UK Top 40: 11 June 1977

Ramones in a second!

Exactly what I was thinking!

GSTQ. Nothing else comes anywhere close.

KIDS! Have hours of fun guessing which ones Dale will play if he ever does this week on POTP!

Rationally it's GSTQ head and shoulders but today I'm in a kind of Ramones mood...

The Eagles

"It was a bit unusual, but we all loved it."

disco inferno

Fanfare for the common man. Because I loved it at the time, and I was only - oh - eight? I remember bouncing around to it at the time.

"Sheena" was my first ever 12" single purchase. They hadn't quite worked out how to press them at that stage, so the run-out groove was fatter than the actual track.

I'm leaving out "GSTQ" for the same reason that Peel left it out of his end-of-year personal Fifty, i.e. it "bestrides 1977 like a colossus" and so can't be considered next to anything else.

Having long considered 1977 as the worst year of the Seventies for the UK Top 40, I'm a bit taken aback by all the good stuff in this chart. On another day it might have been "Sheena", but today it's "Got To Give It Up", just ahead of Boz & Gladys. (No, not The Trammps: over-played.)

What the hell is Honky's "Join The Party"? I have zero recollection of this. Same goes for Trinidad Oil Company.

I only remember what the punk singles sound like, apart from the Eagles and a bit of Rod. There were a lot of groups around that time with names like, I don't know, "The West Cheshire Meat Packers Guild", who nobody remembers.

"Join The Party" - very, very early stirrings of Britfunk in the JALN Band mode; lots of horns and slap bass. Not bad but not Hi-Tension either.

Trinidad Oil Company - lots of steel drums, reggae-lite, and the lyrics literally consisted of "January, February, March, A-ah-prilmay, Juuuunejuly" etc. Bob Stewart on the 208 Chart Show commented deadpan that it was "a useful record to have if you have trouble remembering the months of the year."

ps: this "Honky" were nothing to do with the "Honky" who put out The Ego Has Landed on ZTT in 1994.

oh, and nearly needless to say, this "Blue" were a Glasgow pub band signed to Elton John's Rocket Records and not the successful 21st century boy band.

Didn't this 1977 Blue try to sue the boy band version for using their name?

Maybe it's Elton's ambition to work with every band called Blue that ever existed. Sort of like boy band pok3m0n. In a similar vein, Boz Scaggs is probably not the pr0nstar in this instance.

Are Blue (I), Blue (II), Black and, up to a point, Deep Purple the only bands named after colours to have hits?

Had to be Genesis for me (the "Spot The Pidgeon" tracks are rare but great).

xpost: How about Cream, or are we getting too "tonal" with our definitions? And does Yello count?

Carole Bayer Sager

Trinidad Oil Company - Calendar Song

I'm sorry, but whatever was THIS? A company motivational anthem?

"Fill out your meeting times
Update with the secretaryyyyy..."

I may yet regret not picking Marvin Gaye...has there ever been a better we're-having-a-party-and-you're-invited song than "Got To Give It Up?"...(and don't say "Having A Party", 'cos it ain't)...

not a great week for singles

Joe Tex - Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)

This is an hilarious country parody isn't it? YSI!

This is a rubbish chart. 'Sheena' the best thing here by some distance.

It's weird that this was the only hit of any size Joe Tex ever had in the UK.

</i>I may yet regret not picking Marvin Gaye...has there ever been a better we're-having-a-party-and-you're-invited song than "Got To Give It Up?"...(and don't say "Having A Party", 'cos it ain't)... </i>

xylophone intro)

Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere,
So let me take you there,
And you and I'll be dancin' in the cool night air!

Well we're at the dancin' party,
And you're out there havin' fun,
And your girl is there beside you,
And you feel like number one!

So get your body movin'...
'Cos tonight has just begun...
OH WHOA! Let it go!
WHOOA! Let it show....
Aaah Aaah Aaah Aaah!

Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere,
So let me take you there,
And you and I'll be dancin' in the cool night air!
OH OH
Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere, yeah mmmm,
Music everywhere,
And soon we'll be dancin' in the cool night air!

Now we're out here all together,
Everybody's hand in hand,
We can make it last forever,
When we're dancin' with the gang!
Well you've got your favourite records,
And Frankie's got his band!

HUH!!!
OH WHOA! Let it go!
WHOOA! Let it show....
Aaah Aaah Aaah Aaah!

Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere,
So let me take you there,
And you and I'll be dancin' in the cool night air!
OH OH
Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere, mmmm yeah,
Music everywhere,
And soon we'll be dancin' in the cool night air!

(Riotous eighties party noises)

(Repeat chorus and fade out)

Coherent, well-argued commentary.

Alessi - Oh Lori

Are Blue (I), Blue (II), Black and, up to a point, Deep Purple the only bands named after colours to have hits?
http://techiqmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/pinkfloyd-album-dark_side_of_the_moon1.jpg
http://www.bigbaer.com/assets/pink-get-the-party-started.jpg

Got to Give It Up

All of these are good. Except for #19 obv.

Alessi - Oh Lori

This is one of my guilty pleasures, too. I know I was only 4, but why is it that I have no memory whatsoever of the Sex Pistols (not just this song, but their entire career), but can clearly remember seeing Carole Bayer Sager on TOTP?

Clearly it's all Sean Rowley's fault.

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