145 (25) FEEL THE NEED IN ME - The Detroit Emeralds

 

 

The much-covered original hit the UK charts in 1973 as a soul-funk proto-disco groove for The Detroit Emeralds, smooth and essential, but it came out in the USA in 1972 so it's been shifted back - and it's dropped a surprising 120 places in my rating! It's still a great song, they had another hit with a re-record in 1977 and acts a-plenty have had hits with it in various genres and years. That might explain why it just didn't seem as fresh when I was re-doing my charts. It's undeniably a key track, but I'd prefer to listen to many other soul classics from 1972 to this one.

141 (79) ME AND JULIO DOWN BY THE SCHOOLYARD - Paul Simon

 

 

 

Paul Simon's 2nd solo hit was this latin/samba-inspired singalong, inspired presumably from his own urban schooldays in New York City. It was a fave at the time and has dropped only slightly in my estimation since - if at all. I always admired Paul Simon songs, and his genre-hopping away from the folk duo roots of Simon & Garfunkel. And coming off from one of the greatest albums of all-time (Bridge Over Troubled Water) was never really going to hurt the chart chances of the singles off the new Paul Simon solo album, even when they weren't typical of what was charting.

138 (59) LOOK WOT YOU DUN - Slade

 

 

Slades's first single after the huge number one smash of Coz I Luv You, and the slightly menacing, stomping rhythm and chorus was one that impressed me at the time, just falling short of my top 50 of Year-End. It's still one of my fave Slade tracks, and is the top track of the 4 1972 singles, but they all fall short of the 100 this time.

132 (36) ALONE AGAIN (NATURALLY) - Gilbert O'Sullivan

 

 

This is a sad, global ballad for Gilbert, and is clearly by far the best thing he ever did. I found the heartbreaking lyrics about losing parents something I didnt want to think about, and something I feared at 14. I never did enjoy the song for that reason in the years to follow, in the sense that the sense of melancholy always brought me down, and by the time the review came around in 2022 dad had already died and mum was bedbound and declining, and listening to this was not a happy experience. Should it be in the 1972 top 100? Absolutely. But I couldn't get past my own reality and so it's down at 132.

131 (48) COULD IT BE FOREVER - David Cassidy

 

 

I loved the first season of The Partridge Family. I was living in Singapore, it was on TV, and I was mad on the records, especially I Think I Love You. By 1972, it was also on UK TV and the "band" had another UK hit with another record, a springboard for the new teen idol David Cassidy, who's actual step-mother Shirley Jones played his mum in the TV show. So I was still a fan of Cassidy, at least until the backlash and screaming girls started to get on my nerves and the TV show dropped into formula, losing the charm of the first 1970/71 shows. That explains this being a bit over-rated at 48 in 1972 - my Aunty (16 at the time) was a fan, so she bought the record, but I never got round to it. It's a nice ballad though, and Darlin' David emotes well enough, I always did like his voice, but these days most of the early solo output seems a little on the dull side, bar 2 absolute gems. Watch this space...

 

 

145 (25) FEEL THE NEED IN ME - The Detroit Emeralds

 

Good track; I prefer Forrest's well produced electronic version in 1983, sounds good for the time; could almost be a house-pop song from 1989.

Edited January 18Jan 18 by TheSnake

Good track; I prefer Forrest's well produced electronic version in 1983, sounds good for the time; could almost be a house-pop song from 1989.

 

Yes I also liked the Forrest cover, it kept the appeal of the original while making it sound very 80's and upping the tempo a bit. Of all the covers I've heard that's the best one.

130 (38) RUN RUN RUN - Jo Jo Gunne

 

 

DJ Alan Freeman loved pushing rock tracks like this one, and this American band had the one-off big hit in the UK and that was that, they never really had a US hit as big as this was at the time. This driving rock goodie, though, has been largely forgotten, which is shame it has riffs aplenty and hooks throughout, and was one I came back to in the 80s and 90s, but it didn't quite excite me as much in the 2020's after a bit of a layoff. So down almost 100 places....

129 (93) PUPPY LOVE - Donny Osmond

 

 

Donny is a week older than me, and his voice hadn't broken yet either in 1972. The Osmond Brothers had been US and UK TV staples for years, with Donny and their cartoon TV show pushing One Bad Apple to the top of the US charts - a really fab sub-Jackson 5 pop track that one - in 1971. The UK was a bit slower, and it was Donny's cover of the Paul Anka 50's hit that broke then huge in the UK. Puppy Love was sweet, older music fans liked the nostalgia, pre-teen and early teen girls had a new squeeky-clean pin-up, and I had nostalgia for them on The Andy Williams Show. Puppy Love was a decent fave, but the Donny-mania quickly got on the nerves of most boys at school, and I went off this and the rest of Donny's hits (most of which I didnt like) until I stood next to grown-up Donny in the 80's when he opened up a new HMV record store in Bournemouth, and rather enjoyed his George-Michael-inspired new stuff. No apologies, I still like this one, and it's way better then the rest of his 70's solo hits.

