Popchartfreak

Thanks SSP! Thanks for the picks, Doobies not moving much this week sadly, overtaken by a batch of newies! 😄

Hi Sergej! 🙂 Hope all is fab, sorry for the lateness this week and earlyness last week! Very hectic weekend! Azizam up to 3, new for Shaboozey & Miles high up, Rudimental a big climb, ditto Ariana and a small climb for Alex Warren 🥰 Also Tom Grennan up, and lots of faves dropping unexpectedly like Miley Cyrus, great chart!😎

Hi Sergej! 🙂 Hope all is well! Thanks for the picks, its a shame Revolution didnt make it through to Eurovision! thnks as always 😎

Hey Sven! 🙂 Yay at Ordinary getting to the top 🥰 Guetta Sia, Chappell and Benson Boone all top 10, Sam Fender holding, and in the breakers Ariana Grande on top, Alok & Kylie up, Sugababes, Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, Lizzo & Jonas Brothers are all fresh. Ahh 1974, all great for me, lotsa classics from Mud, Suzi Q, Hollies, Wings, Love Unlimited Orchestra, Bowie, ABBA, Alvin, Cozy, Terry Jacks, and Candlewick Green, happy days! ❤️ fab charts!😎

Hey Sven! 🙂 Thanks for the picks! Hope all is great with you 😎

Rob Dougan rang no bells with me, playing it now, but it did indeed go top 30 for me so a 7/10, and if anything it sounds like it deserved better than that. I probably only heard it once or twice. By The Way was my jumping on point for the chili-peppers, they'd mostly left me indifferent bar a couple of tracks, but the career revival and maturity suited them more. I got hold of a copy of the album at the time from a work colleague, I think. 9/10's for a while now moving on to the next singles. Dark Gazza Numan had been chart absent for me for 16 years so Rip was a return to a decent 7/10. Saw him about 10 years back and he was still major into pounding industrial synth. Idlewild I have no memory of ever especially liking (chartfiles confirm 2 tracks and a total of 4 weeks) and this is a DNC. The Calling was a huge what was once called MOR Rock ballad, but I found it got on my wick quite quickly after it scraped into my top 40 at 40. It still annoys me, but I'll gift it an official 6/10. The Prodigy were often hit or miss with me. This was a miss. It's depressing how many tracks from the decade I don't remember, having never revisited the music, Amy Studt is another one that I liked: 8/10. No memory of it. Playing it now, it's not bad, a bit Avril in the chorus, but like the verses more. M Factor ditto, another 8/10 I've forgotten, must have had a boogie at the club to it as it had a good 9 weeks on my charts. I would swear I've never heard it before in my life. Let this be a lesson of the effects of ageing brains: music stuff from the first 40 years of your life stays for life, but it gets increasingly difficult to remember stuff after that (at least music-wise) so I'm assuming Memory is full and as new stuff comes in old stuff gets deleted, the more recent first. Something to look forward to, Happy Easter! Reckless Girl 3/10, Shakalaka 3/10, Aurora a pleasnt 8/10, I'm Gonna Be a J-Lo Alright 6/10, Beverley Knight more Bronze than Gold, 4/10, the Taylor Dayne 10/10 classic transformed into a fairly lowly 3/10, and not even childhood nostalgia for Bill & Ben, Little Weed, and Flobbalot all over the playground (that means hack up and spit) could save Flobbadance DNC. Baha Men add to the low scoring also-rans with a 4/10, Two Wrongs also makes a 4/10, and Rik Waller remained entirely absent from my charts of the time, so one can assume his cover of the Labi Siffre 9/10 classic was a 2/10 or less. Judging by Julian's comment I'm guessing "less".

Its a perfectly nice track, and clearly popular but in my case I couldnt help compare it to The Walk, Boys Dont Cry, a forest, love cats, caterpillar, in between days, close to me and others and feel it was a bit laid-back from my expectations at the time. Playing it now, it's def improved with age, the strings chords and twangy riff is the best bit, and the line The Spider man is having you for dinner tonight. Peter Parker wouldnt entertain, I'm pretty sure....

well done on the 39's both 🥰 Randy Van-Warmer is still one of my fave popstar names ever 😆 Doesn't work outside the UK though and not so much here either since Randy Scouse Git stopped being a thing😇

