4x Life

One month in pop history, every week.

It’s January, 1972

Written by

Thomas Scovell

in

The ytmusicapi library is still broke, so we’re making playlists like its 2022 at the moment…oh the humanity!

But we have also had time to work on a related project, a hardware music player. We have half a dozen Sonos speakers across our apartment, which provides lovely whole-home music listening and one of these is in Sadie’s room of course. I wanted a way to allow her to control her own room’s music, but without giving her a distracting screen or infinite options of what to play.

So the “SayDeeJayBox” player uses a Raspberry Pi microcomputer with an NFC hat to allow her to tap mini “records” to activate playback of specific albums just on her speaker.  The records themselves are printed/cut on a Cricut machine and affixed with an ntag NFC sticker that is programmed with the activation URL on my phone. The Pi simply sits there listening for an NFC tap and then uses that URL to activate a web script that is authorised to control our home Sonos.

tl;dr tap record, music plays in sadie’s room!


I’ve had a 3D printed case that encloses the whole thing made since this picture was taken!

It’s probably quite a specific use-case, but we’ve opensourced the code and design, which you can check out  on github at SayDeeJayBox.

Now, geeking out done, its time to listen to the first sounds of 1972…

Songs of the month

  • “All I Ever Need Is You” – Sonny And Cher
  • “American Pie” – Don Mclean
  • [new] “An American Trilogy” – Mickey Newbury
  • “An Old Fashioned Love Song” – Three Dog Night
  • [new] “Anticipation” – Carly Simon
  • [new] “Baby I’m A Want You” – Bread
  • [new] “Black Dog” – Led Zeppelin
  • “Brand New Key” – Melanie
  • “Cherish” – David Cassidy
  • “Clean Up Woman” – Betty Wright
  • “Day After Day” – Badfinger
  • “Drowning In The Sea Of Love” – Joe Simon
  • “Family Affair” – Sly And The Family Stone
  • [new] “Fire And Water” – Wilson Pickett
  • “Got To Be There” – Michael Jackson
  • “Gypsies Tramps And Thieves” – Cher
  • “Have You Seen Her” – Chi-Lites
  • [new] “Hey Big Brother” – Rare Earth
  • “Hey Girl” – Donny Osmond
  • [new] “Hurtin’ Each Other” – Carpenters
  • “I Know I’m Losing You” – Rod Stewart
  • “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” – New Seekers
  • [new] “It’s One Of Those Nights” – Partridge Family
  • [new] “Joy” – Apollo 100
  • [new] “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’” – Charley Pride
  • “Let’s Stay Together” – Al Green
  • [new] “Levon” – Elton John
  • [new] “Make Me The Woman You Go Home To” – Gladys Knight And The Pips
  • [new] “Never Been To Spain” – Three Dog Night
  • [new] “Old Fashioned Love Song” – Three Dog Night
  • [new] “Once You Understand” – Think
  • “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show” – Honey Cone
  • [new] “Precious And Few” – Climax
  • “Respect Yourself” – Staple Singers
  • “Scorpio” – Dennis Coffey
  • [new] “Stay With Me” – Faces
  • “Stones” – Neil Diamond
  • [new] “Sugar Daddy” – Jackson 5
  • “Sunshine” – Jonathan Edwards
  • “Superstar” – Temptations
  • [new] “That’s The Way I Feel About Cha” – Bobby Womack
  • [new] “The Witch Queen Of New Orleans” – Redbone
  • “Theme From Shaft” – Isaac Hayes
  • “Where Did Our Love Go” – Donnie Elbert
  • [new] “White Lies Blue Eyes” – Bullet
  • [new] “Without You” – Nilsson
  • “You Are Everything” – Stylistics

[new] = New to the chart this week.

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

This month in history

On the 4th the first scientific electronic pocket calculator, the HP-35 was introduced by Hewlett-Packard and priced at $395USD (equivalent to more than $3000+ in 2025). Although hand-held electronic machines, that could multiply and divide (such as the Canon Pocketronic) had been made since 1971, the HP-35 could handle higher functions including logarithms and trigonometry.

And on the 8th Dmitri Shostakovich’s, last symphony, No. 15 in A Major was performed for the first time, at the Moscow Conservatory.

In a great month for electronics, on the 27th Magnavox introduced the first home video game system, Odyssey. Designed by Ralph Baer, the console could be hooked up to a television set for two players to play a tennis-like game, similar to Nolan Bushnell’s game Pong.

What’d Sadie think?

Two weeks at the top for Melanie with “Brand New Key” before soon-to-be classic “American Pie” by Don Mclean takes three weeks at number one.

Loved ’em

  • “Baby I’m A Want You” – Bread
  • “Black Dog” – Led Zeppelin
  • “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’” – Charley Pride
  • “Make Me The Woman You Go Home To” – Gladys Knight And The Pips
  • “Without You” – Nilsson

Liked ’em

  • “An American Trilogy” – Mickey Newbury
  • “Anticipation” – Carly Simon
  • “Fire And Water” – Wilson Pickett
  • “Hey Big Brother” – Rare Earth
  • “It’s One Of Those Nights” – Partridge Family
  • “Joy” – Apollo 100
  • “Levon” – Elton John
  • “Never Been To Spain” – Three Dog Night
  • “Precious And Few” – Climax
  • “Stay With Me” – Faces
  • “Sugar Daddy” – Jackson 5
  • “That’s The Way I Feel About Cha” – Bobby Womack
  • “The Witch Queen Of New Orleans” – Redbone
  • “White Lies Blue Eyes” – Bullet

Leave ’em

  • “Once You Understand” – Think

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

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