Popular '78

The phantom number ones in the NME chart of 1978 were; Blondie ‘Denis’ (2 weeks) and Showaddywaddy ‘I Wonder Why’ (1 week).

8 ticks – personal best, but it’ll be surpassed soon enough…

us #1s 1978

bee gees – how deep is yr love
player – baby come back
bee gees – stayin alive
andy gibb – love is thicker than water
bee gees – night fever
yvonne elliman – if i can’t have you
wings – with a little luck
johnny mathis and deniece williams – too much, too little, too late
john travolta and olivia newton john – you’re the one that i want
andy gibb – shadow dancing
rolling stones – miss you
commodores – 3 times a lady
frankie valli – grease
a taste of honey – boogie oogie oogie
exile – kiss you all over
nick gilder – hot child in the city
anne murray – you needed me
donna summer – macarthur park
barbra streisand and neil diamond – you don’t bring me flowers
chic – le freak

yikes, usually when i compare the two i prefer the american chart overall (note but i’m an american) but my fave individual #1 is at least half the time maybe more something that topped the brit chart but not the american one, and before i looked i might’ve guessed that would be the case again (esp w/ ‘uptown top ranking’ up there) but ye gods the american chart. the chic is the only thing i’d could put alongside althea&donna-abba-kate bush.

I only picked out five. Looking ahead, I should think that 1979’s figure will be at least double that.

Glancing down that list, 1978 was a rum old year for chart-toppers. The changes brought about by punk obviously hadn’t yet filtered through to the top of the charts.

Here are the same charts for 1978 seen upside-down, ie the singles that only got to number 40 that year;

21 Jan Jam Jam Jam – The People’s Choice – 1 week

18 Feb Sweet Sweet Smile – The Carpenters – 1

15 Apr Hey Senorita – War – 1

23 Sep Where Did Our Love Go? – Manhatten Transfer – 1

25 Nov Homicide – 999 – 1

None of these have overcome their comparative neglect at the time to pass into popular memory.

My top fifty non-chart-topping UK Top 40 hits of 1978:

1 Clash – (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais
2 Sylvester – You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
3 Elvis Costello & The Attractions – (I Don’t Wanna Go To) Chelsea
4 Rose Royce – Love Don’t Live Here Anymore
5 Blue Oyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
6 Earth Wind & Fire – September
7 Electric Light Orchestra – Mr Blue Sky
8 Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
9 Buzzcocks – What Do I Get
10 Rose Royce – Wishing On A Star
11 Electric Light Orchestra – Sweet Talkin’ Woman
12 Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King – Shame
13 Chaka Khan – I’m Every Woman
14 Public Image Ltd – Public Image
15 Funkadelic – One Nation Under A Groove
16 Earth Wind & Fire – Got To Get You Into My Life
17 A Taste Of Honey – Boogie Oogie Oogie
18 Yvonne Elliman – If I Can’t Have You
19 Chic – Everybody Dance
20 Ian Dury & Blockheads – What A Waste
21 Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Radio Radio
22 Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)?
23 X-Ray Spex – The Day The World Turned Day-Glo
24 Undertones – Teenage Kicks
25 Jam – David Watts / A Bomb In Wardour Street
26 Bill Withers – Lovely Day
27 Earth Wind & Fire – Fantasy
28 Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive
29 Blondie – Denis
30 Nick Lowe – I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass
31 Sylvester – Dance (Disco Heat)
32 Crown Heights Affair – Galaxy Of Love
33 Plastic Bertrand – Ca Plane Pour Moi
34 Blondie – (I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear
35 Jacksons – Blame It On The Boogie
36 X-Ray Spex – Germ Free Adolescence
37 Siouxsie & The Banshees – Hong Kong Garden
38 Rezillos – Top Of The Pops
39 Voyage – From East To West
40 Buzzcocks – Love You More
41 X-Ray Spex – Identity
42 Jilted John – Jilted John
43 Tavares – More Than A Woman
44 Herbie Hancock – I Thought It Was You
45 Alicia Bridges – I Love The Night Life (Disco Round)
46 Hi Tension – Hi Tension
47 Phil Hurtt – Giving It Back
48 Buzzcocks – Promises
49 Musique – In The Bush
50 Stargard – Theme From Which Way Is Up

A wonderful year for the singles charts… but the best was yet to come.

Sounds also did a critics’ top ten that year;

1) Because the night: Patti Smith
2) Public image: Public Image
3) White man in hammersmith palais: Clash
4) Miss you: Rolling Stones
5) Hong kong garden: Siouxsie & the Banshees
6) Teenage kicks: Undertones
7) Down in the tube station at midnight: Jam
8) Shot by both sides: Magazine
9) Night fever: Bee Gees
10) Tommy gun: Clash

(never much cared for ‘Because the Night’, myself. Indeed, I’d rather listen to ‘Rat Trap’)

And the German number ones…

Mull Of Kintyre – Wings
Smurf Song – Father Abraham
Rivers Of Babylon – Boney M
You’re The One That I Want – JT & ONJ
Dancing In The City – Marshall Hain
Rasputin – Boney M
Mexican Girl – Smokie
Substitute – Clout
You’re The Greatest Lover – Luv’
YMCA – Village People

Justice for Rasputin and Substitute rather outweighed by 17 weeks at the top for Rivers Of Babylon.

