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.