Bit nippy, wet and windy today. Happy Easter! round 1: 36 one year out round 2: 33 Bill Medley, said Joe Cocker then corrected myself too late :) ELO, missed the year and said Evil. 3 in 10: do ya think im sexy, maggie may, you wear it well

Flaming chart-toppers, eh! Have to admit I'm not too fussed about any of these new entries, none of them have stayed with me over the years, I would struggle to recognise them, bar The Cure. I was most put out that all of the quirky Cure hits before Love Song weren't top 10, it was a great run of quality goth-pop, but from here-on they got all serious-album oriented and took off in the USA. It granted them kudos, street-cred and a long-line of influence, but I still love the earlier stuff more for the most part. Morrissey involved in a court case? Who'd a thunk it, but I'm sure that will never happen again.....😇

That's how I have always viewed it too, people have their own fave genres and tend to lean towards similar when voting and the floaters - can I call myself at least a Floater? (ta!) 😎 - can push it one way or the other. I lean towards pop-dance voting as they are more instant, but I also often reward interesting stuff. Who wants to be predictable!

Oasis have had a boost from me of late, following Noel in concert and playing both hits compilations I bought years ago but never played. Stop Crying remains very nice, 8/10. Hot In Herre I was less bovvered about 5/10. Basement Jaxx, Get Me Off not as classic as the later chart-topper for me, I'm afraid, DNC, though In Your World is the side I preferred and a pretty good 8/10 for Muse. The Vines? Yet another 8/10 for Get Free, this week seeming to be all top 20 tracks for me at the time. Their best track I think, I do love me a bit of short, sweet n raucous (see Sex Pistols, Corinne Bailey Rae's New York Transit Queen). Brandy drops her best record too, solo, as Full Moon hits my number 2 and 9/10 rating - and yet I have totally forgotten it. Playing it now out of curiosity..nice video, love a Moon theme, the hot guy she's stalking is easy on the eye too, all very stylish but there's no real hook which explains why I cant recall any of it. Prob'ly a Florida hit, I'm guessing. Counting Crows grab a 3/10 from me, most likely it got that for Sheryl, Christina Milian's not up to previous biggie standards but a decent 7/10, and sadly Athlete passed me by too. They usually charted for me back then, but not this one. Roll On gives Mis-Teeq a 7/10 and Andy Williams really didnt need Denise van Outen dragging him down on another version of Can't Take My Eyes Off You, the Frankie Valli cover that was a hit in the UK rather than Frankie's. I had the good taste to opt for the B side original version as it got top 10 again following the same in the 90's when Music To watch Girls By was the lead track, and this was the not-played side. 10/10 classic number one, Andy was cool and effortless.

good scores there both, and better on the Sugababes than me 😄 round 1: 36 (Robbie!) round 2: 36 (Boyzone) 3 in 10: 3 you give love a bad name, keep the faith, livin' on a prayer

awww i forgot you mentioned about Val's advert, it's great it got used! I just spotted a classic 60's track I rediscovered a few years back that used to be hugely popular amongst a fanbase, (Top 100 of all-time in a 1974 poll) Cryin Shames' Please Stay a Bacharach song, Scottish cover of a Drifters original, and a minor UK hit in 1966 - and it was featured at length on Daredevil's new Marvel series yesterday. I almost sent it to BJSC just for being fabulous and evocative and emotional.

Was never keen on the U2/BB feature much, though it was nice for King to get some chart action late into his career. The FYC single was a literally a Good Thing :) Re album sales, the reason singles sold in bucketloads in the 60's and albums didnt is down to price. They were both expensive relative to income (a single was almost 10 shillings by the end of the decade - 50p - when weekly wages were £24 on average. That's what my dad earned in the RAF. Bearing in mind rent, food, clothes and the rest there really wasnt much left over for luxuries like records, except second-hand. Albums were more like 10% of your wage. In the 70's records held their price as wages climbed along with inflation so by the end of the decade singles were peaking in sales and really weren't that expensive (they hit £1 in 1979 as wages hit £100, so 1% and albums were maybe 3 or 4% so they were also peaking in sales. This trend continued into the 80's but there were 3 million unemployed (I was one of 'em) so a chunk of the population wasnt in a position to buy anything much until things improved later in the decade, at which point albums were so cheap it made sense to buy them over singles especially as record companies milked albums for singles to prioritise album sales, more profits in those. Bad was the biggest selling album of all-time in the UK as we go into the 90's.......

