today's AT40...
Mar. 18th, 2007 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyear...is gonna suck. March 1980, so every song is either disco or mellow, worse than the '78 one from yesterday.
so I'm not going to be commenting...much...
the recap already started out bad: Dan Fogelberg's "Longer" was last week's #3.
*sigh*
and it got worse. "Yes, I'm Ready" (to throw right up on you) by Teri DeSario & KC.
Oh, a saving grace where it's most needed. #1 last week: Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love. One of those that's in the "immortal" category rather than trapped in an era, in my opinion.
so, on with the countdown...
oh there's a little more rock than i thought: Heart's "Even it Up". definitely from their "old" style before they hit the keyboards like mad, but a fun rocker nonetheless.
I've heard this one before, 'cause he just did the one about the producer (of Blondie's Heart of Glass and the currently playing My Sharona) who insured his ears with Lloyds of London for $10million. It's not the one I wrote about in February, so I'm guessing its one I heard during the marathons back at NYRF opening weekend when XM first started broadcasting these.
J. Giels' Band, pre-"Centerfold" (and subsequent breakup). Really, ahead of their time in many ways, so by the time the 80s caught up with them, it was a large-scale case of "been there, done that, now what?".
Bette Midler's rendition of "When a Man Loves a Woman" from The Rose (which she had just been nominated for the oscar for). Not so sure it's really "Bette". Its very much in character and as such is not the Bette Midler most of us prefer.
Heh, another 80s hit machine before the 80s really hit: ZZ Top. Just like Heart, they sound nothing like they would 5 years later. And another, John Waite leading "The Babys". Now this DOES sound like what Waite's solo stuff would sound like years later. And a bit of Journey and Bad English in there, as the keyboard player here was Jonathan Cain, who would join Journey for Escape after the Captured album ran its course. Knowing this now, it makes perfect sense for Waite to have joined Bad English.
Ok, Mr. Manilow, one slide (a key change up a step) is enough in a song. Two is just begging for it and *really* doesn't hold up well.
Speaking of not holding up too well, should it be considered Kevorkian to write a song like September Morn that just about begs people to end it if they're in the middle of a breakup? And speaking of doing the double-slide, that's two in a row here. Geeze this era sucked.
Baby Come Back was a pretty big hit in my memory, catchy enough for a 9 year old to grasp. The group, "Player", didn't really do much else. Today it just blends in with other groups of that style like Ambrosia and Little River Band. That was actually from Jan '78, part of their recaps of #1s of the past (the other being that How Deep is your Love Bee Gees song I mentioned yesterday, and the 3rd being Staying Alive...can't escape those guys this weekend, it seems...knowing my luck, next week they'll play one from 1989 and I'll have to endure "One" from them).
Christopher Cross's Ride Like the Wind. A movie theme song desperately in search of a movie.
Nova Scotia's biggest star, Anne Murray. Nice lady, loved her in Pete's Dragon, but her cover of Daydream Believer could have been left behind, as it really adds nothing to Davey Jones's original.
Kasem has this habit of talking about Tom Petty's hatred of the record industry every time he gets a hit. He talked about it here in 1980, but also told the same story in the 1987 one broadcast last week. The hit this week, Refugee. Last week? Jammin' Me.
You know, I'm hearing a lot less disco than I expected to hear. Had the "burn the records" backlash started yet?
Meanwhile, Blondie's Call Me is rocking through the airwaves on its way to #1 in a little over a month, after Pink Floyd's Another Brick II (currently #3).
Geeze, talk about a convoluted history. Shalamar in 1980 included Jody Watley, to be famous in her own right by last week's 1987 survey, but she and another member left before their big 80s hit from Footloose, Dancing in the Sheets.
The shortest playing record to hit #1 - Stay by Maurice Wlliams and the Zodiacs, at 1 minute, 35 seconds long. They went ahead and played that for the hell of it. Meanwhile, "Yes I'm Ready" is on its way down, from 2 to 7. good riddance. They're playing a LOT of "AT40 Extras" - 3 70s era #1s, Stay, 2 long distance dedications, now for no reason at all, Dancing Queen from Abba...in fact, there's more disco in these extras than there is in the countdown itself. maybe the AT40 people should have learned something from that. Making matters worse, they interrupted Gilmour's guitar solo in Brick II early to move on to the next song. Had they not thrown in the disco crap, they could have treated Dave with a little more respect...
ok, NOW the disco shows up in the top 5 with that cover of "Working my way back to you, babe" and Donna Summer's "On the radio", then Andy Gibb's Desire.
