I give a mark out of 10 to every single featured on Popular. This is your chance to indicate which YOU would have given 6 or more to, by whatever standard you wish to impose. And if you have any ‘closing remarks’ on the year to make, the comments box is your place!
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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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“God Save The Queen” not included as it sits outside the marking system, not being an ‘official’ No.1
Slim pickings this year; I only voted for five of them.
I’ve enjoyed talking and reading about these songs more than I’ve enjoyed listening to them, which is maybe symptomatic of a year of transition. Surprising number of duds, on reflection. And two songs I’d not knowingly heard before they came up here.
POLL INVALID
TOUGH TITTY
meanwhile back in the states -
rod stewart – “tonight’s the night (gonna be alright)”
marilyn mccoo and billy davis jr. – “you don’t have to be a star (to be in my show)”
leo sayer – “you make me feel like dancing”
stevie wonder – “i wish”
rose royce – “car wash”
mary mcgregor – “torn between two lovers”
manfred mann’s earth band – “blinded by the light”
the eagles – “new kid in town”
barbara streisand – “evergreen (love theme from a star is born)”
hall & oates – “rich girl”
abba – “dancing queen”
david soul – “don’t give up on us”
thelma houston – “don’t leave me this way”
glen campbell – “southern nights”
the eagles – “hotel california”
leo sayer – “when i need you”
stevie wonder – “sir duke”
kc and the sunshine band – “i’m your boogie man”
fleetwood mac – “dreams”
marvin gaye – “got to give it up (pt 1)”
bill conti – “gonna fly now (theme from rocky)”
alan o’day – “undercover angel”
shaun cassidy – “da doo ron ron”
barry manilow – “looks like we made it”
andy gibb – “i just want to be your everything”
the emotions – “best of my love”
meco – “star wars theme/cantina band”
debby boone – “you light up my life”
bee gees – “how deep is your love”
Donna Summer.
I wasn’t even born yet in 1977 (give me another six months and I would be with you from the start, if it weren’t for infantile amnesia).
And also – as a native Swede – I have heard most of Abba’s offerings throughout my childhood. Abba may not have had any more actual pop/street cred in Sweden than in the UK, but on the other hand they were accepted by the… establishement, or parental generation, or whatever you might like to call it. They were always there, in the background if nothing else.
Oh, my English writing skills are rusty. It’s been a long time since I wrote anything in English.
But Donna Summer.
Sometime in 1992 I was exposed to Messiah’s rave version of ‘I Feel Love’. There was something about it that stuck with me. I had no idea that it was a cover version of a much older song, but I liked it. (I am, for the record, something of a closet anglophile – otherwise I would probably never have heard that track, nor would I have been following Popular for that matter).
I can still remember the first time I heard the original Donna Summer/Moroder version being played in a club, sometime in the late ’90s. It was almost… transcendental. Something like a déjà vu, or rather déjà visité phenomenon – the feeling of arriving at an unknown place and still perfectly knowing your way around it.
My English writing skills are rusty. And I’m drunk. This may not make much sense.
But still, if I were forced to pick just one song from the entire string of ’70’s #1’s and forget all the others, I’d choose ‘I Feel Love’. It’s as close to perfection as you’ll ever get.
By the way – I did rather like ‘Show You the Way to Go’ by the Jacksons. I never heard it in my life until it was featured here, but I’d say it’s my second choice of Popular ’77.
odd one this, i think most of the ones i ticked would have scraped a six (most due to fuzzy childhood nostalia rather than [cough] objective goodness) with the exception of I Feel Love which is probably a 9.7 at least…
A bad crop, but it could’ve been worse. In Ireland they suffered When Benjy Wrapped His Tractor Round The Old Oak Tree by Brendan Grace at no.1 while we were luxuriating in I Feel Love. To make up for this, they also placed Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better, The Carpenters’ Calling Occupants and Olivia Newton John’s Sam at the top. All worthier cases than three quarters of the votes from the UK jury.
I was sorely tempted to vote for ‘Angelo’ because it does make me smile and laugh, but I couldn’t, with my hand on my heart, give it any more than 5.
Impressive consensus for Donna.
In retrospect (now that I know about punk) I can heap praise on “White Riot,” “Complete Control,” “Rockaway Beach”…but at the time I loved “Mahna Mahna” by The Muppets and “King Tut” by Steve Martin.
My three favorites that didn’t make #1 – “Sound and Vision” by David Bowie, Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” and “Strawberry Letter 23″ by Brothers Johnson. All 10s in my book.
Like others I am really looking forward to 1978!
Actually, the more I think about it, the more totally AWESOME 1978 is…
re: #7
A drunken Swede writes more elegant English than most English people. As ever, the Scandinavians put us to shame.
Once on holiday in Denmark, clutching my Berlitz phrasebook (because you have to make an effort don’t you?) I tried to exchange some traveller’s cheques in a Danish bank. Trying to make myself understood by following the supposedly phonetic guide in the book, I eventually gave up. ‘I’m so sorry to do this,’ I lamented, ‘but do you speak any English’.
‘Yes,’ she replied in very lightly accented English, ‘I have a smattering’.
I realised with a sickening sense of my own limitations that I could live a thousand years and would never know the word ’smattering’ in any other language.
What’s the source of “smattering” though – it sounds very Scando itself!
Wasn’t he a downhill skiier?
For a sense of context, here’s the same year in the charts seen upside down: ie, all the singles that got to number 40 in 1977!;
29 Jan The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald – Gordon Lightfoot – 1 week
23 Apr Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow – Tom Jones – 1
4 Jun In The City – The Jam – 2
18 Jun Dreamin’ – Liverpool Express – 1
16 Jul Halfway On The 7th Floor – Paul Nicholas – 1
27 Aug American Girl – Tom Petty – 1
15 Oct Lipsmakin’ Rock & Rollin’ – Peter Blake – 1
29 Oct It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me – Barry White – 1
5 Nov Boogie On Up – Rokotto – 1
24 Dec I Don’t Want To Lose Your Love – The Emotions – 3
NME Readers’ Poll for 1977, ‘Best single’ category;
1. The Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen
2. The Sex Pistols – Anarchy In The UK
3. Elvis Costello – Watching The Detectives
4. Tom Robinson – 2-4-6-8 Motorway
5. ELP – Fanfare For The Common Man
6. The Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant
7. David Bowie – “Heroes”
8. Eddie & The Hot Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
9. The Stranglers – Peaches
10. The Clash – Complete Control
The Melody Maker readers’ poll for 1977 is notably different;
1. ELP – Fanfare For The Common Man
2. The Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen
3. Peter Gabriel – Solsbury Hill
4. The Stranglers – Peaches
5. Genesis – Spot The Pigeon
6. The Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant
7. David Bowie – Sound & Vision
8. The Sex Pistols – Anarchy In The UK
9. Thin Lizzy – Don’t Believe A Word
10. Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water (eh?)
Well, 5 are the same, 1 artist different track, leaving:
Elvis Costello – Watching The Detectives
Tom Robinson – 2-4-6-8 Motorway
Eddie & The Hot Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
The Clash – Complete Control
on the NME list, not on the MM, and
Peter Gabriel – Solsbury Hill
Genesis – Spot The Pigeon
Thin Lizzy – Don’t Believe A Word
Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water (eh?)
on the MM list, not on the NME
I make that 3-2 to the NME there.