Author: Thomas Scovell

What time is it?

The Chart

It’s a week at the top for “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” by John Denver, “Sister Golden Hair” by America, and then two for “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille.

• [new] “Attitude Dancing” – Carly Simon
• [new] “Baby That’s Backatcha” – Smokey Robinson
• “Bad Luck” – Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
• “Bad Time” – Grand Funk
• “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” – Freddy Fender
• “Cut The Cake” – Average White Band
• [new] “Dynomite” – Tony Camillo’s Bazuka
• “Get Down Get Down” – Joe Simon
• [new] “Hey You” – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• “How Long” – Ace
• “I Don’t Like To Sleep Alone” – Paul Anka
• “I Wanna Dance Wit Choo” – Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes
• “I’ll Play For You” – Seals & Crofts
• [new] “I’m Not In Love” – 10Cc
• “I’m Not Lisa” – Jessi Colter
• [new] “I’m On Fire” – Dwight Twilley Band
• “Jackie Blue” – Ozark Mountain Daredevils
• [new] “Listen To What The Man Said” – Paul Mccartney & Wings
• “Love Will Keep Us Together” – Captain & Tennille
• “Love Won’t Let Me Wait” – Major Harris
• “Magic” – Pilot
• [new] “Midnight Blue” – Melissa Manchester
• [new] “Misty” – Ray Stevens
• “Old Days” – Chicago
• [new] “One Of These Nights” – Eagles
• “Only Women Bleed” – Alice Cooper
• “Only Yesterday” – Carpenters
• “Philadelphia Freedom” – Elton John Band
• [new] “Philadelphia” – Elton John Band
• [new] “Please Mr. Please” – Olivia Newton-John
• “Remember What I Told You To Forget / My Ship” – Tavares
• [new] “Rhinestone Cowboy” – Glen Campbell
• [new] “Rockin’ Chair” – Gwen Mccrae
• “Shakey Ground” – Temptations
• “Shining Star” – Earth Wind & Fire
• “Shoeshine Boy” – Eddie Kendricks
• “Sister Golden Hair” – America
• [new] “Swearin’ To God” – Frankie Valli
• “Take Me In Your Arms” – Doobie Brothers
• “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” – John Denver
• [new] “The Hustle” – Van Mccoy
• “The Last Farewell” – Roger Whittaker
• [new] “The Way We Were” – Gladys Knight & The Pips
• “When Will I Be Loved / It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” – Linda Ronstadt
• [new] “Why Can’t We Be Friends” – War
• “Wildfire” – Michael Murphey

[new] = New to the chart this week.

You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries%3Flist%3DPLHmtRhf4VOUc

The Times

On June 20, 1975, the modern Hollywood commercial blockbuster was born when Universal Pictures unleashed Steven Spielberg’s Jaws into North American theaters. Backed by an unprecedented, aggressive nationwide television advertising campaign, the film adapted Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel about a man-eating great white shark terrorizing a fictional New England resort town. John Williams’ famously minimalist, two-note suspense theme built unbearable tension, sending shockwaves through audiences and causing measurable drops in real-world beach attendance that summer. As the first movie to surpass $100 million dollars at the box office, Jaws fundamentally rewrote the rules of studio distribution, cementing the high-stakes summer release window as cinema’s premier cultural event.

And in the theatre another blockbuster was born on Broadway on June 1, 1975, when the iconic musical variety production Chicago officially opened at the 46th Street Theatre. Directed, choreographed, and co-written by Bob Fosse, the production turned a 1926 jazz-age crime story into a cynical, high-energy satire of celebrity culture and media manipulation. Boasting a powerhouse score by John Kander and Fred Ebb featuring showstoppers like “All That Jazz,” the original staging (running from ’75 to ’77) starred Broadway royalty Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera. Though initially overshadowed at the Tony Awards by its contemporary “A Chorus Line”, Chicago’s sharp wit and signature minimalist choreography laid the foundation for an enduring global legacy, eventually spawning the longest-running revival in Broadway history when it returned two decades later in the ’90s, and is still running today.

The Take

I’d never clocked why “I’m Not In Love” by 10Cc has such a unique sound…apparently it was an abandoned song by the band that was resurrected when one of the members has a crazy idea, “I tell you what, the only way that song is gonna work is if we totally fuck it up and we do it like nobody has ever recorded a thing before. Let’s not use instruments. Let’s try to do it all with voices.”

