Jason’s Jukebox Volume 30

Jason Maloney reviews

JASON’S JUKEBOX
V o l u m e # 3 0 Chart Date: 26th August 1978 Online Date: 26th August 2004

Lionel Richie & The Commodores:
The Definitive Collection Once it debuted at #5, when such a feat was still a rarity, the odds on it going all the way were very high and so it proved. Twice in a row it was celebrating its place at #1 in the UK, a status it would continue to enjoy for a further 3 weeks. Three Times A Lady, the single in question, was The Commodores’ only British chart-topper although their frontman and the song’s writer Lionel Richie went on to huge solo success in the 1980s.

A week earlier Three Times A Lady had been the record to finally bring to an end the domination of John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John‘s You’re The One That I Want. For 9 consecutive weeks the pair had seen off all competition with the first of their back-to-back #1s. You’re The One That I Want and its follow-up Summer Nights were both taken from the film Grease, which also yielded a third major hit single in the shape of Frankie Valli‘s title song, new this week at #31.

The setting for Grease, although you wouldn’t have guessed from the sleek funkiness of the Barry Gibb-penned effort from Valli, was 50s America; an era which vocal group Darts drew on very successfully for a period between 1977 and 1979. Daddy Cool opened their account at the tail end of 1977, reaching #7, followed by another Top 10 hit The Boy From New York City. Their third entry, It’s Raining, would become their highest-charting single to date; curently up a notch to #3, it peaked at #2 in early September.

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Boney M: Greatest Hits The single occupying the #4 position 26 years ago holds a unique place in UK chart history. Boney M‘s Rivers Of Babylon, released in May, reached #1 the following month before going into gentle decline. By the end of July, it had fallen down to #20 after 13 weeks on the listings. Then, something extraordinary began to unfold. The B-side Brown Girl In The Ring began to attract enough attention and generate significant popularity that it was give belated equal billing with Rivers Of Babylon; nothing unheard of there, but the impact on the single’s chart fortunes was unprecedented. Now an AA-sided hit, the single started to go back up the Top 20, all the way into the Top 5 again. In total, it would clock up 26 weeks on chart, and on this – its 18th appearance – it was up from #5 and on its way to falling just short of the top spot for what would have been a second spell.

Although they originally made their name on the singles Top 40 in 1964 with the chart-topping Go Now, the Moody Blues had long since become better known as an album act. The hits tailed off after 1970’s Question made #2, although signature tune Nights In White Satin repeated its Top 20 successes of 1968 (#19) and 1972 (#9) with another visit to the charts in the autumn of 1979. In the meantime, lead vocalist Justin Hayward – who replaced the singer of Go Now,

Denny Laine, not long after their initial breakthrough in the mid-60s – had a major solo hit courtesy of Forever Autumn. Taken from Jeff Wayne’s musical extravaganza based on H.G.Wells’ War Of The Worlds, the track was at its peak of #5. The album itself became one of the longest-running hits of all-time, spending over 5 years on the UK chart.

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The Very Best of 10cc Among its star-studded cast, Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds included 70s hearthrob and star of stage and screen David Essex. The singer/actor’s other main project at the time was Evita, the West End musical by Andrew Lloyd-Webber based on the life of Eva Peron. Evita’s first and biggest hit single had come more than a year earlier; Julie Covington‘s Don’t Cry For Me Argentina reaching #1 in February 1977. Essex’s Oh What A Circus didn’t quite match that chart performance, eventually peaking at #3, but on the Top 40 of August 26th 1978 it was by far the highest climber, soaring 24 places from its debut position of #36 right up to #12.

10cc, one of the most consistently successful singles bands of the decade, were in the Top 10 yet again. With its now-legendary chorus of “I Don’t Like Cricket… I Love It”, Dreadlock Holiday (rising 12 places to #6 on only its 2nd week in the Top 40) set its unsettling lyrics of a tourist’s experiences in the Carribean to a almost jaunty reggae rhythm. The result was a late-summer smash, as the single toppled Three Times A Lady from the summit in September.

For 60s icons such as Bob Dylan and The Who, significant singles chart careers were beginning to wind down. Baby Stop Crying, down from a high of #13 to #15, proved to be Dylan’s last appearance on the UK singles rundown until the mid-90s, when Dignity sneaked into the lower region of the Top 40. Meanwhile, Who Are You (up 2 to #18) would only be followed by 1981’s You Better You Bet and the #40 hit Athena a year later.

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The Rezillos:
Can’t Stand the Rezillos Jilted John‘s eponymous single was one of the week’s notable movers, climbing 15 places to #10. Also rising the same number of positions was Cold As Ice by Foreigner. The AOR masters’ second UK hit was experiencing a literally up-and-down chart run; having entered at #30, it then fell back to #39 before its climb to #24. Bizarrely, it would then drop out of the Top 40 completely for one week, return at #39 and then disappear once more. Another odd sequence was chalked up by Jackson Browne‘s classic Stay (rebounding 2 places to #20), which after moving #32-#31-#12 – the sudden leap a common quirk of the pre-barcoded era – spent the next few weeks bobbing to and fro between #13 and #22 before this latest turnaround.

Naming your single Top Of The Pops is shamelessly inviting attention, especially if said record fails to live up to its title by reaching #1, but The Rezillos did so anyway; Top Of The Pops (the song) climbed from #34 to #26, earning an appearance on Top Of The Pops (the music TV show) during its ascent to a high of #17.

Highest entry to the chart was Forget About You, the Motors’ follow-up to their Top 5 smash Airport, in at #31. Clearly the record-buying public still remembered them… for the time being at least. Immediately beneath them, an act destined for a longer career debuted with one of the earliest in a distinguished line of hits. The Jam‘s double A-side release David Watts/’A’ Bomb In Wardour Street only managed #25 in the end, but it continued their steady progress from bright new things to fully-fledged national treasures. By contrast, Bryan Ferry‘s dismal #37 showing with Sign Of The Times temporarily called time on his previously lucrative solo escapades outside of Roxy Music. In 1979, Roxy Music returned with a drastically altered line-up and, most importantly, a series of major hit singles from the Manifesto album.

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