Category: Monthly

Woops, we skipped a week of posting* (but never listening!) so here is August, 1975 for those who want to check it out before listening to the sounds of September…

*for very good reason, the wonderful Emily’s 40th birthday – happy birthday darling!

The Chart

Two weeks at the top for Glen Campbell and “Rhinestone Cowboy” before Bowie’s “Fame” takes the gold, then “Calypso / I’m Sorry” by John Denver rounds out the month.

• [new] “Ain’t No Way To Treat A Lady” – Helen Reddy
• “At Seventeen” – Janis Ian
• [new] “Bad Blood” – Neil Sedaka
• “Ballroom Blitz” – Sweet
• “Black Superman” – Johnny Wakelin
• [new] “Brazil” – Ritchie Family
• “Calypso / I’m Sorry” – John Denver
• “Could It Be Magic” – Barry Manilow
• “Daisy Jane” – America
• “Dance With Me” – Orleans
• “Fallin’ In Love” – “Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds”
• “Fame” – David Bowie
• “Feel Like Makin’ Love” – Bad Company
• “Feelings” – Morris Albert
• “Fight The Power” – Isley Brothers
• [new] “Games People Play” – Spinners
• [new] “Get Down Tonight” – K.C. & The Sunshine Band
• [new] “Gone At Last” – Paul Simon & Phoebe Snow
• “Holdin’ On To Yesterday” – Ambrosia
• [new] “How Long” – Pointer Sisters
• “How Sweet It Is” – James Taylor
• “I Believe There’s Nothing Stronger Than Our Love” – Paul Anka & Odia Coates
• [new] “I’m Sorry / Calypso” – John Denver
• [new] “It Only Takes A Minute” – Tavares
• “Jive Talkin’” – Bee Gees
• [new] “Lady Blue” – Leon Russell
• [new] “Miracles” – Jefferson Starship
• [new] “Mr. Jaws” – Dickie Goodman
• “One Of These Nights” – Eagles
• “Rhinestone Cowboy” – Glen Campbell
• [new] “Rocky” – Austin Roberts
• “Run Joey Run” – David Geddes
• “Solitaire” – Carpenters
• “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” – Elton John
• “That’s The Way Of The World” – Earth Wind & Fire
• “The Proud One” – Osmonds
• [new] “They Just Can’t Stop It” – Spinners
• “Third Rate Romance” – Amazing Rhythm Aces
• “Tush” – Zz Top
• “Wasted Days And Wasted Nights” – Freddy Fender
• [new] “Who Loves You” – Four Seasons
• “Why Can’t We Be Friends” – War

[new] = New to the chart this week.

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

The Times

Classic game show The Price Is Right aired its first-ever late-night 60-minute episode on CBS. Hosted by Bob Barker, the daytime favorite expanded from its original half-hour format to test an expanded hour-long structure, officially introducing the iconic “Showcase Showdown” wheel. To qualify for the final Showcase, contestants were required to spin the massive, multi-colored wheel and score as close to $1.00 as possible without going over. The hour-long format proved so massively popular with viewers and advertisers alike that CBS permanently adopted the 60-minute runtime two months later. And decades later it gives us a great peek into the ’70s…

Cult cinema and midnight movie culture reached a sensational milestone on September 26, 1975, when The Rocky Horror Picture Show made its official US theatrical debut at the Westwood Theatre in Los Angeles. Adapted from Richard O’Brien’s hit British stage musical and starring Tim Curry in his star-making role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the musical comedy-horror film gleefully parodied B-movie science fiction and horror tropes. While initially met with lukewarm commercial business during its standard daytime runs, its transfer to late-night midnight screenings sparked an unprecedented global subculture complete with audience callback scripts, shadow casts, and prop-throwing, establishing the film as the ultimate, longest-running cult classic in cinema history.

Science fiction television received a high-budget, cinematic overhaul on September 4, 1975, when Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s live-action series Space: 1999 premiered on UK television, quickly followed by international syndication. Starring real-life husband and wife Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, the show centered on the personnel of Moonbase Alpha after a massive nuclear waste explosion knocks the Moon out of Earth’s orbit, sending them hurtling through deep space. Boasting g special effects designed by Brian Johnson—who would go on to win an Academy Award for Alien—along with sleek futuristic costume designs and detailed miniature spacecraft, Space: 1999 was the most expensive British television series ever produced at the time, setting a new visual benchmark for mid-70s sci-fi broadcasting. And becoming a personal childhood favourite of Thomas’!

The Take

The song that received most of the family chatter this week was so much as song as a piece of comedy, “Mr. Jaws” by Dickie Goodman. A parody of the 1975 summer blockbuster film Jaws, with Goodman interviewing the shark (whom he calls “Mr. Jaws”), as well as the film’s main characters, Brody, Hooper, and Quint.