1978 no.1s in Holland…

If I Had Words – Scott Fitzgerald & Yvonne Keeley
Denis – Blondie
Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees
Rivers Of Babylon – Boney M (9 weeks)
You’re The One That I Want (9 more, no escape…)
You’re The Greatest Lover – Luv’
Grease – Frankie Valli
Hopelessly Devoted To You – ONJ
Dreadlock Holiday – 10CC
Get Off – Foxy
Trojan Horse – Luv’
Paradise By The Dashboard Light – Meat Loaf

Norway went with
Darling – Baccara
It’s A Heartache – Bonnie Tyler (12 weeks)
Mil Etter Mil – Jahn Teigen
Rivers Of Babylon
YTOTIW (18 bleedin weeks)
Smurfesangen – Geir Borresen

And big ups to Bonnie Tyler for the time she threw an egg at Noel Edmonds on Swap Shop for his fabourite misheard lyric: “It’s A Hard Egg”. Bonus points if she’d actually hit him. Her 70s singles rather more likeable and less overblown than one the bunny prevents me mentioning.

And Norway put Jahn Teigen at number one? Need I remind anybody what that song was famous for?

Lest we forget…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZJ75BLo0WE

But I do prefer their ’68 entry, Stress by Odd Borre.

Probably the same people who voted for MBC and Figaro.

I voted for both Grease-related entries so careful with the “weirdo” business there.

Re 24, a definite 10.

And I don’t know how I missed Shot By Both Sides from my list. The best debut single since, oh, Wuthering Heights…
(actually I think they may have been released around the same time).

Conrad, it’s a 9 for me, close to perfection. But such a slow burner, it baffled me at the time; the giant dynamo took a while to lure me in. Snap for most of Abba’s ’79 45s.

Weirdly, the four I voted for have become the Top 4. Should I admit that? ‘Night Fever’ is only just a six, and even then possibly only because I was in the right mood when I voted.
This being my birth year, I can’t claim to have appreciated any of this at the time, but I can see there’s a lot of very good music that didn’t top the chart (some mentioned in other comments) as there always is. For reasons I can’t quite recall, I was discussing the parallel lists of UK and US chart-toppers on Usenet somewhere and boy did the US get the dirty end of the stick there, Chic aside. At least the UK Number Ones aren’t consistently awful, and even the bad ones are mostly well-known.

Oh and I may have asked this before, but is ‘Summer Night City’ one of those records that sounds massively better on disc than on the radio?

Aha! Found out the missing single from the NME critics’ list;

In that all-important number 50 position, ‘Power’ by Lester Bowie. I bet that DJ Punctum knows it!

Response to a letter in this week’s Radio Times, about the possibility of BBC4 showing Top Of The Pops from 1978:

“the BBC tells cause it has no immediate plans to show 1978 series, but is keeping that decision under review.”

What does anyone think? A tiresome bluff or a serious threat?

Do people actually send letters to the Radio Times? “Ooh, isn’t John Barrowman lovely, he certainly brightens up my day..” etc. I suspect not, I suspect that whenever the BBC wants to do something or raise something, they get someone to write in and say “oh, is it true?” and then a spokesman can say “A man told another man that that is probably not what’s going to happen”.

Which means, this particular thread is going to end up with less comments than 1977’s one, by the time 2014 is here.

@34 Blimey. MM readers there showing a quite uncanny ability to predict the track-list for the triple CD “Driving Rock Hits of the Seventies”.

# 37, #40 Why so rude?

Your comments don’t add anything helpful at all.

1. Yes, people write to the Radio Times, and yes the Radio Times publish some of those letters and yes the people working at the Radio Times seek answers to the questions correspondents raise

2. It’s not uncommon for the BBC to have plans for a few months ahead..

#42. So, having publicly mauled the premise of my question, you are now able to explain that the BBC4 statement could be either a tiresome bluff (“BBC4 … will parry long term questions”) or a serious threat (“these repeats really don’t rate as well as everyone thinks”). That is what I said in the first place.

Really, when I asked “What does anyone think?”, I meant “Does anyone have any additional insight or information?”

On the schedules being raised – working at a TV station researching for the programming/scheduling team at the minute in fact – the BBC should have a pretty good idea what their schedules will look like in January right now. We’re working on the final bits of our January schedule at the moment, after which they’ll get kicked around for a bit to see what we think of them/run some numbers to see if we think they will work, leading to a confirmation 6 weeks out (i.e. middle of November).

In other words, someone may well have “decided” what is happening before they get some analysis/polishing over the coming 4/6 weeks – pending an actual finalised decision.

I really do hope that 1978 gets shown, as it’s my Year Zero – the year I started buying records, and really paying attention to what was in the charts, as opposed to merely what was at No 1. After a brief flirtation with the new Smash Hits, I transferred my allegiance to Record Mirror upon learning that it contained each week’s Top 75. Besides, the public has a right to be reminded of hits by the likes of Marshall Hain, Yellow Dog, City Boy and, er, Plastic Bertrand.* Even though what might have been an unforgettable performance by Legs and Co as Smurfs appears to have been wiped.

(*first 45 purchased, actually)

from the TOTP Facebook page:

Great news that the 1978 season of TOTP will be shown in 2013 on BBC4, starting off with ‘The Story Of 1978’ documentary and then into the 5th January 1978 edition of the programme!