100 Hits: 70s

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Singles of the 70's". Music Week. London, England: Morgan-Grampian Publications: 18. 22 December 1979. He’d soon depart this singer/songwriter terrain for more ambient territory, but the opener from ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ was an exuberant slice of post-Roxy Music solo power. A clanging, multi-layered, Velvet Underground-aping thumper which would influence his Berlin experiments with Bowie and a decade of synth/sonic exploration. For such an unusually catchy tune ‘The Model’ took years to make an impact, starting life as a snappy pop interlude on 1978’s ‘The Man Machine’ before becoming a single that was largely overlooked until the end of 1981 when it suddenly pelted up the UK charts right to No.1. Creating an actual song, Kraftwerk beat the pop stars at their own game.

Inspired by Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit book, a collection of poetry, ‘Imagine’ is that old classic – simple but devastating. It wasn’t much of a hit first time out; in fact, it didn’t even get a UK single release for four years after the album came out, but in the wake of John Lennon’s death it became first an anthem for his life and later a universal call for peace that continues to resonate. Donna Summer’s second collaboration with Giorgio Moroder – after the interminable disco lustfest ‘Love To Love You Baby’ in 1975 – is a record with the sort of insignificance that cannot be understated. So let’s not understate it. ‘I Feel Love’ is one of the earliest purely synthetic recordings, the very first house record and the future in an orgasmic space-age nutshell. In which Paul Weller declares holy class war through the medium of awesome Moddish new wave. As the 70s juddered to a close, the divisions in society were becoming more prominent, and The Jam’s fiery broadside tells a bitter tale of coming off worst after a brawl with some poshos, because indeed, “all that rugby puts hair on your chest.” David Cameron, missing the point, professed to love it. Dolly Parton’s signature smash actually limped to a mere No.60 in the States but it endures as an oddly jaunty plea to the titular stunner to leave Dolly’s man alone, even though she could take him any time she likes. There’s no artifice here – which is Parton’s main strength. However brassy and unreal she can be, she’s never less than pure-hearted. Later covered by the White Stripes. In which we learned Iggy Pop was “ a street-walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm“. To be honest, we had a hunch. The Bowie-sponsored Stooges were on a hiding to nothing as far as cold hard cash was concerned but with sweaty, steely rawk like ‘Search And Destroy’ they would reveal their hand as dodgy uncles of punk.

29 The B52’s – ‘Rock Lobster’

Producing an accurate list of the best-selling singles of the 1970s in the United Kingdom has therefore never been a simple task because of the difficulty in obtaining accurate sales data from the period. An official chart of the best-selling singles of the 1970s was produced by the BMRB and broadcast on the UK's national pop music radio station BBC Radio 1 on 31 December 1979. However, this chart is no longer considered accurate due to the method of data collection by the BMRB and has since been superseded. Lennon’s third solo single saw his overarching message and peace and goodness shine through more profoundly than anywhere else. And this giddy, bouncing anthem is uplifting enough for you not to bother questioning what karma hitting you on the head actually feel like? Up there with the best songs Lennon ever wrote.

The Sex Pistols’ first single was bundled out within weeks of their signing by an EMI keen to strike while the phlegm was flying. ‘Anarchy In The UK’ was – and is – an incendiary blast of noise, spite and fury, a suitable overture and a sneering threat to a quaking establishment. It wasn’t long before they were drafted onto Thames Television’s Today show, just in time to swear at Bill Grundy. Record Business produced its own rival list of the best-selling singles of the 1970s for the BMRB's chief competitor, the Market Research Information Bureau (MRIB). This chart was broadcast on Capital Radio (the leading UK independent radio station of the time) on 1 January 1980, the day after the BMRB/Radio 1 chart. Although the chart was unsurprisingly similar to the Record Business list that had appeared in the BPI Year Book just a few months before, there were still some changes.Records of the Decade". Music Week. London, England: Morgan-Grampian Publications: 1. 22 December 1979. Leigh, Spencer (20 February 1998). "Music: Charting the number ones that somehow got away". The Independent. London . Retrieved 5 August 2010. There’s a rice paper’s difference between each T. Rex riff, isn’t there? But who gives a hoot when Marc Bolan can clip them as funky as his work on ‘Get It On’, a chart-chomping monster of an effort that helped form the foundations of T. Rex’s annexation of Britain’s No.1 spot. Covered to lumpen effect by Robert Palmer/Duran Duran/Chic supergroup Power Station in 1985. Woo-woo!” The Pips’ deathless contribution to one of Gladys Knight’s best loved tunes is an impression of a steam train. All the rest of the song’s swinging soul power is down to Knight’s convincing devotion to a man whose dreams of LA stardom have gone tits up, and Jim Weatherly’s less-is-more lyric: “ I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mine“. Devastating. Post Beatles, Harrison’s hymn to the Hare Krishna religion was filled with a sunny spirituality which reflected not just a hope for a post Fab Four world, but also for the new decade, despite the hippy dream being over.