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Showing posts with label 1976. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1976. Show all posts
Friday, December 3, 2010
10cc were an English art rock band initially consisting of four musicians: Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.
For the most part, 10cc featured two strong songwriting teams, one 'commercial' and one 'artistic'. Both teams however injected sharp wit to lyrically-dextrous and musically varied songs. Stewart and Gouldman were predominantly pop-song-writers, who created most of the band's accessible songs.
In contrast, Godley and Creme -who went on after the band's breakups to make a series of records together- were the predominantly experimental half of 10cc, featuring an Art School sensibility and cinematic inspired writing. However, every member was a multi-instrumentalist, singer, writer, and producer.
"Donna", released as the first 10cc single, was chosen by BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Tony Blackburn as his Record of the Week, helping to launch it into the Top 30. The song peaked at #2 in the UK in October 1972. A similar 50's influence/ can be found in many of the band's pop songs, on-through 1977's American radio standard "The Things We Do for Love".
After a series of moderate hits the band signed a major deal with Mercury Records- the catalyst for the deal was one song – "I'm Not in Love".
The band's producer recalled: "At that point in time we were... struggling. We were absolutely skint, the lot of us, we were really struggling seriously, and Philips Phonogram wanted to do a deal with us. They wanted to buy Jonathan King's contract. I rang them. I said come and have a listen to what we've done, come and have a listen to this track.
And they came up and they freaked, and they said "This is a masterpiece. How much money, what do you want? What sort of a contract do you want? We'll do anything, we'll sign it".
On the strength of that one song, 10cc did a five-year deal with them for five albums and paid a serious amount of money.
The Original Soundtrack, an LP which was already complete, was released just weeks later. The album went on to both a critical and commercial success.
It is also notable for its opening track, Godley & Creme's "Une Nuit A Paris (One Night In Paris)", an eight-minute, multi-part "mini-operetta" that is thought to have been an influence on "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Its melody can also be heard in the overture to Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical "Phantom of the Opera".
"I'm Not in Love" then gave the band their second UK #1 in June 1975. The song also provided them with their first US chart success when the song reached #2....
Previous RR Rock-n-Roll Oldies features -here-
10cc, I'm not in love, xxx, 1975, The Things We Do for Love, 10cc, xxx, I'm not in love, 10cc, Godley and Creme, The Things We Do for Love
Friday, October 22, 2010
Sir Elton John is a bright, talented, and strange man who often says the oddest things... but who most consider an all-time great, obviously. And if Elton John is still good enough for Rush... cool with me, I'll forgive him for what he said about Jesus, he's obviously a little confused- lol. Elton earned a few + points for standing up for Arizona, anyway...
And while the 80s' Candle in the Wind might not be my cup of tea, Elton also did much great early stuff besides the mega-hits that we all love like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Daniel, Bennie and the Jets, Someone Saved my Life Tonight, Your Song, Rocket Man, Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting ... i.e. his cover of the Stones' Honky Tonk Women, etc.
In 1975, Philadelphia Freedom was released by Elton John -as "Elton John Band"- as a single. The song was written by Elton John and longtime co-writer Bernie Taupin as a favor to Elton's friend, tennis star Billie Jean King: King was part of the Philadelphia Freedoms tennis team. Recorded in the summer of 1974, the only song Elton and Bernie ever consciously wrote as a single. Taupin reportedly said, "I can't write a song about tennis"... and so he didn't. He also maintains that the lyrics bear no relation to tennis, Philly Soul... or even flag-waving patriotism.
Nonetheless, his words have been interpreted as patriotic and uplifting, and even though released in 1975, the song's sentiment, intended or not, meshed perfectly with an American music audience already gearing up for the country's bicentennial celebration in July of the next year.
The song was also dedicated in part to the sound of Philadelphia, especially the music of the Delfonics, producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and the Spinners and that group's producer, Thom Bell (and thus the Soul Train appearance)...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Hey, Do You Remember that Commercial...? 1976 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham
0 comments Posted by queen at 5:00 AM
Maybe I'm nuts, but I always found this jingle (sung by Sinatra-esque crooner Jack Jones) to be really quite catchy, even though at the time I was rather more into Aerosmith, Todd Rundgren, and Thin Lizzy, lol.
The '76 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham was a big car too, boy- the range-topping Mopar, and an Imperial in all but name, filling the market position vacated by the gas-crisis demise of that ultra-premium Chrysler Corporation nameplate.
Note the clip was taped during the 1975 World Series, doesn't get any more all-American than that. And never mind the '75 date on the header, the Chrysler New Yorker Brougham was in-fact introduced as a 1976 model in the Fall of '75.
Check out the pillow-top velour seats, sweet-
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