http://www.bigozine2.com/archive/ARrarities06/ARbldfrisco.html

And it was Stevie’s fault that “Isn’t She Lovely?” wasn’t released as a single since he steadfastly refused to edit it down from its album length. The payback came when his next single off Songs was kept off number one by his former backing singer.

Also, Stevie did play harmonica on a couple more number ones (and is also heavily sampled on one of those) but that’s quite enough bunnyism for today.

Motown had history with Stevie on this sort of thing. How many weeks would “Isn’t She Lovely” have spent at number one if they had released that as the first or second single from “Songs In The Key Of Life”? In this instance they totally missed the boat as David Parton’s rather awful cover would have affected sales, were they to later release the original, which is probably why they never did.

So, if he has a mind to, Stevie can look back on his UK Chart career and see that a film song, a dodgy duet and an ensemble charity song are the only number one singles he had.

It could have been so different.

Given the record which was at number one over Xmas ’92 I doubt that “Everybody Hurts” would have had any chance of going top at that time oh stop Bugging me Bunny…

A huge percentage of Blondie’s fans probably couldn’t afford LPs in those days so a new single was new to them

I bought ‘Turn To Stone’ and was a bit let down by it at the time, took a while to grow on me. But it’s no ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’

‘Picture This’ felt a little underwhelming at the time too, it got mixed reviews (I preferred the b-side ‘Fade Away and Radiate’) and was out before ‘Parallel Lines’ (which I remember got a bad review in Record Mirror who thought they’d gone too ‘pop’)

#27 we shouldn’t discuss HIM but didn’t the first single from that album just miss out on the top spot itself?

Sometimes it can backfire if the record company wait too long – e.g. Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday”.

I always quite liked “Sunday Girl” – I mentioned in the HOG thread that I’d rather given up on Blondie after seeing them support Television rather poorly, but by now I was back on side. This was pleasant enough pop, and I would concur that it seemed to strike a chord with girls in particular. Myself, I’d probably rather they had put out “One Way Or Another” instead – now that was a cracking track!

I’m used to seeing a pop sensation make #1 with their debut (going straight in with it – but in 1978 this was still unheard of and would remain so for some time, as far as distinct artists would go at least) and can’t remember the last time a pattern like that Blondie one was achieved by anyone.

I think ‘One Way Or Another’ was a single in the US.

The tickets were notably more expensive than other, more contemporary, acts that I’d seen in the same place – over £10! – and the audience was older and more full of tourists than at other gigs I’d been to. I would have probably enjoyed hearing Blondie singles being played in public just as much as seeing them live. The highlight was actually ‘Bright Side’ from her new album, which genuinely did seem to slow the room down and glow strangely. When they had played, some Australian women complained that they hadn’t done ‘Sunday Girl’.

Unfortunately, it was a crap single.

Right, that’s two ‘double groove’ records mentioned, and I’ve got both.

OK, how about The Sensual World, Kate Bush. That had one vocal version and one instrumental version. So, they were both the same length, so no ‘waiting for all the silent grooves to finish’ problems. And I don’t got that one.