21 (NEW) PAPA WAS A ROLLIN' STONE - The Temptations This soul masterpiece is a sprawling novel of a story-song, masterminded by Norman Whitfield, who took on the mantle of Motown's top writer-producer after Holland-Dozier-Holland went off to form their own label. Whitfield had guided The Temptations, then Motown's top male group, away from classy ballad classics like My Girl and 60's Motown dance bangers like Get Ready, and steered them into Psychedelic Soul-funk like Cloud Nine, I Can't Get Next To You and message-ballads like earlier 1972 single Take A Look Around (104 on my list) and Phase 2 as original members like David Ruffin and Paul Williams went solo, with Eddie Kendricks next to take the off-ramp. Papa Was A Rolling Stone is the highlight of this period, a social-commentary funk-orchestral creation that usually got chopped off on the radio about a minute or two after the extended instrumental intro - and it really needs the build to work properly, bearing in mind the album version was still twice as long as the long single version. It really was a case of hitting their peak though, and all of the shuffling membership issues took a toll, as did Whitfield leaving to form his own label too, and spearheading new stars and song-productions for acts like Rose Royce. That left The Temptations rudderless, and that was that for the most part as far as new hit records were concerned, though touring continues to today with surviving member Otis Williams. I caught them around 1989, still with a sizeable original member contingent, but it was an 80's dance remix of Papa that sort of made me reassess this record. It sounded great funked up a bit, and though I'd liked the original, it had never been a massive fave as it took so long to get going. I was wrong, it's brilliant and new at 21, just missing the top 20, doh!

22 (105) STARMAN - David Bowie Cultural memory has Ziggy Stardust debuting on Top Of The Pops with Starman, and coming on like an alien glammed-up to upset mum and dad, but this kid had already met Ziggy on Lift-Off With Ayshea, a kid's pre-news Pop music show hosted by sci-fi show U.F.O.'s (appropriately) Ayshea Brough. I definitely remember that, but sadly along with most Top Of The Pops and Lift Off shows of 1972, all are merely memories these days, as the tapes were all scrubbed, the likes of David Bowie not assessed as measuring up in importance compared to Dad's Army or Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. I had missed out on Space Oddity entirely, being out of the country, and hadn't really noticed Changes, the previous single, so Starman was Bowie ground zero for me and I immediately liked it, but not quite enough to make the top 100 of the year (by 5 places, though excluding oldies it would be comfortably inside). Bowie is now gone and his career is iconic for almost 50 years of quality mixed with bouts of missing-the-mark, but the Ziggy album spearheaded by this single remains essential and timeless. We've already had Bowie in this list at 90 (Changes), 40 (Satellite Of Love), 42 (John I'm Only Dancing), 47 (The Jean Genie), and 36 (All The Young Dudes) but this one takes the highest slot. It's not a stretch to state that Bowie was the act of 1972, and there won't be many critics to argue otherwise.

23 (8) LEAN ON ME - Bill Withers Soul classic, emotionally uplifting, and Bill Withers in his absolute prime, Lean On Me was a huge favourite in early autumn of 1972 along with a cover of one of his other classic songs still pending on this list. I love the song, it's so great it can tolerate any number of covers (In the UK, Mud had a big hit in 1976, and a decade later Club Nouveau had a very 80's sounding upbeat dance cover) but none of them beat Bill's original vocal and arrangement, a bit orchestral, a bit soul, a bit gospel, sincere, warm and positive but also with tinges of sadness to it. What better message can there be in life than to have friends who will be there for you no matter what? I especially love Bill as he came to success later in his life, in his 30's after serving in the US military, and remained humble and grounded his entire life, giving up his career to stay with his family and community in the smalltown West Virginia he came from. A lovely man and great songwriter. Down marginally from one of my top 10 faves to just outside the top 20.