How they did that is a fascinating production story,

Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing “ahhh” 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, building up a “choir” of 48 voices for each note of the scale. The main problem facing the band was how to keep the vocal notes going for an infinite length of time, but Creme suggested that they could get around this issue by using tape loops. Stewart created loops of about 12 feet in length by feeding the loop at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder in the studio, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand, and tensioned the tape. By creating long loops the ‘blip’ caused by the splice in each tape loop could be drowned out by the rest of the backing track, providing that the splice in each loop did not coincide with any of the others. Having created twelve tape loops, one for each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk. This effectively turned the mixing desk into a musical instrument complete with all the notes of the chromatic scale, which the four members together then “played”, fading up three or four channels at a time to create “chords” for the song’s melody.

Also this month is one, of what will be a growing number of songs, that we’ll hear sampled in hiphop songs a few decades hence – “The Way We Were” by Gladys Knight & The Pips.

The band record a live cover of Barbra Streisand’s original “The Way We Were” as part of a blend with the song “Try to Remember”. Knight’s rendition was then sampled in 1993 for “Can It Be All So Simple” by the Wu-Tang Clan from their album “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)”.

Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

What’s the month Sadie?

The Chart

It’s three weeks at the top for “He Don’t Love You” by Tony Orlando & Dawn, a week for Earth Wind & Fire’s “Shining Star” and then for “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” by Freddy Fender.

• “Another Somebody Done Somebody” – B.J. Thomas
• “Autobahn” – Kraftwerk
• [new] “Bad Luck” – Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
• “Bad Time” – Grand Funk
• “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” – Freddy Fender
• “Bertha Butt Boogie” – Jimmy Castor Bunch
• “Chevy Van” – Sammy Johns
• [new] “Cut The Cake” – Average White Band
• [new] “Don’t Tell Me Goodnight” – Lobo
• “Emma” – Hot Chocolate
• [new] “Get Down Get Down” – Joe Simon
• “He Don’t Love You” – Tony Orlando & Dawn
• [new] “Hijack” – Herbie Mann
• “How Long” – Ace
• “I Don’t Like To Sleep Alone” – Paul Anka
• [new] “I Wanna Dance Wit Choo” – Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes
• [new] “I’ll Play For You” – Seals & Crofts
• [new] “I’m Not Lisa” – Jessi Colter
• “It’s A Miracle” – Barry Manilow
• “Jackie Blue” – Ozark Mountain Daredevils
• “Killer Queen” – Queen
• “L.O.V.E.” – Al Green
• “Long Tall Glasses” – Leo Sayer
• [new] “Love Will Keep Us Together” – Captain & Tennille
• [new] “Love Won’t Let Me Wait” – Major Harris
• “Lovin’ You” – Minnie Riperton
• [new] “Magic” – Pilot
• [new] “Old Days” – Chicago
• [new] “Only Women Bleed” – Alice Cooper
• “Only Yesterday” – Carpenters
• “Philadelphia Freedom” – Elton John Band
• [new] “Rainy Day People” – Gordon Lightfoot
• [new] “Remember What I Told You To Forget / My Ship” – Tavares
• [new] “Shakey Ground” – Temptations
• “Shaving Cream” – Benny Bell
• “Shining Star” – Earth Wind & Fire
• “Shoeshine Boy” – Eddie Kendricks
• [new] “Sister Golden Hair” – America
• “Stand By Me” – John Lennon
• “Supernatural Thing” – Ben E. King
• [new] “Take Me In Your Arms” – Doobie Brothers
• “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” – John Denver
• [new] “The Immigrant” – Neil Sedaka
• [new] “The Last Farewell” – Roger Whittaker
• “Walking In Rhythm” – Blackbyrds
• “What Am I Gonna Do With You” – Barry White
• [new] “When Will I Be Loved / It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” – Linda Ronstadt
• [new] “Wildfire” – Michael Murphey
• “Young Americans” – David Bowie

[new] = New to the chart this week.