Goodman makes full use of his practice of “break-in” music sampling, in which all of the interview answers are lyrics from popular songs from that year. He’s been in our charts with this technique since 1956 with “The Flying Saucer”.

I had thought the ability to do this commercially might have been due to it preceding sampling law, but apparently some licensing rights were involved. As originally, the songs were “sampled”; but when the record became a hit, the songs were replaced on later pressings by sound-alike recordings.

The infectious rhythm of the “betcha got a chick…” chorus in “How Long” by the Pointer Sisters got us actually singing along. A great live video here.

And an adorable moment when Sadie and I belted out the chorus to “Rhinestone Cowboy” by Glen Campbell and pointed at each other dramatically. Another great slice-of-the-70s video below:

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

It’s exactly 45 years before Sadie is born in our journey through time, let’s hear her introduce us to the sounds of August, 1975…

The Chart

It’s a week at the top for “One Of These Nights” by the Eagles, two for the Bee Gees with “Jive Talkin’” then “Fallin’ In Love” by Hamilton , Joe Frank & Reynolds and “Get Down Tonight” by K.C & The Sunshine Band both get a week at number one.

• “At Seventeen” – Janis Ian
• [new] “Ballroom Blitz” – Sweet
• [new] “Black Superman” – Johnny Wakelin
• [new] “Calypso / I’m Sorry” – John Denver
• [new] “Could This Be Magic” – Barry Manilow
• [new] “Daisy Jane” – America
• [new] “Dance With Me” – Orleans
• “Dynomite” – Tony Camillo’s Bazuka
• “Everytime You Touch Me” – Charlie Rich
• “Fallin’ In Love” – “Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds”
• [new] “Fame” – David Bowie
• [new] “Feel Like Makin’ Love” – Bad Company
• [new] “Feelings” – Morris Albert
• “Fight The Power” – Isley Brothers
• [new] “Get Down Tonight” – K.C & The Sunshine Band
• [new] “Help Me Rhonda” – Johnny Rivers
• [new] “Holdin’ On To Yesterday” – Ambrosia
• “How Sweet It Is” – James Taylor
• [new] “I Believe There’s Nothing Stronger Than Our Love” – Paul Anka & Odia Coates
• “I’m Not In Love” – 10Cc
• “I’m On Fire” – Dwight Twilley Band
• “Jive Talkin’” – Bee Gees
• “Just A Little Bit Of You” – Michael Jackson
• [new] “Listen To What The Man Said” – Wings
• “Love Will Keep Us Together” – Captain & Tennille
• “Midnight Blue” – Melissa Manchester
• “Mornin’ Beautiful” – Tony Orlando & Dawn
• “One Of These Nights” – Eagles
• “Please Mr. Please” – Olivia Newton-John
• [new] “Rendezvous” – Hudson Brothers
• “Rhinestone Cowboy” – Glen Campbell
• “Rockford Files” – Mike Post
• “Rockin’ Chair” – Gwen Mccrae
• [new] “Run Joey Run” – David Geddes
• “Saturday Night Special” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
• “Slippery When Wet” – Commodores
• [new] “Solitaire” – Carpenters
• “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” – Elton John
• “Swearin’ To God” – Frankie Valli
• [new] “That’s The Way Of The World” – Earth Wind & Fire
• [new] “That’s When The Music Takes Me” – Neil Sedaka
• “The Hustle” – Van Mccoy
• [new] “The Proud One” – Osmonds
• “The Way We Were” – Gladys Knight & The Pips
• [new] “Third Rate Romance” – Amazing Rhythm Aces
• [new] “Tush” – Zz Top
• [new] “Wasted Days And Wasted Nights” – Freddy Fender
• “Why Can’t We Be Friends” – War

[new] = New to the chart this week.

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

The Times

Track-and-field history was shattered on August 12, 1975, when kiwi runner John Walker broke one of athletics’ most legendary barriers at a track meet in Gothenburg, Sweden. Becoming the first human being in history to run a mile in under 3 minutes and 50 seconds, Walker crossed the finish line at 3:49.4, trimming nearly a full second off the previous world record. His lightning performance ignited global sports headlines, cementing the sub-3:50 mile as the ultimate benchmark of human speed and endurance and paving the way for his iconic 1500m Gold Medal victory at the Montreal Olympic Games the following summer. (see a film here.)

On August 10, 1975, American political culture received a jolt of unprecedented candor when First Lady Betty Ford appeared for an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Speaking with journalist Morley Safer, Ford broke traditional First Lady protocol by discussing taboo topics with startling honesty—openly supporting abortion rights, discussing premarital sex, predicting her children’s generation would experiment with marijuana, and candidly reflecting on her own mental health. The broadcast sent shockwaves through the political establishment, sparking intense national debate, drawing tens of thousands of letters, and ultimately transforming her into an unconventional cultural icon whose authenticity resonated across generations.