24 (14) LEADER OF THE PACK - The Shangri-Las Another 1960's classic back bigger than ever in the UK charts of 1972 - hitting number 3 where it had peaked outside the top 10 in 1965, due to lack of airplay - songs about death were a bit frowned on by the BBC. The rebel motif running through this track wouldn't have helped, but the Shadow Morton production was genius, motorbike sounds, crashing, teen girl tears and emotion convincing, spoken intro great, this is a genuine all-time classic. The Shangri-Las managed to sound a lot cooler than many of their girl-group rivals because they captured teen angst perfectly, lead vocalist Mary Weiss was a cut above, and other tracks like Past, Present & Future and Remember (Walking In The Sand) are also very good period teen trauma golden oldies. And they don't come any more traumatic that your boyfriend getting killed in a motorbike crash. So good, in fact, that it hit the top 5 in the UK in 1976 again! For it to sell bucketloads in 1972 and then another bucketload four years later was a little unusual, even in those days - though some other tracks did do that - but to chart in 3 years in a space of 11 years is quite rare! But then it was a classic I'd never heard before in 1972 - and rated 14th fave of the year even though it was over 7 years old and sounded older, production notwithstanding, such had been the advances in studio recording over that short period of time.

25 (22) ROCK AND ROLL PART II - Gary Glitter & The Glitter Band This Glam anthem and sporting event anthem, stompalongly fab, has of course had its reputation tarnished by Mr Gadd and his prison sentences. One can't play it or show a clip of the man in the UK anymore, he has been erased from cultural memory except for those of us who enjoyed his string of huge glam rock hits in the UK. It took a while for this news to make it through to the USA, where this instrumental (mostly) had been a sporting staple for decades after hitting the US charts in 1972. The irony is, most of the record is just Glitter posturing as a frontman to The Glitter Band pounding away on tribal drums and electric guitars, and the mainman behind the track is writer/producer Mike Leander, who had by 1972 Beatles credentials (the She's Leaving Home arrangement) not to mention working with pop stars like ooh Ben E King, Roy Orbison, Gene Pitney, Marc Bolan and many many others, while coming off working on the Jesus Christ Superstar album. So he was hot and donated a career to long-time wannabe Gadd. Which is why I choose not to pretend Gary Glitter never existed, I don't see why other acts should suffer for the sins of Glitter, when this is still a classic record, as used powerfully in Joker t'other year. A masterstroke statement I thought, marking the point at which a sad man morphs into a mad man with evil intent in the film. Liking the record does not constitute an endorsement of the man still enjoying a long spell at His Majesty's Pleasure, and as the rating shows, Rock & Roll is as good now as it was then.

26 (95) SUPERSTITION - Stevie Wonder In a long career of classics, starting in the early 1960's to the mid 1980's, Stevie was unstoppable as he grew from pre-teen Motown sensation to Funk-pioneer in the 1970's, so amongst a back catalogue of gem after gem this one stands out as the jewel in the crown half a century on. I mean generally - it's not my top fave Stevie record, but there's no denying its status at the pinnacle. Synths start in funk proper with the Talking Book album, as Stevie moved away from being a singles act into an albums superstar. This one hit in 1973 but came out at the tail-end of 1972 so sneaks back a year into this countdown. Play loud, still funky, still popular and like School's Out a few places lower it has increased in my esteem from one of the best 100 of the year to one of the 30 best of the year. Compare this with If You Really Love Me, a hit in the UK at the start of 1972, and they seem worlds apart, one is in the 60's Motown tradition, and this one stomps out loud 'n' funk-proud state of the art of record-producing. The giant shadow it casts can still be heard in the 21st century in mega-hits like Uptown Funk.

27 (NEW) IT MIGHT AS WELL RAIN UNTIL SEPTEMBER - Carole King I loved this record in the 60's, a big UK hit for Carole in an era when she and hubby Gerry Goffin were writing hit after classic pop hit for hosts of other acts, and that lasted until the divorce, at which point she morphed out of being a Brill Building jobbing songwriter and moved into folk-gospel-tinged singer-songwriting, and using her own life as a basis for personal lyrics (she had previously composed the music) which culminated in the global monster that is the Tapestry album in 1971. Cue a reminder she had been around 10 years earlier and a re-issued UK hit to follow-up It's Too Late where the other singles off the album had failed to chart. Indeed, this was amazingly Carole's first and last UK hit as an artist, though the US hits kept on coming for years in the ballad-friendly radio environment. I have loved this record my whole life, and this reminded me that I'd forgotten it and floods of nostalgia washed over me, one I definitely bought as a full-price oldie as soon as I was flush with a bit more money around 1978. I rate Carole King as the greatest female songwriter of the 60's, and at least the most-important one - no other woman has had a musical show based around their life-story (Beautiful) using their own songs. September sounded very out of place in Glam 1972, but as I have not ventured into the 1960-66 period in reviews, I'm making sure some oldies from that period get covered if they are hits in later years. A gem.