You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

The Times

On May 10, 1975, the home entertainment landscape shifted forever when Sony officially introduced the Betamax videocassette recorder, releasing the LV-1901 console in Japan. Complete with a built-in 19-inch color television, the unit allowed everyday viewers to record live broadcasts and watch them at their convenience, introducing the world to the concept of time-shifting. Retailing at a luxury price equivalent to several thousand dollars today, this launch fired the opening shot of the historic 1970s and 80s videotape format war against VHS, radically transforming the film distribution industry and laying the groundwork for modern home cinema culture.

From May 17 to May 25, 1975, the stadium rock era reached a fever pitch as English rock icons Led Zeppelin returned to the United Kingdom to play five legendary, sold-out nights at London’s Earls Court Arena. Riding high on the massive success of their double album Physical Graffiti, the band performed sprawling, three-hour sets under a massive, state-of-the-art laser and video projection system that was unprecedented for the time. Captivating over 85,000 ecstatic fans across the week with definitive, thunderous live renditions of tracks like “Trampled Under Foot” and “Dazed and Confused,” these historic shows marked the zenith of the band’s mid-70s live prowess and defined the scale of the modern arena spectacle.

Then on May 26, 1975, the future of cinematic storytelling was reshaped in secrecy when visionary filmmaker George Lucas officially founded Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Faced with the reality that 20th Century Fox had shut down its internal special effects department to cut costs, Lucas rented a modest, empty warehouse in Van Nuys, California, and assembled an crew of young college students, engineers, and artists led by John Dykstra. Tasked with inventing entirely new visual effects technologies for a high-risk space opera then known as “The Star Wars”, the team engineered the Dykstraflex—the first computer-controlled motion camera system. By merging mechanical engineering with photographic illusion, this workshop didn’t just rescue a struggling movie production; it triggered a multi-decade digital revolution that permanently transformed Hollywood blockbusters.

The Take

Not something Sadie has noticed (phew!) but Major Harris’ single “Love Won’t Let Me Wait” hits the chart this month with some adults-only “sound effects”, or as wikipedia puts it,

This ballad is noted for the sound of a woman in the throes of sexual pleasure, heard during the instrumental sections of the song.

A not too uncommon occurence in songs of later decades we did wonder if this was the first instance of it on a popular record, but apparently it was early but not the first. Unsurprisingly, this being the net, someone has explored this indepth!

Popular in the house this week was Mollie Riperton’s “Lovin’ You” which features her signature “whistler register” pitch. Sadly this beautiful tune was the pinnacle of a career that would cut short by her death to cancer only a few years later.

And lastly, I don’t think i’d knowingly heard a Harold Melvin song, but the name lived rent-free in my head ever since it was used as a diss in a Snoop Dogg song in 1994,

“you without me is like Harold Melvin without the Bluenotes; You’ll never go platinum”

I was thus pleased to hear that Harold Melvin, with the Blue Notes anyway, was a lot of fun. Another live performance below:

Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

Yes, it’s already nearing the middle of our 3rd decade of exploring pop music history one month at a time…April, 1975!

The Chart

It’s a week at the top for Minnie Riperton’s “Lovin’ You” before Elton John Band’s “Philadelphia Freedom” takes it for two weeks, then the last week of the month sees “Another Somebody Done Somebody” by B.J. Thomas at number one.

• [new] “Amie” – Pure Prairie League
• “Another Somebody Done Somebody” – B.J. Thomas
• [new] “Autobahn” – Kraftwerk
• [new] “Bad Time” – Grand Funk
• “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” – Freddy Fender
• [new] “Bertha Butt Boogie” – Jimmy Castor Bunch
• “Butter Boy” – Fanny
• “Chevy Van” – Sammy Johns
• “Don’t Call Us We’ll Call You” – Sugarloaf
• “Emma” – Hot Chocolate
• “Express” – B.T. Express
• “Harry Truman” – Chicago
• “Have You Never Been Mellow” – Olivia Newton-John
• [new] “He Don’t Love You” – Tony Orlando & Dawn
• [new] “How Long” – Ace
• [new] “I Don’t Like To Sleep Alone” – Paul Anka
• [new] “It’s A Miracle” – Barry Manilow
• [new] “Jackie Blue” – Ozark Mountain Daredevils
• [new] “Killer Queen” – Queen
• “L.O.V.E.” – Al Green
• “Lady Marmalade” – Labelle
• “Long Tall Glasses” – Leo Sayer
• “Lovin’ You” – Minnie Riperton
• “My Eyes Adored You” – Frankie Valli
• “No No Song / Snookeroo” – Ringo Starr
• “Once You Get Started” – Rufus & Chaka Khan
• [new] “Only Yesterday” – Carpenters
• “Philadelphia Freedom” – Elton John Band
• “Poetry Man” – Phoebe Snow
• “Sad Sweet Dreamer” – Sweet Sensation
• “Satin Soul” – Love Unlimited Orchestra
• “Shame Shame Shame” – Shirley & Company
• [new] “Shaving Cream” – Benny Bell
• “Shining Star” – Earth Wind & Fire
• [new] “Shoeshine Boy” – Eddie Kendricks
• [new] “Stand By Me” – John Lennon
• “Supernatural Thing” – Ben E. King
• [new] “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” – John Denver
• “Walking In Rhythm” – Blackbyrds
• “What Am I Gonna Do With You” – Barry White
• “You Are So Beautiful” – Joe Cocker
• [new] “Young Americans” – David Bowie