That leaves Longer in #2 and Freddie does Elvis at #1.
and i'll be around next week. be sure and tip your waitress.
so I'm not going to be commenting...much...
the recap already started out bad: Dan Fogelberg's "Longer" was last week's #3.
*sigh*
and it got worse. "Yes, I'm Ready" (to throw right up on you) by Teri DeSario & KC.
Oh, a saving grace where it's most needed. #1 last week: Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love. One of those that's in the "immortal" category rather than trapped in an era, in my opinion.
so, on with the countdown...
oh there's a little more rock than i thought: Heart's "Even it Up". definitely from their "old" style before they hit the keyboards like mad, but a fun rocker nonetheless.
I've heard this one before, 'cause he just did the one about the producer (of Blondie's Heart of Glass and the currently playing My Sharona) who insured his ears with Lloyds of London for $10million. It's not the one I wrote about in February, so I'm guessing its one I heard during the marathons back at NYRF opening weekend when XM first started broadcasting these.
J. Giels' Band, pre-"Centerfold" (and subsequent breakup). Really, ahead of their time in many ways, so by the time the 80s caught up with them, it was a large-scale case of "been there, done that, now what?".
Bette Midler's rendition of "When a Man Loves a Woman" from The Rose (which she had just been nominated for the oscar for). Not so sure it's really "Bette". Its very much in character and as such is not the Bette Midler most of us prefer.
Heh, another 80s hit machine before the 80s really hit: ZZ Top. Just like Heart, they sound nothing like they would 5 years later. And another, John Waite leading "The Babys". Now this DOES sound like what Waite's solo stuff would sound like years later. And a bit of Journey and Bad English in there, as the keyboard player here was Jonathan Cain, who would join Journey for Escape after the Captured album ran its course. Knowing this now, it makes perfect sense for Waite to have joined Bad English.
Ok, Mr. Manilow, one slide (a key change up a step) is enough in a song. Two is just begging for it and *really* doesn't hold up well.
Speaking of not holding up too well, should it be considered Kevorkian to write a song like September Morn that just about begs people to end it if they're in the middle of a breakup? And speaking of doing the double-slide, that's two in a row here. Geeze this era sucked.
Baby Come Back was a pretty big hit in my memory, catchy enough for a 9 year old to grasp. The group, "Player", didn't really do much else. Today it just blends in with other groups of that style like Ambrosia and Little River Band. That was actually from Jan '78, part of their recaps of #1s of the past (the other being that How Deep is your Love Bee Gees song I mentioned yesterday, and the 3rd being Staying Alive...can't escape those guys this weekend, it seems...knowing my luck, next week they'll play one from 1989 and I'll have to endure "One" from them).
Christopher Cross's Ride Like the Wind. A movie theme song desperately in search of a movie.
Nova Scotia's biggest star, Anne Murray. Nice lady, loved her in Pete's Dragon, but her cover of Daydream Believer could have been left behind, as it really adds nothing to Davey Jones's original.
Kasem has this habit of talking about Tom Petty's hatred of the record industry every time he gets a hit. He talked about it here in 1980, but also told the same story in the 1987 one broadcast last week. The hit this week, Refugee. Last week? Jammin' Me.
You know, I'm hearing a lot less disco than I expected to hear. Had the "burn the records" backlash started yet?
Meanwhile, Blondie's Call Me is rocking through the airwaves on its way to #1 in a little over a month, after Pink Floyd's Another Brick II (currently #3).
Geeze, talk about a convoluted history. Shalamar in 1980 included Jody Watley, to be famous in her own right by last week's 1987 survey, but she and another member left before their big 80s hit from Footloose, Dancing in the Sheets.
The shortest playing record to hit #1 - Stay by Maurice Wlliams and the Zodiacs, at 1 minute, 35 seconds long. They went ahead and played that for the hell of it. Meanwhile, "Yes I'm Ready" is on its way down, from 2 to 7. good riddance. They're playing a LOT of "AT40 Extras" - 3 70s era #1s, Stay, 2 long distance dedications, now for no reason at all, Dancing Queen from Abba...in fact, there's more disco in these extras than there is in the countdown itself. maybe the AT40 people should have learned something from that. Making matters worse, they interrupted Gilmour's guitar solo in Brick II early to move on to the next song. Had they not thrown in the disco crap, they could have treated Dave with a little more respect...
ok, NOW the disco shows up in the top 5 with that cover of "Working my way back to you, babe" and Donna Summer's "On the radio", then Andy Gibb's Desire.
That leaves Longer in #2 and Freddie does Elvis at #1.
and i'll be around next week. be sure and tip your waitress.