 

Note: ignore all of the tacky covers on youtube, anything recorded after his voice broke in 1973 rather misses the point of the song, and that includes Donny's official version on his youtube channel as a grown man. Please!! If the original version is too sickly-sweet for you, too bad, his vocal is flawless. Compare with his later number ones and be impressed.

122 (18) MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB - Wings

 

 

I wasn't old enough to be all cool and dismissive of a kiddie-aimed song yet, when this came out, and the melody was lovely so I was won over after the racket of Wings previous single. This was an intentional response from McCartney for getting banned, a sort of "OK, no way you can ban this so stick it!" which serious Macca fans derided at the time. Me, I didn't care, I still rated it a lot, great to sing along to, hence the year-end top 20 slot. Now I'm old and cynical it plummets 104 places, but I'm still fond of it. It's not amongst his essential work admittedly, and The Frog Chorus is more fun and more listenable, but there you go, it still only just misses the Top 100.

116 (32) SON OF MY FATHER - Chicory Tip

 

 

Well here's a surprise, a pioneering pop hit doesnt make the 100 - Chicory Tip brought synthesisers into the charts and sounded like the future of pop music (they were, eventually) but it was mostly as a result of, and credit to, the original Giorgio Moroder non-hit which they copied. This sounded cool at the time, and it's still pretty catchy and upbeat. When we were invited to take our fave records into our final music lesson of the year summer '72, Alice Cooper was dominating the chart, I opted for Nut Rocker, and a cooler girl in the class brought this in. I felt out-done! 10-year-old pseudo-classical rock instrumentals were really not going to sound better than a synth. 50 years on, it has a period charm to it, but there's a marginally-later synth track to come that has really been the more important track.

113 (71) AUTOMATICALLY SUNSHINE - The Supremes

 

 

This was the democratic Supremes era, a new lead vocalist but Mary Wilson and the whole group got to share lead too on singles, no Ms. Ross to hog the limelight entirely, and they were all the better for it - all great singers, though minus the unique quality of Diana's vocals. This was their last big UK hit, but they'd dried up rather unfairly a bit earlier in the USA. I always rated The Supremes as far back as I can remember (Baby Love, pretty much), and that continued into the 70's, though much as I like this one it's dropped a little off in comparison to their epic 1970/71 singles, but it still should have made the year-end Top 100: had it not been so competitive!

109 (89) TELEGRAM SAM - T. Rex

 

 

I got back from Singapore in September 1971 and T. Rex were the biggest pop band bar none, and I went big on them as I caught up, and just as Marc Bolan decided he wanted to change labels to EMI on his own ego-label name as he went right-on Glam Rock Idol, with this being his first single. Me, I thought it was a drop in standard on the previous T. Rex hits, but still a good top 5 pop hit, enough to just scrape into the bottom-end of the year-end chart. By 1982 I was full-on into Glam nostalgia, it came out again and it topped my chart along with anything T.Rex or Bolan, following his tragic early death. 50 years later and I've reverted back to my original position on Telegram Sam, 89 is about right but it's got edged out this time by other tracks I didnt know at the time.

107 (96) I'VE BEEN LONELY FOR SO LONG - Frederick Knight

 

 

One of my big loves a kid and teen was soul music. Motown especially, but not exclusively, a Stax gem could also win me over (like this) as could Philly sounds and the ilk. Frederick popped up with a minor UK hit, and slightly bigger US hit, with this mellow, twanging bit of funk that doesn't get much recognition by and large in the 21st century. It's still a charming falsetto funk ballad, and there's nothing to not like, even if it misses the rundown this time round by a whisker.

 

 

105 (61) NEW ORLEANS - Harley Quinne

 

 

Bell Records were big in 1972, grabbing lots of hits. Mostly they were one-off tracks like this, a cover of the Gary U.S. Bonds 60's US hit, and for my money it does it just right, I like the arrangement, I like the lead vocal, and it bangs along nicely. I know zero about the band, but they should have sued DC Comics in the 90's when the Joker's girlfriend popped up on animated TV. They used the name first! Missed the rundown by a whisker, it's still fun.