29 (91) SCHOOL'S OUT - Alice Cooper Another WTF moment on Top Of The Pops in 1972 as Horror-Rock hits the UK, and fits snugly in with the Glam Rock scene, Alice Cooper the band being the only American act to manage that, at least until Suzi Quatro and Sparks came along. Alice the man (aka Vince Furnier) has remained pretty iconic thanks to this teen anthem which has passed down the generations. My friend Graham bought over his latest record - the single of School's Out - which I duly copied onto my reel-to-reel, and then that pretty much was it for us, I'd known him since 1968, but when I returned to RAF Swinderby in 1971 he was in with the bad lads and I was branded a swot, the term in those days for geek or nerd, someone who's mild and smart as opposed to being a bullying troglodyte. So for me School being out was a relief, and I quickly learned that people are basically sheep. They don't want to be targeted so they keep a low profile while others get punched and kicked and ridiculed, friendship doesn't count for sh1t. That's how fascism works, because it understands human nature perfectly well. Anyway, I digress, School's Out sounds even better to me than it did at the time, 91st to 29th! Not even a concert in the 80's with mates, where the decibels were cranked up to 11, so loud it was physically painful, has put me off this track - though once Alice sang this one I was outta there if only to save my hearing as much as I could. I'm a bit deaf in one ear these days, and I can't hear things kids can easily hear: "it's too loud!" they say when I have the TV on. C'est la vie! 28 (NEW) THE TALK OF ALL THE U.S.A. - Middle Of The Road Middle Of The Road arrived as a global sensation (Outside the Americas) in 1971 with Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, a slice of catchy bubblegum adored by kids, and hated by just as many older music fans. I was the former for all of their hits, as they had a hat-trick of chart-toppers in my charts of the time. This track was a single hit in some European countries in 1972 but was held back until 1973 in the UK, by which time the bubble had burst, and it struggled to get airplay. I loved it immediately but never really paid attention to the lyrics, and neither did Junior's Choice, the only radio show that played it on Radio One. 50 years on and it sounds VERY different: it's a story song where the bloke falls for a hot young media celebrity woman, who turns out to be what would these days be called a transwoman. In which case I can see why it wasn't played on UK radio at the time, though it's not intended as a rights or moral commenting issue, it's just a jolly pop song with a great hook with a lyrical twist - The Kinks had already gone this road with Lola, except in this case the potential romance didn't continue once it became obvious. These days it's probably not going to get radio play ever again due to complaints that "genitals shouldn't matter" from people who find both sets perfectly acceptable to them, which is a pity as I clearly still like this a lot! It's also the only Middle Of The Road hit single that didn't have Sally Carr on lead vocal, as the song is told from a man's point of view.

30 (77) VIRGINIA PLAIN - Roxy Music Well, this one was an actual "WTF is that?" moment on Top Of The Pops, sci-fi-Glam, no singing, no chorus, synth in there and lyrically descriptive and unusual. Bryan Ferry came over like a sort of modern Noel Coward in extravagant clothes. This song broke all the pop hit rules, but was inventiveness personified, not least the long instrumental section just before the final lead in to the abrupt sudden stop as the title finally gets mentioned. No-one's ever going to dance to this at a wedding, but it was impactful and re-issued again in 1977 as a single with second hit Pyjamarama on the other side. I bought it, it topped my charts in 1977 and ended the year in 9th position. First time round it "only" managed 77, but 50 years on it settles somewhere in between at a comfortable 30th-best-record of 1972. Early Roxy was great.

in reverse order, Jim Reeves is being Jim but there is still a gem to come. This would never have been a hit if he hadn't died. I'm Gonna Get There Somehow was a kiddie fave, likeable Val had across-the-board appeal on TV and this turned up on radio and Val's TV show into the 70's, but then it disappeared pretty much. I still like it. Oh No Not My Baby I really first knew as a Rod Stewart hit, but the Manfred's did a decent version of a great song. At The Club isn't as great a Goffin/King song but it's a better record, and one I knew inside out in 1972 when it was a big hit. Ticket To Ride, though, clearly the best record here by some distance, and a classic. Memories of seeing Help! at the pictures in glorious widescreen colour and the snow-scenes for this one. As a film for kiddies, Help! was way more fun than Hard Day's Night.