[new] = New to the chart this week.

You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

The Times

On April 4, 1975, the technological landscape changed forever when childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen pooled their talents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to officially establish a small software partnership they called “Micro-Soft.” Spurred by the release of the Altair 8800—the world’s first commercially successful microcomputer—the duo set out to develop a BASIC programming interpreter that would allow everyday hobbyists to interact with the machine. Dropping the hyphen a year later, this modest garage startup would evolve into a global tech behemoth, completely revolutionizing personal computing, shifting the focus of the digital age from hardware to software, and laying the cornerstone for the modern internet era.

The entertainment world gathered at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on April 8, 1975, for the 47th Annual Academy Awards. The evening’s undisputed heavyweight champion was Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, which made cinema history by becoming the first-ever sequel to win the coveted Oscar for Best Picture, alongside sweeping major categories like Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for Robert De Niro.

On April 5, 1975, television history and global pop culture shifted styles in Japan with the premiere of Himitsu Sentai Gorenger on NET. Created by legendary manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori, this colourful, live-action special effects series introduced audiences to a team of five colour-coded, masked superheroes fighting synchronised battles against bizarre villains. The show was an immediate massive success, inventing the enduring “Super Sentai” genre. Decades later, this specific multi-colored team formula, along with its high-octane martial arts choreography and giant robot battles, would be successfully imported to the West, morphing into the global, multi-billion-dollar Power Rangers media franchise.

The Take

Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” is the most iconic early electronic music to hit our charts. The album version is a meandering 22 minutes, but only a small portion of the song was played on top-40 radio. As group member Ralf Hütter noted, cutting down the track was simple because it was “loosely constructed, so making a short version was easy because you don’t have to worry so much about boundaries and continuity”.

Reviews at the time were very mixed about the new song,

Bill Provick of the Ottawa Citizen was initially hesitant about the group, stating he mocked Autobahn at first, but upon listening to it and Ralf and Florian, he called his initial reaction “a bad mistake, a grave injustice and a sad example of the rock snobbery I always bemoan in others”. Provick said the album “works on two levels – as pleasing background atmosphere” and “upon closer listening as lovely escape route for the mind”, finding “Kraftwerk opting for calm competence rather than spectacular gimmickry – a nice change in the world of electronic music”

But it has obviously grown in esteem in the decades since. As we get further along in our journey we’re getting more and more great video footage…

Bowie’s “Young Americans” is new to the chart, and despite being from his ninth album is the song that finally propelled him to stardom in America with its new (for him) sound. Following years of glam rock and hard rock releases, the song represented a full embrace of the R&B and Philadelphia soul sound of the mid-1970s. Bowie’s sound would change further over the following decades but it is a little-known early released from then-unknown R&B legend Luther Vandross, who conceived the backing vocal arrangement.

Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

Let’s hear it for March of 1975…

The Chart

Nothing can stick at the top this month with “Best Of My Love” by the Eagles, “Have You Never Been Mellow” by Olivia Newton-John, “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers, “My Eyes Adored You” by Frankie Valli and finally “Lady Marmalade” by Labelle each having a single week of glory.

(Editorial snafu: Last week was similarly varied, but we forgot to include the list. Thanks Carl for spotting that! February 1975 number ones were – “Laughter In The Rain” by Neil Sedaka, “Fire” by Ohio Players, “You’re No Good” by Linda Ronstadt, and “Pick Up The Pieces” by Average White Band.)

