Popular '72

The phantom number ones of 1972, that topped the other (NME) chart;

America – A Horse With No Name (1 week)
Don McLean – American Pie (1)
T Rex – Children Of The Revolution (1)
Slade – Gudbye T’Jane (1)

Billy Smart @ 1:

1953 has no black performers and unless you count Kay Starr no non-white ones. 1954 might have been ever whiter but for Winifred Atwell creeping in at the end of the year to become Britain’s first black chart-topper.

12 from me, could have been more but I was trying to filter out my own warm nostalgic feelings toward some of the more dodgy ones (Clair, My Ding-a-Ling).

Sometime this year I started to become conscious that thee was somethinmg called a Number One – seem to remember Chuck Berry being at the top for what felt like ages. A massive 9 for me could have possibly been 10.

12/17.

Ones that don’t quite do it for me now: Rod (slightly weary retread of “Maggie May”), Slade (their “Lady Madonna”/”Fernando”), New Seekers (though I love how they struggle to avoid singing the brand name), and both the Osmonds – Donny a bit painful, Little Jimmy extremely painful.

A 10 to the good Pigeon of course but Nilsson and David C both 9+.

9/17 for me.

I appear to diverge from consensus in two respects: I don’t pretend to understand what others see in Mouldy Old Dough (a UK thing I gather), and I evidently rate the New Seekers much higher than most. On the latter, I like the underlying music a lot, and neither the hippy-dippy sing-a-long sentiment nor the commercial connection bugs me as much as it does many other people. (I like the democracy of cheap, optimal-for-what-they-are, mass consumer goods. Warhol’s point: some poor kid’s coke is just as good as Elizabeth Taylor’s.)

Swanstep you seem to be the Voice Of The Lurker on Lieutenant P. as it languishes shamefully on 45% ticks. Chicory Tip are getting absolutely robbed too.

voted for 7 (the top 7 as of this writing), of those would give ‘metal guru’, ‘school’s out’, and ‘without you’ an 8 or higher.

re17 is there/could there be a page that links all the Year end polls somewhere in the righthand column?

Those US number ones in full:

American Pie – Don McLean
Let’s Stay Together – Al Green
Without You – Nilsson
Heart of Gold – Neil Young
Horse With No Name – America
First Time Ever I Saw Your Face – Roberta Flack
Oh Girl – The Chi Lites
I’ll Take You There – Staple Singers
The Candy Man – Sammy Davis Jr
Song Sung Blue – Neil Diamond
Lean On Me – Bill Withers
Alone Again (Naturally) – Gilbert O
Brandy – Looking Glass
Black and White – Three Dog Night
Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me – Mac Davis
Ben – Michael Jackson
My Ding A Ling – Chuck Berry
I Can See Clearly Now – Johnny Nash
Papa Was A Rolling Stone – The Temptations
I Am Woman – Helen Reddy
Me And Mrs Jones – Billy Paul

An amazingly varied and (not an adjective I use often) classy list. All were UK hits of some stripe except The Candy Man (not sure how it failed), Brandy (ditto, and I’m sure it was a Radio 1 breakfast show single of the week), Black And White (had already been a Top 5 hit for Greyhound in ’71) and I Am Woman (phew eh readers?).

Not sure if this’ll work but here they are on spotify, all originals. Skipped Oh Girl as there’s only a grotty re-recording:

http://open.spotify.com/user/bobshukman/playlist/1KUwu8Q92pwxOIW4IDyPX5