On August 20, 1975, NASA fired the opening shot in the golden age of planetary exploration by launching the Viking 1 spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Bound for Mars, the robotic orbiter and lander mission aimed to capture the first high-resolution color photographs of the Red Planet’s surface and analyze Martian soil for potential signs of microbial life. Transmitting unprecedented, close-up images of Martian deserts and canyons back to Earth the following year, the Viking program captured the public imagination, fueling a massive 1970s revival in space-age fascination, alien pop culture, and speculative science fiction.

The Take

Some classic music / live videos for some of the new songs this month…

“Get Down Tonight” by K.C & The Sunshine Band here.

“Could It Be Magic” by Barry Manilow below…

And the fabulous “Fame” by David Bowie…

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

And here we are mid-way through the middle-year of the 70s, let’s hear it Sadie…

The Chart

Two weeks at the top for “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille, a week for “Listen To What The Man Said” by Paul Mccartney & Wings and then one for Van Mccoy’s “The Hustle” to round out the month.

• [new] “At Seventeen” – Janis Ian
• “Cut The Cake” – Average White Band
• [new] “Disco Queen” – Hot Chocolate
• “Dynomite” – Tony Camillo’s Bazuka
• [new] “Everytime You Touch Me” – Charlie Rich
• [new] “Fallin’ In Love” – “Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds”
• [new] “Fight The Power” – Isley Brothers
• “Get Down Get Down” – Joe Simon
• “Hey You” – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• [new] “How Sweet It Is” – James Taylor
• “I’ll Play For You” – Seals & Crofts
• “I’m Not In Love” – 10Cc
• “I’m Not Lisa” – Jessi Colter
• “I’m On Fire” – Dwight Twilley Band
• [new] “Jive Talkin’” – Bee Gees
• [new] “Just A Little Bit Of You” – Michael Jackson
• “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
• “Midnight Blue” – Melissa Manchester
• “Misty” – Ray Stevens
• [new] “Mornin’ Beautiful” – Tony Orlando & Dawn
• “One Of These Nights” – Eagles
• “Only Women Bleed” – Alice Cooper
• “Please Mr. Please” – Olivia Newton-John
• “Rhinestone Cowboy” – Glen Campbell
• [new] “Rockford Files” – Mike Post
• “Rockin’ Chair” – Gwen Mccrae
• [new] “Saturday Night Special” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
• “Sister Golden Hair” – America
• [new] “Slippery When Wet” – Commodores
• [new] “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” – Elton John
• “Swearin’ To God” – Frankie Valli
• “Take Me In Your Arms” – Doobie Brothers
• “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” – John Denver
• “The Hustle” – Van Mccoy
• “The Way We Were” – Gladys Knight & The Pips
• “When Will I Be Loved / It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” – Linda Ronstadt
• “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.

The Times

On July 17, 1975, Cold War geopolitics surrendered to orbital diplomacy during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project when an American Apollo spacecraft docked directly with a Soviet Soyuz capsule 140 miles above Earth. As hatch doors opened, NASA Commander Thomas Stafford and Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov exchanged a historic, televised “handshake in space.” Watched live by hundreds of millions of viewers around the globe, this broadcast moment transcended political tensions, serving as a powerful symbolic thaw in international relations and inspiring decades of science fiction storytelling by proving that joint space exploration was a reality.

Back on earth, Reggae music reached an electric global turning point on July 18, 1975, when Bob Marley and the Wailers performed the first of two legendary sold-out nights at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Captured live on tape, these incendiary UK performances documented Marley’s transition from a regional Jamaican phenomenon into a transcendent global icon. The standout track recorded during these shows—a slower, soul-drenched live rendition of “No Woman, No Cry”—became an immediate international smash hit single, exposing mainstream European and American audiences to Roots Reggae culture and forever cementing the genre into global pop history.

The Take

The genesis of “Fight The Power” by the Isley Brothers was a 1975 recording session in which guitarist Ernie Isley, inspired by the news, wrote two songs: “Fight the Power” and an anti-poverty ballad titled “Harvest for the World”. The group ended up recording both songs on the same day and eventually picked “Fight the Power” as the song to release first. The song is notable (of the time) for the usage of the word “bullshit”, which was censored during radio airplay.

It would later inspire the title of Public Enemy’s revolution track, Fight the Power”, as well as be sampled in it. And then of course, as happens with these things…it became the soundtrack to a star-studded commercial for a coffee brand in 2015! Ah, how the revolution dies….

We’re really starting to get some great live performance and even early “music videos” for songs as we hit the end of the ’70s. This is a great example…”Just a Little Bit of You” is a song from the 1975 Michael Jackson album titled “Forever, Michael”. The album was Jackson’s fourth and was released when he was still only 16 years old. Produced by Brian Holland, “Just a Little Bit of You” became Jackson’s biggest solo hit in three years reaching number 23 on the US Pop Singles chart. It was also the last Motown single released while Jackson was still signed to the label.

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

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.

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.