Popular '74

14! Some terrific Number 1s

10 for me too, but I know I’m overcompensating with the anti-nostalgia impulse, and a lot of the remainder would have been fives. Very few I don’t like, in fact Ray Stevens may be my only 4 or less. For a year that I’m pretty sure no one would claim to be one of pop’s best (glam and prog fade away, nothing to replace them but nov – birth of disco notwithstanding) it’s a hell of a line up.

Intriguingly only 4 of mine and Tom Lane’s overlap. Billy, I’m doubly intreeged to know which 3 didn’t make you cheerful/dance and/or sing along.

Rubettes 4eva

Witchita, indeed

Can’t believe the Rubettes aren’t polling 100% of the votes 😉 for probably the greatest single ever produced…forgive me, too much caffeine this morning

Amazing to think that none of Slade’s singles in ’74 (Every Day, Bangin’ Man, Far Far Away) made it to number one after their dominance in ’73. Sometimes I wake up and think Far Far Away (how’d they get that drum intro sound?) may be my very favourite Slade song. Then I quickly remember there are more pressing issues.

How many of the phantoms would have got 6 or more? Leo (the one song by him I like, genuinely eerie, muted brown backing) and The Sweet, though if we’re scoring on visual impact as well, Mud singing The Cat Crept In in a transport cafe on Never Too Young To Rock definitely nudges that up a mark. Peter Shelley was lame-o.

If anyone gets the chance, try listening to the top 10 sometime round the end of March/ beginning of April 1974.

This period gets my vote as the most DEPRESSING song selection in the history of music!! Just look at the choice of songs around that time:

“Seasons in the son” – a song from a dying man.
“Billy don’t be a hero” – the death of somebody called Billy
“Remember me this way” – sad departing
“Emma” – she commits suicide
“I get a little sentimental” – a lost love.

My memory may be sketchy but i’m sure there were a couple of other songs in the same sombre vein. I think all these were in the top 10 at the same time. I can’t find the actual charts via google, but if someone has them I’m sure they will confirm the above. Ironically they did fit the mood of the country at that time (miners strike/blackouts/political unrest) but maybe that was just coincidence.

Re 13: Not sure if it was coincidence, as the black mood of Britain in 1980 was also reflected by MASH, Crying et al (mulled over on the MASH thread, I think). Hits from the major players like Everyday, Remember Me This Way (Whatever Happened To The) Teenage Dream, The Tears I Cried, Teenage Lament ’74 and (best of all) Sweet’s The Six Teens do point to a mini craze for glum Glam, as the genre – and the careers of most of its star names – reached the end of the road.

I’m astonished at a bunch of them being in the merely 50% kind of area – Barry White, Carl Douglas, Suzi Quatro, Rubettes, George McCrae.

Hello TPL 1974, with a post to which I know many people have been looking forward and I wish I liked it more than I actually did.

I just felt extremely tired.

TPL: in 1974 albums didn’t get any bigger, or sadder, than this.

TPL: “as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare”…but wasn’t it fun? Wasn’t it?

TPL: OK, so we’re finally out of the sixties; meet the Beatle who blew a hole in the wall even unto the next decade.

TPL: Double speed guitar?

TPL: no matter how you try, you can’t go home again.