I give marks out of 10 to every song – based on whatever criteria you like, here’s your opportunity to say what you’d have given more than 6 to from 1974. It’s a bumper crop of 21 tracks, tick as many as you like.
Loading ...
A third-rate retread of “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”, rendered in a cringe-inducingly ersatz accent by a singer who can’t sing.…
I know "Stuck On You" sounds like Gordon Lightfoot, but which song specifically?
RIP John Michael Osbourne, aged 76.
There's a 2005 VW campervan on my street with Lyla written on the side. 60s nostalgia made unfussy and functional…
Yeah but. It was of it’s time, we loved it at the time, and perhaps most key of all, they’ve…
I am appalled to admit that the G4 cover was the first time 11 year old me had heard a…
Strange how "landmark" events are so often a disappointment. Don't forget the 500th No.1 - "A little peace" by Nicole…
Thankfully one of the quite-a-few records of 20+ years ago that I have yet to hear on any of the…
Popular 1974 is ready for your votes
It’s telling me “maximum number of choices allowed is 1” when I click vote 🙁
Edit to say:
Ta for this ⬇
oops. that’s fixed now
Coo! A wapping 18 out of 21 for me – though a lot of them would be sixes. Almost everything succeeds by the criteria ‘Does this cheer me up/ make me want to dance/ sing along?’
14! Some terrific Number 1s
10 choices: Abba, Carl Douglas, George McCrae, Three Degrees, Barry White, Terry Jacks, John Denver, Sweet Sensation, Ken Booth and Ray Stevens.
10 for me too, but I know I’m overcompensating with the anti-nostalgia impulse, and a lot of the remainder would have been fives. Very few I don’t like, in fact Ray Stevens may be my only 4 or less. For a year that I’m pretty sure no one would claim to be one of pop’s best (glam and prog fade away, nothing to replace them but nov – birth of disco notwithstanding) it’s a hell of a line up.
Intriguingly only 4 of mine and Tom Lane’s overlap. Billy, I’m doubly intreeged to know which 3 didn’t make you cheerful/dance and/or sing along.
Rubettes 4eva
Re 7: Ray Stevens is taxingly unfunny, John Denver is sappy, and I’ve always found something unsatisfactory about Everything I Own – more a problem with the song than the singer.
‘Always Yours’ is the business, though!
Witchita, indeed
Can’t believe the Rubettes aren’t polling 100% of the votes 😉 for probably the greatest single ever produced…forgive me, too much caffeine this morning
The ‘phantom’ number ones of 1974 – that got to the top of the other NME chart – were;
Leo Sayer – The Show Must Go On (1 week)
The Sweet – Teenage Rampage (1)
Mud – The Cat Crept In (1)
Peter Shelley – Gee Baby (1)
Amazing to think that none of Slade’s singles in ’74 (Every Day, Bangin’ Man, Far Far Away) made it to number one after their dominance in ’73. Sometimes I wake up and think Far Far Away (how’d they get that drum intro sound?) may be my very favourite Slade song. Then I quickly remember there are more pressing issues.
How many of the phantoms would have got 6 or more? Leo (the one song by him I like, genuinely eerie, muted brown backing) and The Sweet, though if we’re scoring on visual impact as well, Mud singing The Cat Crept In in a transport cafe on Never Too Young To Rock definitely nudges that up a mark. Peter Shelley was lame-o.
Unbelievably I forgot to tick ABBA 🙂 11/21 for me, going by my old marks, some of which were on the harsh side.
If anyone gets the chance, try listening to the top 10 sometime round the end of March/ beginning of April 1974.
This period gets my vote as the most DEPRESSING song selection in the history of music!! Just look at the choice of songs around that time:
“Seasons in the son” – a song from a dying man.
“Billy don’t be a hero” – the death of somebody called Billy
“Remember me this way” – sad departing
“Emma” – she commits suicide
“I get a little sentimental” – a lost love.
My memory may be sketchy but i’m sure there were a couple of other songs in the same sombre vein. I think all these were in the top 10 at the same time. I can’t find the actual charts via google, but if someone has them I’m sure they will confirm the above. Ironically they did fit the mood of the country at that time (miners strike/blackouts/political unrest) but maybe that was just coincidence.
The 6 April 1974 top 20 also includes;
Slade – Everyday
Charlie Rich – The Most Beautiful Girl
Elton John – Candle In The Wind
Re 13: Not sure if it was coincidence, as the black mood of Britain in 1980 was also reflected by MASH, Crying et al (mulled over on the MASH thread, I think). Hits from the major players like Everyday, Remember Me This Way (Whatever Happened To The) Teenage Dream, The Tears I Cried, Teenage Lament ’74 and (best of all) Sweet’s The Six Teens do point to a mini craze for glum Glam, as the genre – and the careers of most of its star names – reached the end of the road.
The road from Glum Glam to Emo – now there’s a thesis waiting to be written.
I’m astonished at a bunch of them being in the merely 50% kind of area – Barry White, Carl Douglas, Suzi Quatro, Rubettes, George McCrae.
I’ve dropped this one off the front page now. Goodbye 1974!
Hello TPL 1974, with a post to which I know many people have been looking forward and I wish I liked it more than I actually did.
^^I can imagine the scene at Punctum Towers as the needle hits the run-out groove at the end of side 4…
“At long bloody last! Lena, put the ARETHA on!”
I just felt extremely tired.
TPL: how better to follow up a double prog-rock concept album with a half-hour album which tentatively tickles its toes in the ocean of avant-MoR?
TPL: in 1974 albums didn’t get any bigger, or sadder, than this.
TPL: that difficult fourth album.
TPL: “as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare”…but wasn’t it fun? Wasn’t it?
TPL: you might be the most famous musician on the planet, but you’re still obliged to write and deliver your next album in one week. In such circumstances, perhaps two out of ten ain’t bad.
TPL: OK, so we’re finally out of the sixties; meet the Beatle who blew a hole in the wall even unto the next decade.
TPL: sometimes the sequel comes first.
TPL: Double speed guitar?
TPL: please welcome, at long, long last, Scotland.
TPL: no matter how you try, you can’t go home again.
TPL: last ’74 entry and some last ’74 entries are better than others.