103 (7) OH BABE WHAT WOULD YOU SAY - Hurricane Smith

 

 

Opinion is often split on Hurricane Smith and his unusual vocal style, so upfront I'll admit I'm a fan - I enjoy odd voices, and I especially loved Hurricane's previous hit Don't Let It Die. With this song he went full-on singalong old-style ragtime vibes, pleasant, memorable hook, and very coverable - it even hit in the States for the former Beatles sound engineer, who was by this time knocking on a bit in pop chart terms - getting a debut hit at 48 is really battling the usual ageism of record-buyers (he was 49 when this came out). As I never have and never will give a shit how old anyone was, or how cool they supposedly were, this wasn't an issue for me if the song was great, and I loved it, charted it at number one and am still fond of it. I think 7 is a bit over-inflated though, but yes I was big on it then, less so these days but it deserves to still be considered one of the 100 tracks of 1972. 103 is as near as dammit.

101 (78) LITTLE DRUMMER BOY - The Pipes & Drums Of The Royal Scots Dragoons Guards Band

 

 

Amazing Grace had been enormous for the bagpipes band, and it really got on my tits after a couple of months to the point where I was hating both the song and the record, and the follow-up was also annoying, for being dull, mostly. Then at Christmas out popped this one, with added choir humming along to the festive classic. It worked for me! I love the song, written in 1941 and first recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Singers. Yes those von Trapps. The ones from Austria in The Sound Of Music. Popularised in 1958 by the Harry Simeone Choir its better known these days as part of the Bowie/Crosby Peace On Earth medley - an even better record than this one. The song is pretty much bullet-proof for me, though. This version has dropped 23 places amongst the competition inrushing my chart, but it's one of those christmas songs that I have never got sick of hearing - unlike most of the bloody usual-suspects clogging up the Christmas chart every bloody year. The day Spotify bung on some alternative oldies onto the playlist, or Amazon get creative instead of predictable, is the day we can all sigh a huge collective gasp of relief. I blame all those people who have a high tolerance for repeat playing records over and over and over and over, year after year after year after year... :teresa:

So, onto the 100 Best tracks of 1972 as judged by me in 2022. 14-year-old me would have been disappointed to see some faves dropping out the 1972 rating, and mystified by a lot of the new entries he had never heard of, or thought a bit boring. But some have stayed faves, so hooray for that!

 

100 (113) MAD ABOUT YOU - Bruce Ruffin

 

 

I think I bought this one on Pure Gold On EMI, as the record label decided it wanted some of that K-Tel and Arcade multi-artist hits compilations, the NOW albums of their day. It was a great compilation, and this was and is still a jolly upbeat reggae singalong. The cackling novelty bit has worked against it in the long run, pseudo Punch & Judy as it is, and so it never gets radio play. When I say "Never" I mean NEVER. Don't think I've heard it anywhere in decades, which is shame, as it's quite a nice, upbeat tune underneath it all, as were Bruce's other hits. It "sold" 250,000 in John's Fake Sales, which means it got a Year-End listing (of 113), and it has marginally improved on that, so hooray for reggae. All but banished from record charts since the 2000's, bar Bob Marley Legend.

99 (NEW) SUNNY GOODGE STREET - Judy Collins

 

 

This is a song and record I have discovered in the 2020's, and rate. Judy Collins' was already a fave of mine by 1972, largely for her version of Both Sides Now, which remains fabulous, but this one had zero airplay. The song was a Donovan late 60's folkie ballad during his creative heyday, a sort of ode to an area of London, and featured on his 1965 album Fairytale. Marianne Faithful covered it that year, and Judy Collins in 1966 for her latest album before it went top 10 in Canada for Tom Northcott, which I spotted in 2017 when I was revisiting 1967 hits and flops. I guess Judy decided to finally get it out in 1972, and I spotted the song again as the B side to In My Life, her single of that year following the monster ongoing success of Amazing Grace, still charting in 1972. It's a great version of the previous great versions and original.

98 (66) CIRCLES - The New Seekers

 

 

The New Seekers were one of my fave acts of 1971/1972 right through to this single, which was a bit of moody departure for the pop group, who tended to upbeat singalong pop for the hits, bar their Melanie debut cover. This Harry Chapin song is rather more like Harry's best records, dark, cynical, and lyrically strong, but with added strings and harmonies. I think this one has weathered better than a lot of their records, though it has a lower slot on the rundown than originally - but then there's a lot more competition as I include stuff I never got to hear back then, so it's probably held quite well. It's a shame this is another forgotten goodie as it's better than their two number ones, which pretty much are the only ones played occasionally. Those or the Eurovision song.