• “”#9 Dream”” – John Lennon
• [new] “Another Somebody Done Somebody” – B.J. Thomas
• [new] “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” – Freddy Fender
• “Best Of My Love” – Eagles
• “Black Water” – Doobie Brothers
• [new] “Butter Boy” – Fanny
• “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” – Electric Light Orchestra
• [new] “Chevy Van” – Sammy Johns
• “Don’t Call Us We’ll Call You” – Sugarloaf
• [new] “Emma” – Hot Chocolate
• [new] “Emotion” – Helen Reddy
• “Express” – B.T. Express
• “Fire” – Ohio Players
• [new] “Harry Truman” – Chicago
• “Have You Never Been Mellow” – Olivia Newton-John
• [new] “I Am Love” – Jackson Five
• “I’m A Woman” – Maria Muldaur
• [new] “L.O.V.E.” – Al Green
• “Lady Marmalade” – Labelle
• “Lady” – Styx
• “Lonely People” – America
• [new] “Long Tall Glasses” – Leo Sayer
• “Lovin’ You” – Minnie Riperton
• “Movin’ On” – Bad Company
• “My Boy” – Elvis Presley
• “My Eyes Adored You” – Frankie Valli
• [new] “Never Let Her Go” – David Gates
• “Nightingale” – Carole King
• [new] “No No Song / Snookeroo” – Ringo Starr
• [new] “Once You Get Started” – Rufus & Chaka Khan
• [new] “Philadelphia Freedom” – Elton John Band
• “Pick Up The Pieces” – Average White Band
• “Poetry Man” – Phoebe Snow
• “Roll On Down The Highway” – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• [new] “Sad Sweet Dreamer” – Sweet Sensation
• [new] “Satin Soul” – Love Unlimited Orchestra
• [new] “Shame Shame Shame” – Shirley & Company
• [new] “Shining Star” – Earth Wind & Fire
• “Some Kind Of Wonderful” – Grand Funk
• [new] “Supernatural Thing” – Ben E. King
• “Sweet Surrender” – John Denver
• [new] “The South’s Gonna Do It” – Charlie Daniels Band
• “To The Door Of The Sun” – Al Martino
• “Up In A Puff Of Smoke” – Polly Brown
• [new] “Walking In Rhythm” – Blackbyrds
• [new] “What Am I Gonna Do With You” – Barry White
• “You Are So Beautiful” – Joe Cocker
• [new] “You’re No Good” – Linda Ronstadt

[new] = New to the chart this week.

You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

The Times

David Bowie shattered his glam-rock mold on March 7, 1975, with the release of his ninth studio album, Young Americans. Recorded primarily in Philadelphia, the record marked a radical stylistic pivot into what Bowie famously dubbed “plastic soul”—a white UK artist’s highly stylized take on American R&B, funk, and gospel. Featuring backing vocals from a young, then-unknown Luther Vandross and a title track that took a cynical look at the American Dream, the album also birthed his first-ever number-one single in the US, “Fame,” co-written with John Lennon. Young Americans shocked purists but proved to be a masterclass in musical reinvention, heavily influencing the evolution of late-70s dance and blue-eyed soul music.

And then Rock transformed into cinematic, operatoc. spectacle on March 26, 1975, when the film adaptation of The Who’s legendary concept album, Tommy, made its star-studded premiere. Directed by the eccentric Ken Russell, the movie turned the band’s 1969 rock opera into a high-camp, visually overwhelming fever dream. Featuring Roger Daltrey in the title role, the production boasted an unforgettable, iconoclastic cast of music and screen legends, including Elton John as the towering Pinball Wizard, Tina Turner as the wild Acid Queen, and Eric Clapton as the Preacher. Tommy became a box-office triumph and a cultural lightning rod, proving that rock music could break free from the vinyl groove to dominate mainstream cinema with theatrical, boundary-pushing grandiosity.

