The UK Top 50 of 1969 Poll

Not a particularly good vintage, but for Stevie Wonder it was a brilliant one. Voted "Yester-me, Yester-you, Yesterday", but the two other Wonder numbers here are also among his better singles.

Amen Corner for me.

Grapevine!

Grapevine will/should walk this.

If it doesn't, I will cry.

Not a bad year for Motown at all. I agree Grapevine is good too although I like the Wonder numbers better.

I know there is quite a huge fanclub for "Sugar Sugar" on ILM too though.

Another for Grapevine.

The Archies

Bobbie Gentry, fractionally over "Time Is Tight".

Impossible to choose, of course: how can you compare like with unlike? But I went for "Oh Well", because I doubt anyone else will (and the Mac vote will, of course, be split) and with the proviso that I'm thinking of all ten minutes of it, because if there's one moment Britain's age of innocence ends and Murdoch begins to eat away through the back door, it's those final moments where Peter Green dissolves, goes back to the forest, surrenders himself, abdicates from life.

The problem with "Je t'aime" is that, like "Seasons in the Sun", it did far more harm than good to the UK reputation of its writer.

(and the other problem is that the Brigitte Bardot version is better)

Israelites.

Some fine stuff here, but really it has to be Grapevine.

Donald Peers to Max Romeo - what a broad church 1969 was!

Incidentally, RIP Joe Dolan - died of a brain tumour last month, aged 68.

A strong list, definitely. Another entry I could well have voted for is "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother". Plus the Top 50 also has "A Boy Named Sue", "Too Busy Thinking 'Bout My Baby", "In The Ghetto", "Something In The Air", "Dizzy", "Albatross" and "Honky Tonk Women". Not to mention "My Way". So I guess I'll take back that it was apparently no good vintage. At least the Top 50 was quite good for a Top 50.

A lot of diversity in the Top 50, thats always a good thing.
Gotta go with Elvis though.

Motown surely made a big comeback after being slightly irrelevant during the hippie/psychedelia years. In addition to the Stevie Wonder/Marvin Gaye numbers here, they also had the "Cloud Nine" album by Temptations (perhaps the first really cohesive Motown album) and The Supremes' "Someday We'll Be Together".

The release of "Cloud Nine" the song was, typically, delayed for aeons because it was considered "too progressive" for the UK market. Some of their other singles in that vein were never released here at all - but that's the influence of early Radio 1 for you (note how the soul influence in the UK charts peaked - for a while - in the offshore stations' final months and weeks, then slipped back when there was suddenly little choice but Jimmy Young, but by early 1969 gloriously resurged, often with reissues deservedly becoming hits at last).

Dingbod OTM about the sheer range here: I very, very nearly went for Grapevine myself, but decided against suspecting that it will probably win without me. "a record by Max Romeo", as Fluff had to haplessly refer to it, never got higher than number 10, but spent 25 weeks in the Top 50.

Infuriatingly, my mum insists on regarding "Love of the Common People" as a Joe Dolan song (but it could, of course, be worse, c.f. 1983).

"Grapevine" over here too. Goddamn strong list, though.

FC xp: Motown UK '68/9 revival essentially down to a combination of Dave Godin's aggressive (re-)marketing and Blackburn's keenness to play both Motown reissues and new releases on his R1 breakfast show - note Fluff Freeman's subtle reference to history being put right on his Motown Chartbusters Vol 3 sleevenote.

"Oh Well" what the hell..

I don't think I've ever heard that Donald Peers record.

Unless it was a TV theme or something...

You'd probably recognise the tune (Offenbach) if not necessarily the song.

And the lyrics were written by ex-Golden Shot presenter Jackie Rae.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Pinball Wizard." Drumming so monumentally revolutionary that no one can figure the fuck out where to take it.

MY WAY or the highway

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Surprisingly poor showing for "Sugar Sugar". I thought The Archies were huge here.

No, we never even got the TV series here.

"Sugar Sugar" was number one for eight weeks in the UK (a very primitive cartoon video was shown on TOTP) but they were strictly one-hit wonders despite many excellent subsequent singles, e.g. "Jingle Jangle" and "Who's Your Baby?"