Another advantage of the research is that it has been very helpful in the last week or two in getting the year right on Popmaster :D

 

If it's 1962 through to to 1990 (it's hardly ever the 60's) I will get the year right, no question :teresa: . If it's the 90's I'm very likely to get it right, if it's the 00's it's about 50/50 (I got 2002 right today :lol: ) and if it's the 10's prob about 1 in 5 chance of being right :lol: I'd guess most on Buzzjack would know the 10's and 00's, and be less likely right for any 20th century years.... :D

I prefer The Air That I Breathe as well! (I did mention the fact that it reached number two in 1974 :P )

 

 

A great 70's album that I own on CD is The Hollies 20 Golden Greats with the smoking Manchester towers on the cover. Was a big seller too. No filler just all their biggest tracks on one disc. Superseded by 50 Golden Greats but tbh you only really need the 20.

Edited September 14, 20204 yr by Crazy Chris

If it's 1962 through to to 1990 (it's hardly ever the 60's) I will get the year right, no question :teresa: . If it's the 90's I'm very likely to get it right, if it's the 00's it's about 50/50 (I got 2002 right today :lol: ) and if it's the 10's prob about 1 in 5 chance of being right :lol: I'd guess most on Buzzjack would know the 10's and 00's, and be less likely right for any 20th century years.... :D

 

 

If it's 70's or 80's I'm certain to get it. 60's a good chance but 90's and noughties not as good, could even be ONE YEAR OUT. :lol:

Edited September 14, 20204 yr by Crazy Chris

There's often one song which at the very least allows me to get close to the year. Just occasionally, there is nothing which means I might be five years or more out :lol:

 

I got 2002 today but might have been a year or two out if not for my research over recent weeks.

At number twelve it is the last surviving representative of the 21st century. Like the second highest-placed song from this century, it is a producer (in this case, a production duo) featuring a vocalist.

 

Leeds duo Sigma had a couple very minor hits in 2010 and 2013 before they hit the big time with Nobody To Love which went all the way to number one in 2014. Later that year, with Paloma Faith as featured artist, they topped the chart again with Changing. Paloma Faith had had three top ten hits by then, including the wonderful Only Love Can Be Like This, but Changing was her first number one. It remains her only chart-topping single and owes its high placing here largely due to her presence.

 

Chart fans will remember 2014 as the year of one-week number ones. Changing entered at the top, replacing Calvin Haris and John Newman’s Blame after its allotted week at number one. Changing also lasted just a solitary week before Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj’s awful Bang Bang. Paloma Faith and Jessie J have both worked as coaches on the adult and junior versions of The Voice with Faith bringing her characteristic kookiness to the role. Sigma released a single with John Newman earlier this year but it failed to reach the chart.

 

George Ezra had two songs in adjacent positions in that week’s chart Budapest was at number eleven having finally become a hit at the third attempt; Blame It On Me was one place above it. Also in the chart were Sia’s Chandelier, Clean Bandit and Jess Glynne’s Rather Be, Pharell Williams’ Happy and, new to the top forty that week, Hozier’s Take Me To Church.

 

Yes that was a cracker. A big number one in my charts! I still remain mystified how Sigma's brilliant Jack Savoretti collab last year flopped, it was every bit as good as this one. The only difference is the type of music that makes the charts has changed since 2014. :( I love Paloma, right from Stone Cold Sober onwards, and she's visited my top slot a few times. Ooerr missus...

At number eleven it is the only true one-hit wonder (a number one single and no other top 100 entries) in the list. The act involved have also not spent as much as a single week in the albums chart so they truly are one-hit wonders. I cannot even find any evidence that they appeared uncredited on another hit. As Paul and Art’s only number one single was in February and March 1970, it is also the only entry to include a Simon in the credit. Furthermore, it is one of two instrumental number ones in the top eleven.

 

Eye Level by the Simon Park Orchestra was the theme tune to the ITV series Van der Valk and is the only entry here that topped the chart as a result of being a television theme tune. Rod Stewart’s Sailing was, as related above, used as a theme tune but only after it had been a number one single.

 

Van der Valk series started in 1972 but Eye Level was not released until shortly after the first series ended and was only a minor hit. Once the second series started the following year, the single hit the shops again and took just three weeks in the chart to get to the top, replacing Wizzard’s Angel Fingers.

