lyric-citing tree.