Disco pretty much ruled the pop chart, but other sounds were bubbling up. Here are thirty songs that defined the music of 1978.
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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (12-23-20)
Inspired by the season and the December 23 birthdays of Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder, The Chi-Lites’ Eugene Record, Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, Esther Phillips, Tim Hardin, Chet Baker, Harold Dorman, Johnny Kidd, Rainbow’s Graham Bonnett, and Harry Shearer.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (5-26-20)
Inspired by the May 26 birthdays of Stevie Nicks, Ms. Lauryn Hill, The Band’s Levon Helm, Peggy Lee, Lenny Kravitz, Swinging Blue Jeans’ Ray Ennis, Alphaville’s Marian Gold, Nashville Teens’ Art Sharp and Black; and the May 25 birthdays of The Jam’s Paul Weller, Disclosure’s Guy Lawrence, Tom T. Hall, The Tokens’ Mitch Margo, and Jessi Colter.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (5-18-20)
Inspired by the May 18 birthdays of Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Rick Wakeman, Butch Tavares, Robert Morse, Big Joe Turner, Rob Base, Ezio Pinza, George Strait, Martika, Enigma’s Michael Cretu, Albert Hammond, Perry Como, Oak Ridge Boys’ Joe Bonsall, the Rubettes’ Paul DaVinci, Jack Johnson, and Broadway composer Meredith Willson.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (3-20-20)
Inspired by the March 20 birthdays of Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Jimmy Vaughan, Carl Palmer, and Carl Reiner, and International Day of Happiness; and the March 19 birthdays of Ruth Pointer, The Specials’ Terry Hall, and Clarence “Frogman” Henry.
20 Duets
Duets. Twenty of ’em.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Throwback Thursday – 1980
In 1979, Giorgio Moroder, famous mostly for his production work on Donna Summer records, composed the score for the film American Gigolo. He asked Stevie Nicks to sing the movie’s theme song, for which Moroder wrote the music, but she had to decline for contractual reasons. He next turned to Deborah Harry of Blondie.
Harry write the lyrics to the song that became “Call Me,” the second #1 single for her band. Of her experience with Moroder, she told Billboard “He’s very nice to work with, very easy, (but) I don’t think he has a lot of patience with people who fool around or don’t take what they do seriously. I think he’s very serious about what he does and he’s intense and he’s a perfectionist and he’s very talented, so I think that people who are less talented or less concentrated bore him quickly…you really have to pay attention.”
Said Moroder of working with Blondie, “There were always fights. I was supposed to do an album with them after that. We went to the studio, and the guitarist was fighting with the keyboard player. I called their manager and quit.”
Moroder did end up working with Deborah Harry again years later on another soundtrack song, producing “Rush Rush” from Scarface, and in 2004 remixed Blondie’s single “Good Boys.”
Tunes du Jour’s Throwback Thursday playlist this week spotlights the best of 1980, kicking off with Blondie’s “Call Me.”
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Throwback Thursday – 1982
As a songwriter, Gloria Jones charted with Gladys Knight & the Pips’ “If I Were Your Woman,” the Four Tops’ “Just Seven Numbers (Can Straighten Out My Life),” and Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross’ “My Mistake (Was to Love You).” As a producer, Gloria Jones hit the top ten on the disco chart with Gonzalez’s “Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet.” But as a lead singer, Jones failed to make the pop, r&b or dance charts.
In 1973, while on a trip to the United States, British DJ Richard Searling purchased a copy of a Gloria Jones single from 1965. The A-side was a song called “My Bad Boy’s Comin’ Home,” but it was the B-side that really got Searling’s attention.
Northern soul music (uptempo American soul music in a sixties Motown vein yet without commercial success) had a large cult following in the northern England at that time, and Searling played the Gloria Jones b-side during his sets.
Northern soul fan David Ball loved the song. When he and his musical partner, Mark Almond, who together comprised the duo Soft Cell, were looking for a song to cover, they went with the Jones song, thinking it would be interesting for a synth band to cover a soul tune. Their record label asked them to add guitar, bass and drums to the track, but the duo refused. Despite this, the label put out the singer. Almond told Rolling Stone magazine “We thought if we were really lucky, we’d scrape into the top 75 in Britain. We didn’t think anything would happen over here [in the US].”
Soft Cell’s recording of “Tainted Love” became a smash worldwide. In the US, it spent 43 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100, a record at that time. Said Gloria Jones of the Soft Cell recording “Their version was far better than mine.”
This week, Tunes du Jour celebrates Throwback Thursday with twenty great tunes from 1982, kicking off with Soft Cell’s version of “Tainted Love,” but first, check out Gloria Jones’ original:
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Fleetwood Mac’s Twin Songs
The first single from Fleetwood Mac’s mega-smash album Rumours was “Go Your Own Way,” written by band guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. The song is about Buckingham’s relationship and break-up with fellow Mac member Stevie Nicks.
While Nicks was not angry with Buckingham writing about their relationship, there was one lyric she wanted Lindsey to remove. She told Rolling Stone magazine “I very much resented him telling the world that ‘packing up, shacking up’ with different men was all I wanted to do. He knew it wasn’t true. It was just an angry thing that he said. Every time those words would come onstage, I wanted to go over and kill him. He knew it, so he really pushed my buttons through that. It was like, ‘I’ll make you suffer for leaving me.’ And I did.”
“Go Your Own Way” hit #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. For a follow-up single, the group released “Dreams,” Stevie Nicks’ take on her relationship with Lindsey. In the liner notes to the 2013 reissue of Rumours, Nicks writes “Even though “Go Your Own Way” was a little angry, it was also honest. So then I wrote ‘Dreams,” and because I’m the chiffony chick who believes in fairies and angels, and Lindsey is a hardcore guy, it comes out differently. Lindsey is saying go ahead and date other men and go live your crappy life, and Stevie is singing about the rain washing you clean. We were coming at it from opposite angles, but we were really saying the same exact thing.”
Today Lindsey Buckingham, then man who wrote Fleetwood Mac’s first top ten single (“Go Your Own Way”) and inspired their first #1 single (“Dreams”), turns 66 years old. Tunes du Jour presents twenty of his finest moments.
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Throwback Thursday – 1981
The blogger in 1981, before heading to the senior prom
For this week’s Throwback Thursday playlist, we revisit 1981. The 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year went to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy. The Best New Artist was Shena Easton. Record of the Year and Song of the Year went to “Bette Davis Eyes,” performed by Kim Carnes. Both Carnes and Easton were nominated for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, along with Olivia Newton-John for “Physical” and Juice Newton for “Angel of the Morning,” but those ladies lost to Lena Horne for “WTF?”. Rick Springfield won Best Rock Performance, Male (naturally) for “Jessie’s Girl.” “Just the Two of Us,” the Grover Washington, Jr./Bill Withers hit, took home the trophy for Best Rhythm & Blues Song.
Here are some of 1981’s biggest hits:
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