Meanwhile British comedy reached a surreal, enduring high-water mark on March 14, 1975, when “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” premiered in the United Kingdom. Co-directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones on a shoestring budget partly funded by rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, the film delivered a relentlessly absurd, brilliantly satirical deconstruction of the Arthurian legend. From knights using clacking coconut shells to mimic horses to the famously lethal Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, the film’s relentless wit and stylistic non-sequiturs redefined cinematic comedy. It instantly crossed over into global pop-culture immortality, establishing a foundational blueprint for modern alternative comedy and remaining one of the most frequently quoted films in cinema history.

The Take

Of the bands new to chart this month, “Fanny” were unknown to me personally. They were one of the first all-female rock groups to achieve critical and commercial success, including two Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 singles. But it was the Bowie link that hooked me into their history, in particular because it mentioned his own (lesser known) history in…mime!

Bowie was, by all accounts, completely captivated by Fanny’s musicianship on discovering them in the ’70s, sending them a letter full of praise and inviting them to a post-show party where he showed off some of his mime techniques.

That artistic connection inspired bassist Jean Millington to write “Butter Boy,” a sleek, swaggering track all about her relationship with Bowie. Released on their 1974 album Rock and Roll Survivors, the song brought a glam-rock energy to their sound. The Bowie connection even rippled into the band’s post-split life, as Jean later ended up marrying Earl Slick, Bowie’s longtime guitarist.

Ironically, “Butter Boy” turned out to be Fanny’s biggest commercial hit, climbing its way up to number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1975. The only catch? The success was a bit bittersweet. By the time the single actually peaked and everyone was jamming out to Jean’s tribute to Bowie, lineup changes and internal friction had already done their work, and Fanny had officially called it quits.

In a 1999 Rolling Stone interview, Bowie looked back and called them “one of the finest fucking rock bands of their time,” insisting they were just as colossal and important as any of their male peers.

Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

And here we are, a mere two years before Thomas is born, but many more before our DJ Sadie is…

The Chart

A mixed month at the top – “Laughter In The Rain” by Neil Sedaka, “Fire” by Ohio Players, “You’re No Good” by Linda Ronstadt, and “Pick Up The Pieces” by Average White Band.

• “#9 Dream” – John Lennon
• “Best Of My Love” – Eagles
• [new] “Big Yellow Taxi” – Joni Mitchell
• “Black Water” – Doobie Brothers
• “Boogie On Reggae Woman” – Stevie Wonder
• [new] “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” – Electric Light Orchestra
• “Doctor’s Orders” – Carol Douglas
• [new] “Don’t Call Us We’ll Call You” – Sugarloaf
• [new] “Express” – B.T. Express
• “Fire” – Ohio Players
• “Free Bird” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
• “Get Dancin’” – Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes
• [new] “Have You Never Been Mellow” – Olivia Newton-John
• [new] “I Belong To You” – Love Unlimited
• [new] “I’m A Woman” – Maria Muldaur
• [new] “Lady Marmalade” – Labelle
• [new] “Lady” – Styx
• “Laughter In The Rain” – Neil Sedaka
• “Lonely People” – America
• “Look In My Eyes Pretty Woman” – Tony Orlando & Dawn
• [new] “Lovin’ You” – Minnie Riperton
• “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” – Elton John
• “Mandy” – Barry Manilow
• “Morning Side Of The Mountain” – Donny & Marie Osmond
• [new] “Movin’ On” – Bad Company
• [new] “My Boy” – Elvis Presley
• [new] “My Eyes Adored You” – Frankie Valli
• “Never Can Say Goodbye” – Gloria Gaynor
• “Nightingale” – Carole King
• “One Man Woman One Woman Man” – Paul Anka & Odia Coates
• “Pick Up The Pieces” – Average White Band
• “Please Mr. Postman” – Carpenters
• [new] “Poetry Man” – Phoebe Snow
• “Ready” – Cat Stevens
• “Rock N Roll” – Mac Davis
• [new] “Roll On Down The Highway” – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• “Some Kind Of Wonderful” – Grand Funk
• “Struttin’” – Billy Preston
• “Sweet Surrender” – John Denver
• [new] “To The Door Of The Sun” – Al Martino
• [new] “Up In A Puff Of Smoke” – Polly Brown
• [new] “You Are So Beautiful” – Joe Cocker
• “You’re No Good / I Can’t Help It” – Linda Ronstadt
• [new] “Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne” – Jim Stafford

[new] = New to the chart this week.

