It’s the end of another year in our journey through musical history, yes it’s…
The Chart
It’s two weeks at number one for “Fly Robin Fly” by Silver Convention before uh huh, K.C. & The Sunshine Band land “That’s The Way I Like It” at the top for a week before Staple Singers do the same with “Let’s Do It Again”.
- [new] “Convoy” – C.W. Mccall
- [new] “Country Boy” – Glen Campbell
- [new] “Do You Know Where You’re Going To” – Diana Ross
- “Eighteen With A Bullet” – Pete Wingfield
- [new] “Evil Woman” – Electric Light Orchestra
- “Feelings” – Morris Albert
- [new] “Fly Away” – John Denver
- “Fly Robin Fly” – Silver Convention
- [new] “For The Love Of You” – Isley Brothers
- “Fox On The Run” – Sweet
- [new] “Full Of Fire” – Al Green
- [new] “Heat Wave” – Linda Ronstadt
- “I Love Music” – O’jays
- “I Only Have Eyes For You” – Art Garfunkel
- “I Want A Do Something Freaky To You” – Leon Haywood
- “I Write The Songs” – Barry Manilow
- “I’m On Fire” – 5000 Volts
- “Island Girl” – Elton John
- [new] “Last Game Of The Season” – David Geddes
- “Let’s Do It Again” – Staple Singers
- [new] “Love Machine” – Miracles
- “Love Rollercoaster” – Ohio Players
- [new] “Love To Love You Baby” – Donna Summer
- “Low Rider” – War
- “My Little Town” – Simon & Garfunkel
- “Nights On Broadway” – Bee Gees
- “Our Day Will Come” – Frankie Valli
- [new] “Over My Head” – Fleetwood Mac
- [new] “Part Time Love” – Gladys Knight & The Pips
- [new] “Rock And Roll All Night” – Kiss
- “Saturday Night” – Bay City Rollers
- “Secret Love” – Freddy Fender
- [new] “Sing A Song” – Earth Wind & Fire
- “Sky High” – Jigsaw
- “That’s The Way I Like It” – K.C. & The Sunshine Band
- “The Last Game Of The Season” – David Geddes
- “The Way I Want To Touch You” – Captain & Tennille
- “This Will Be” – Natalie Cole
- [new] “Time Of My Life” – Paul Anka
- “Venus And Mars Rock Show” – Paul Mccartney & Wings
- [new] “Walk Away From Love” – David Ruffin
- “Who Loves You” – Four Seasons
- [new] “Winners And Losers” – “Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds”
- [new] “You Sexy Thing” – Hot Chocolate
[new] = New to the chart this week.
You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.
The Times
On December 18, 1975, Stanley Kubrick premiered his visual tour de force, “Barry Lyndon”. Adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1844 novel and starring Ryan O’Neal alongside Marisa Berenson, the film follows the rise and tragic unraveling of an opportunistic 18th-century Irish rogue climbing the European social ladder.To recreate the authentic look of the pre-electrical age, Kubrick utilized ultra-fast Carl Zeiss f/0.7 lenses originally engineered for NASA’s Apollo Moon missions, allowing entire interior sequences to be illuminated purely by candlelight without artificial electric studio lighting. The film went on to win four Academy Awards, setting a new technical and aesthetic standard for cinematic period pieces.
In late December 1975, the BBC broadcast the opening episodes of the iconic Doctor Who serial “The Brain of Morbius”, starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor alongside Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. Written under a pseudonym by legendary script editor Robert Holmes, the story took direct inspiration from classic Frankenstein gothic horror. It pushed the boundaries of Saturday-evening family television, drew fierce debate over TV violence, and cemented Baker’s scarf-wearing incarnation as the definitive Doctor of the 1970s.
On Christmas Eve 1975, Queen played a legendary, career-defining concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, broadcast live on BBC television. Riding high on the massive success of A Night at the Opera and the groundbreaking single “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which spent nine consecutive weeks at UK #1 over the holidays), Freddie Mercury took the stage in a white satin jumpsuit for an electrifying showcase. The broadcast proved that Queen’s intricate studio harmonies and grand theatricality could be delivered live, cementing them as global stadium legends. You can view it here.
The Take
Glen Campbell’s “Country Boy” is a belter, and his outfit has all the shades of brown and beige you expect from the 70’s…
Linda Ronstadt’s cover of “Heat Wave” is similarly a belter and…yes that’s a lot of brown again!
We’ve had this tune in our charts before, its a 1963 Mo Town song popularised by Martha and the Vandellas. Here’s a live performance of that for comparison.
Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” is a classic, much remixed, Disco groove, which has lasted the test of time but here’s some amusing, and harsh, commentary from the time,
“According to Peter Shapiro, a freelance British music journalist, the song was marked by [being] little more than Donna Summer simulating an orgasm over a background of blaxploitation cymbals, wah-wah guitars, a funky-butt clarinet riff, and some synth chimes.” He continued, “Love to Love You Baby” […] was extended into a seventeen-minute minisymphony at the behest of Casablanca Records chief Neil Bogart, who wanted a soundtrack for his sexual exploits… The Rolling Stone Record Guide called it “a novelty dance number. But it’s too slow for dancing and too long for the recorded multiple orgasms not to become self-parodying.”
Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” is also new to us this week. Apparently the song was originally a B-side, “Not yet convinced that the song could be a hit, producer Mickie Most put it on the flip side of the Hot Chocolate single “Blue Night”. Some months later, Most released a re-recorded version of the song as an A-side on his RAK label.”
Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.