Does anybody out there know of one single that made #1 but can't stand the song? I can think of three examples:
"Honey" - Bobby Goldsboro '68 "Harper Valley P.T.A." - Jeannie C. Riley '68 again "Disco Duck" - Rick Dees & His Gang Of Idiots '76
"You Light Up My Life" - Debbie Boone (It was number 1 for 13 consecutive weeks, which is probably why I grew to hate it...it played over and over and over).
Yikes! My kids were watching The Simpsons this morning and that song featured prominently. So now it's come up TWICE today. (And I was listening to Journey to the Center of the Earth this morning. The Boone Family is haunting me!)
"Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band.
I actually liked that song. I think...
Then there's Meco's "Star Wars Medley" and Meco Monarado had the audacity to say that John Williams' main theme couldn't make it as a single. It made the Top 10, and how many Oscars has Williams won, Mr. Monardo? The "Star Wars Medley" was just a single for its time, but today it comes off as kind of hokey, and difficult to believe it made #1.
Nope. Still LOVE that track. And the long LP side. I'd argue that this features the greatest rendition of Ben's (The Force) theme.
Does anybody out there know of one single that made #1 but can't stand the song? I can think of three examples:
"Honey" - Bobby Goldsboro '68 "Harper Valley P.T.A." - Jeannie C. Riley '68 again "Disco Duck" - Rick Dees & His Gang Of Idiots '76
Yup, Honey was a real, pass sick-bag job (right up there with Terry Jacks, Seasons In The Sun). I find the best singles don't make it to number one, we need a compilation CD of the best number twos (I'm already getting ideas for the cover).
With the conspicuous presence of "Honey" (and others), I would imagine the Death Rock subgenre would probably be a major contender for most entries on this list. I wonder how many made it to #1.
Going back to 1968, Cinderella Rockefella by Esther & Abi Ofarim, was bloody awful, & three weeks at #1 in the UK, you couldn't get away from it (America showed more sense, it only got to #68 there).
...& what was #1 in the UK chart at the end of the sixties & the beginning of the seventies...Two Little Boys, sung by the lovely Rolf Harris, #1 for six weeks! That tells you all you need to know about number ones (& the public's regrettable lack of taste).
Yeah we got peppered by gimmicky singles back then - grandad by clive dunn, Jimmy osmond "Long haired lover from liverpool", The Streak, Snoopy versus the Red Baron, The wurzels, Billy dont be a hero, Me and You & a Dog Named Boo, Coward of the County, telly savalas "If" etc etc
Up Where We Belong (1982) Great movie (An Officer And A Gentleman), but I never really cared for the song.
Somewhat related to this song, my dad was a music minister for 50 years and for quite a long span of time, he was almost always in demand in our small community to sing at weddings and funerals - he did have a great voice and could play piano, transpose music to a key that worked for him, etc. Anyway, when Joe Cocker sang You Are So Beautiful back in 1975, numerous young folks wanted that sung at their weddings. My dad bought the single and brought it home to familiarize himself with it so he could sing it. Knowing what a stickler and perfectionist my dad was about singing, I just had to watch his face when he first played it and heard Cocker's voice. I know my face must have been purple from me trying to keep from bursting out laughing. I'd never seen Dad look that perlpexed at how a voice like Cocker's could be a hit.
Back to UWWB - quite naturally, when it hit, several young folks wanted it sung at their weddings, and I let Dad know that it was another Joe Cocker (and Jennifer Warnes) song. He just groaned and resigned himself to the dreadful task of listening to it.
Up Where We Belong (1982) Great movie (An Officer And A Gentleman), but I never really cared for the song.
Somewhat related to this song, my dad was a music minister for 50 years and for quite a long span of time, he was almost always in demand in our small community to sing at weddings and funerals - he did have a great voice and could play piano, transpose music to a key that worked for him, etc. Anyway, when Joe Cocker sang You Are So Beautiful back in 1975, numerous young folks wanted that sung at their weddings. My dad bought the single and brought it home to familiarize himself with it so he could sing it. Knowing what a stickler and perfectionist my dad was about singing, I just had to watch his face when he first played it and heard Cocker's voice. I know my face must have been purple from me trying to keep from bursting out laughing. I'd never seen Dad look that perlpexed at how a voice like Cocker's could be a hit.
Back to UWWB - quite naturally, when it hit, several young folks wanted it sung at their weddings, and I let Dad know that it was another Joe Cocker (and Jennifer Warnes) song. He just groaned and resigned himself to the dreadful task of listening to it.
Jennifer Warnes is fine, but I never cared for Joe Cocker. His voice, which sounds like he had too many drinks, wrecked Lennon/McCartney's "With A Little Help From My Friends" and The Box Tops' "The Letter"!
Does anybody out there know of one single that made #1 but can't stand the song? I can think of three examples:
"Honey" - Bobby Goldsboro '68 "Harper Valley P.T.A." - Jeannie C. Riley '68 again "Disco Duck" - Rick Dees & His Gang Of Idiots '76
Yup, Honey was a real, pass sick-bag job (right up there with Terry Jacks, Seasons In The Sun). I find the best singles don't make it to number one, we need a compilation CD of the best number twos (I'm already getting ideas for the cover).
And even The Smothers Brothers made fun out of the song in a sketch on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour". I prefer Goldsboro's "Little Things", "The Straight Life" and "Summer (The First Time)" over that horribly depressing "Honey" which sounds like somebody's dying at the end of the song.
Rich Little poked fun at the this song about what if various celebrities sang Mac Davis songs, and his impression of Truman Capote singing "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me" on “The Mac Davis Show” was absolutely hilarious!
I guess I don't pay much that much attention to charts or pop music; I enjoy some of these songs people listed here when I once in a while hear them, others I don't care for, but obviously, I'm not overexposed.
I guess I don't pay much that much attention to charts or pop music; I enjoy some of these songs people listed here when I once in a while hear them, others I don't care for, but obviously, I'm not overexposed.
That's pretty much the same with me as well. I will put on a CD at home or in the car.
The only time I actually have the radio on at all is the half-hour or so that I read in bed before turning out the light at 10pm. And even then I don't really have the volume up enough to pay attention to what's being played--it's more or less just for the ambience.
Probably the very worst is one of the many one-note auto-tuned plastic tracks that have gone to #1 in the last 10 to 12 years, but I don't have the time to wade through those.
But I found an absolute "winner" - not surprisingly it's one of those godawful European tunes that inexplicably sell huge over there. This one, a bouncy, annoying sub-ABBA thing with music that sounds like the theme to The Flintstones, is some sort of Dutch-German concoction that amazingly was awarded the #1 U.S. Adult Contemporary hit of the year 1976 - but has any American ever heard of this before? Listen forewarned. It's mind-numbingly bad.
Probably the very worst is one of the many one-note auto-tuned plastic tracks that have gone to #1 in the last 10 to 12 years, but I don't have the time to wade through those.
But I found an absolute "winner" - not surprisingly it's one of those godawful European tunes that inexplicably sell huge over there. This one, a bouncy, annoying sub-ABBA thing with music that sounds like the theme to The Flintstones, is some sort of Dutch-German concoction that amazingly was awarded the #1 U.S. Adult Contemporary hit of the year 1976 - but has any American ever heard of this before? Listen forewarned. It's mind-numbingly bad.