You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries%3Flist%3DPLuXFjvfcz7AUuQwenfwVFHxvuUayPB4CM

The Times

On February 4th Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath stepped down as chairman of the Conservative Party after former Education Minister Margaret Thatcher outpolled him 130-119, still less than the majority 139 of 276 votes needed for anyone to become the party’s leader. One week later, Thatcher would become the first woman to lead a British political party and usher in a new, deeply controversial, era in politics.

Television screens across America were bathed in high-glam musical showmanship on February 12, 1975, when the solo variety show Cher premiered as an blockbuster network special on CBS. Stepping out on her own following her highly publicised divorce and professional split from Sonny Bono, Cher shattered expectations by recruiting a powerhouse lineup of guests including Elton John, Bette Midler, and Flip Wilson. Dazzling audiences with Bob Mackie’s infamously daring, avant-garde costume designs and powerhouse musical medleys, the premiere drew massive ratings. It immediately established Cher as an independent, singular pop-culture force and set a vibrant, boundary-pushing standard for 1970s prime-time entertainment.

The automotive world experienced a polarising shockwave on February 28, 1975, when American Motors Corporation officially introduced the AMC Pacer to the public. Dubbed “the first wide small car,” its unique, avant-garde design featured a massive expanse of wrap-around glass, rounded bodywork, and an asymmetrical passenger door built longer than the driver’s side to ease backseat entry. Though initially built as a forward-thinking response to the mid-70s fuel crisis, its futuristic “flying fishbowl” silhouette quickly shifted from a consumer novelty to a cult-classic icon of 1970s visual kitsch—culminating in its legendary cinematic rebirth as the Mirthmobile in the 1992 comedy classicWayne’s World.

The Take

“Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell is originally from 1970 this later live version was released in 1974 on “Miles of Aisles” and reached No. 24 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart we track. Reviewers regarded the live version as “more full of life” than any of the singles Mitchell released in a long time. Which it is, but seems to lose the poignancy in being a bit more bubbly than the original.

I wrote ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart […] this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song.

Then we have Olivia Newton-John’s, “Have You Never Been Mellow”, which apparently isn’t about what the mid-70s might imply its about,

“There was a time when I was in a hurry as you are
I was like you
There was a day when I just had to tell my point of view
I was like you

Now I don’t mean to make you frown
No, I just want you to slow down

Have you never been mellow?”

And lastly in terms of tunes that got us googling, there is Patti LaBelle’s classic “Lady Marmalade” which became iconic (again) for another generation when it was featured in Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!”

“Lady Marmalade” is about a man’s sexual encounter with the titular prostitute, but Patti LaBelle later claimed that she was completely oblivious to its overall message, saying: “I didn’t know what it was about. I don’t know French and nobody, I swear this is God’s truth, nobody at all told me what I’d just sung a song about.”

Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

Well would you look at that…we’ve been at this for 25-sped up years! Happy quarter century 4xlife!

Songs of the month

• [new] “”#9 Dream”” – John Lennon
• “Angie Baby” – Helen Reddy
• [new] “Best Of My Love” – Eagles
• [new] “Black Water” – Doobie Brothers
• “Boogie On Reggae Woman” – Stevie Wonder
• “Bungle In The Jungle” – Jethro Tull
• “Cats In The Cradle” – Harry Chapin
• “Dancin’ Fool” – Guess Who
• “Dark Horse” – George Harrison
• “Doctor’s Orders” – Carol Douglas
• “Fire” – Ohio Players
• [new] “Free Bird” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
• [new] “From His Woman To You” – Barbara Mason
• [new] “Get Dancin’” – Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes
• [new] “I Feel A Song” – Gladys Knight & The Pips
• [new] “Junior’s Farm” – Paul Mccartney & Wings
• “Kung Fu Fighting” – Carl Douglas
• “Laughter In The Rain” – Neil Sedaka
• [new] “Lonely People” – America
• [new] “Look In My Eyes Pretty Woman” – Tony Orlando & Dawn
• “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” – Elton John
• “Mandy” – Barry Manilow
• [new] “Morning Side Of The Mountain” – Donny & Marie Osmond
• [new] “Must Have Got Lost” – J. Geils Band
• “Never Can Say Goodbye” – Gloria Gaynor
• [new] “Nightingale” – Carole King
• “One Man Woman One Woman Man” – Paul Anka & Odia Coates
• “Only You” – Ringo Starr
• “Pick Up The Pieces” – Average White Band
• “Please Mr. Postman” – Carpenters
• [new] “Ready” – Cat Stevens
• “Ride ’em Cowboy” – Paul Davis
• [new] “Rock N Roll” – Mac Davis
• “Sha-La-La” – Al Green
• “Some Kind Of Wonderful” – Grand Funk
• [new] “Struttin’” – Billy Preston
• [new] “Sweet Surrender” – John Denver
• “When Will I See You Again” – Three Degrees
• “You Got The Love” – Rufus Ft Chaka Khan
• [new] “You’re No Good / I Can’t Help It” – Linda Ronstadt
• [new] “You’re The First The Last My Everything” – Barry White
• [new] “Your Bulldog Drinks Chanpagne” – Jim Stafford