 

For the first two of Eye Level’s four weeks at the top, the orchestra kept Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz off the top as had Wizzard the week before.. The first week was the chart we are interested in here; other songs in the chart that week were Ike and Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits, 10CC’s The Dean & I and Manfred Mann’s Joybringer, based on Jupiter (the bringer of joy) from Gustav Holst’s Planets Suite. We will gloss over the fact that David Bowie was in there with The Laughing Gnome.

 

Eye Level was the 22nd instrumental number one. Just how long we had to wait for the 23rd (or whether there has even been a 23rd) depends on how strict your definition of an instrumental is. If you insist that there should be no vocal noises whatsoever, there still hasn’t been one in 47 years. By that token, the last instrumental number one was replaced by David Cassidy’s Daydreamer / The Puppy Song.

 

Although Van der Valk was set in Amsterdam, the only genuine Dutch thing about it was Eye Level which was written by a Dutch composer. The original novels were by a British author and the cast was British with Barry Foster taking the title role. The series was revived this year but was not well received by the critics (or me).

 

There is one more 1970s number one to come.

 

Acts who had a number one single or album in 1973 has just come up as a question in the Pointless final :lol:

 

 

Good to see Eye Level as high as number 11.

 

I'm surprised there was only one pointless answer for the music question and not many for the football one. I can only think of three Sunderland players who played in the 1973 Cup Final.

I was surprised at first that there was only one pointless answer but both the singles and albums list are very much a who's who of popular 1973 acts :lol:

My gift Pointless final question would be number ones of the 70's :lol:

 

It's a pleasant tune but I was enraged it kept Ballroom Blitz off the top spot so I was determined to hate it. All of the other listed songs are infinitely better than Eye Level (except Laughing Gnome which is slightly less good), but ignoring that these days I have mellowed towards it and quite like it. I didn't like the series much, sorry! My tastes in late '73 was Star Trek re-runs (I'd missed all of season 1 & 2, by annoyingly leaving the country after the first 3 or 4 episodes blew my mind in 1969 so it was all new to me), Dr Who, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Goodies, McMillan & Wife....

 

It was the last instrumental chart-topper, vocal noises is still singing. If that is not true then the last instrumental number one would be James Arthur's last chart-topper... :P

I am utterly appalled and shocked at all this negativity towards Bowie's Laughing Gnome. :D :angry: I love it but it never appears on any of his greatest hits collections. A travesty.

Edited September 15, 20204 yr by Crazy Chris

My gift Pointless final question would be number ones of the 70's :lol:

 

It's a pleasant tune but I was enraged it kept Ballroom Blitz off the top spot so I was determined to hate it. All of the other listed songs are infinitely better than Eye Level (except Laughing Gnome which is slightly less good), but ignoring that these days I have mellowed towards it and quite like it. I didn't like the series much, sorry! My tastes in late '73 was Star Trek re-runs (I'd missed all of season 1 & 2, by annoyingly leaving the country after the first 3 or 4 episodes blew my mind in 1969 so it was all new to me), Dr Who, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Goodies, McMillan & Wife....

 

It was the last instrumental chart-topper, vocal noises is still singing. If that is not true then the last instrumental number one would be James Arthur's last chart-topper... :P

I don't recall ever watching the original series. I just liked the theme tune :lol: OTOH, I was watching Dr Who and The Goodies.

I almost always like Calvin Harris pop bangers, and this is no exception, though the last time he topped my charts was with HAIM in 2015 and 2013 with Hurts. I love the "second 30 years" description given I'm now running into my 3rd 30 years, :cheer: for positivity :D

 

Promises was good but Under Control is Calvin Harris's best #1 I think.

 

The Sigma and Paloma Faith track is very good. There were so many dance songs at #1 in 2014 but I disliked most of them aback then as I found the deep house sound of the time boring.

So, that’s fifty down and just ten to go. Five of them are from the 1960s, three from the 1980s and one each from the 1970s and 1990s. Whether that says anything about the quality of number ones over the years is open to question.

 

We start with the first of those three songs from the 1980s and its place in the top ten might surprise some people. After all, David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s version of Dancing In The Street is not exactly universally loved but I think it is a very good cover version and that’s what counts here.

 

Dancing in The Street was co-written by Marvin Gaye and the first hit version was recorded by Martha And The Vandellas in 1964. That version reached number four in the UK. The Bowie and Jagger version was recorded for Live Aid in July 1985. The two singers were on opposite sides of the Atlantic at the time of the show and technology at the time was not sophisticated enough for them to perform together live, so they made a video instead. In that video, Bowie is surely the epitome of effortless cool.