[new] = New to the chart this week.

You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.

This month in history

On January 6, 1975, television history was made when daytime audiences were introduced to Wheel of Fortune on NBC in the USA. Created by media mogul Merv Griffin and inspired by the classic children’s game Hangman, the original daytime version was hosted by Chuck Woolery with Susan Stafford turning the letters.The unique blend of word puzzles and a giant roulette wheel instantly captivated viewers, kicking off a television dynasty that remains an iconic staple of global media culture.

On January 20, Bob Dylan released his 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks, which is widely celebrated as one of his absolute masterpieces. Marking a creative rebirth, the album traded his political anthems for a cycle of deeply personal, raw, and narrative-driven tracks like “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Simple Twist of Fate.” Heavily tied by critics to the unraveling of his marriage, the record’s cynical yet vulnerable examination of love and heartbreak became the definitive sonic blueprint for mid-70s confessional singer-songwriters.

Broadway underwent a vibrant, high-energy transformation on January 5, 1975, when The Wiz officially opened at the Majestic Theatre. A groundbreaking, soul-and-funk musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the production featured an all-Black cast and a powerhouse soundtrack boasting numbers like “Ease on Down the Road.” This vibrant re-imagining blew critics and theatergoers away, eventually taking home seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and establishing a lasting legacy that deeply influenced urban fashion, theater representation, and 70s dance music.

What’d Sadie think?

It’s two weeks at the top for Elton John’s “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” , then Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” gets a week before “Please Mr. Postman” by the Carpenters does likewise.

So, now we’ve been at this for 25-accelerated years, rather than breaking down all the new songs by our reaction to them every week, we’re going to move to focus on some specific observations, or interesting facts, about a few of the stand-outs, whether they’re new or have been charting for a while.

“Please Mr. Postman” is a fun one to have reappear in the charts as a cover. We first heard it in 1961 when the Marvelettes did the original. This was also the version that Sadie’s Ballet class used for their 2025 end-of-year performance. Now we have a Carpenters cover charting, which will often have Sadie race to us to do some of the choreography, very cute!

 I’ve got a soft-spot for the Eagles myself, my dad had a couple of their albums that played on repeat during my youth. An interesting story on that…

“Best of My Love” was recorded at Olympic Studios in London. The Eagles had begun working on On the Border with producer Glyn Johns who had helmed their Eagles debut album and the follow-up Desperado album. Despite the success of their debut album the Eagles were unhappy over Johns’ preference for country rock and toning down their own rock aspirations, and their dissatisfaction with Johns was reinforced by the similarly honed Desperado album which was a comparative failure and Johns’ no-drug policy during the recording.

“Cats In The Cradle” by Harry Chapin caught both Emily and I by surprise…in the sense that we had both thought it was a Cat Stevens song. Of course, he’s on the charts also right now and has a similarly themed song, “Father and Son” but this one isn’t him. I was sort of relieved to find it may be a fairly common “mandela effect” (shared cultural delusion) as documented on Reddit and various other forums.

Also of interest this week is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” which I knew more from its memetic status than the song itself. As a forum poster explains, “Decades before the internet, it became an inside joke for concertgoers to shout ‘Play Free Bird!’ to musicians, even at shows where it made absolutely no sense (like a jazz, classical, or hip-hop gig). This was immortalized as the ultimate trope of an annoying or persistent audience member”. It’s a better meme than song in my opinion, but that’s what defines pop culture!

Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.