 

Inevitably the song was released as a single and, equally predictably, it went straight to number one at the beginning of September, making it Bowie’s fifth chart-topping single and Jagger's only one away from the Rolling Stones. The Stones spent eighteen weeks at the top of the singles chart but none of them at the right time to qualify for this particular top 60.

 

The release of Dancing In The Street meant that another one-off collaboration performing a cover of a 1960s song, UB40 and Chrissie Hynde’s version of I Got You Babe, spent just a week at the top. Bowie and Jagger spent four weeks at number one, the last coinciding with my 25th birthday. Live Aid was also responsible for The Cars' Drive returning to the chart after it was used as the background music to a film showing the dire situation in Ethiopia that led to the whole Band Aid / Live Aid charity campaign.

 

Chart-watchers of the 1980s will think of 1984/5 as the time when three different songs called The Power Of Love spent time in the top forty.The best of the three was long gone by this time but the one that was OK and that one that was unspeakably awful were both in the top twenty in the relevant week. Much better songs in the chart than those two included Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell and White Wedding, Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill and The Cure’s Close To Me.

 

Dancing In The Street was the second Bowie collaboration to top the chart after Under Pressure with Queen (whose performance was a major highlight of Live Aid) in 1981. That song was also dismissed at the time but is now more widely acknowledged as a great single with top performances from both vocalists.

 

The video and the cause were great, I bought it, it topped my chart, and then I quickly got bored with it and haven't ever really come back to it again. It's not as good as This Is Not America or Absolute Beginners (by quite a margin) Bowie's then-current singles, give or take a few months, it's not a patch compared with Martha & The Reeves Motown immaculate storming original, and it wasn't even as good as Undercover Of The Night, The Stones most-recent rocking top 20 hit, but it might be on a par with Jaggers Just Another Night which I rather liked that year. It def would make my top 10 Suedey's 80's Birthday Chart-toppers :lol:

 

Fab at Live Aid all-round though, and I would have bought 3 minutes of farting noises stuck onto vinyl if it would have helped!

Absolute Beginners is a fantastic song. It's another one that got a lot of hate at the time but I've always loved it. I hope Dancing In The Street would finish well clear (in points terms) of some of the 1980s horrors but there are still two from that decade to come :D

Dancing In The Street isn't as good as the brilliant Under Pressure but it is good fun comapred to a lot of the over serious stuff at the time like one of those Power Of Loves which you mentioned. The Cras - Drive is great - one of the best synthpop ballads of the mid 80s along with Mr Mister - Broken Wings. Some songs I really like in that top 40 at the time - If I Was by Midge Ure, Part Time Lover by Steve Wonder (good fun and my favourite song by him), Tarzan Boy by Baltimora, I'll Be Good by Rene and Angela (only discovered this recently but certainly sounds great for its time - not a million miles away from the recent Regard and Raye - Secrets in terms of style).

Dancing In The Street isn't as good as the brilliant Under Pressure but it is good fun comapred to a lot of the over serious stuff at the time like one of those Power Of Loves which you mentioned. The Cras - Drive is great - one of the best synthpop ballads of the mid 80s along with Mr Mister - Broken Wings. Some songs I really like in that top 40 at the time - If I Was by Midge Ure, Part Time Lover by Steve Wonder (good fun and my favourite song by him), Tarzan Boy by Baltimora, I'll Be Good by Rene and Angela (only discovered this recently but certainly sounds great for its time - not a million miles away from the recent Regard and Raye - Secrets in terms of style).

One of the reasons I like the Bowie / Jagger version of Dancing In The Street is that both of them were clearly having fun.

 

If I Was was a decent solo hit for Midge Ure. Overall, though, his best stuff was as a member of various bands. I'm not much of a fan of Part Time Lover though :(

Absolute Beginners is a fantastic song. It's another one that got a lot of hate at the time but I've always loved it.

 

It was panned at the time partly due to its association with the truly awful film of the same name (in which Bowie had a prominent role and also starred Patsy Kensit of Eighth Wonder)

 

It was panned at the time partly due to its association with the truly awful film of the same name (in which Bowie had a prominent role and also starred Patsy Kensit of Eighth Wonder)

I never saw the film. Maybe that's a good thing :lol: