Eighteen months ago, a Facebook friend commented on a posting of a WLS Chicago survey from February 1974. The No. 1 song was Terry Jacks, “Seasons in the Sun.” The No. 2 song was the theme from The Way We Were by Barbra Streisand. The two songs at the top of that list went on, in reverse order, to become Billboard’s top two songs of the year. “This, in my opinion, is the playlist that killed AM Top 40 radio,” wrote veteran PD/station owner Pat “Martin” Lopeman.
Whatever your feelings about the hits of the ‘70s, 1974 is often considered their epicenter. “Seasons in the Sun” is always the first and most galvanizing reference. It’s practically the song that Barry Scott’s “The Lost 45s!” specialty show was invented for. Before “Reservoir Dogs,” Rhino Records’ ‘70s compilations, or SiriusXM’s ‘70s on 7. “The Lost 45s!” was the first place to address ‘70s pop as an entity in any way other than “thank God it’s gone.” Jacks was Scott’s first guest, and “Seasons” is still the all-time champ on the show’s Labor Day Weekend Top 100. It has also made other appearances in this column.
1974 is a year of oddball provocations, from “Annie’s Song” to “The Night Chicago Died” to the debut of “Abra-Ca-Dabra” by the DeFranco Family; (the latter didn’t make Billboard’s Top 100 of the year, but it is in the top 10 at WLS). But 1974 is also a great year for R&B (“For the Love of Money,” “Hollywood Swingin’,” “Tell Me Something Good,” “Mighty Love”) and the year in rock that gave us “The Joker,” “Band on the Run,” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” And if you’re one of those people nostalgic for a time when “Top 40 played it all,” it’s definitely one of those years.
1974 produced dozens of hits that should have found a place when the “good time oldies” format moved from the ‘60s to the ‘70s–“Come and Get Your Love,” “Waterloo,” “Dancing Machine,” “Rock On,” “Smokin’ in the Boys Room,” “Rock Your Baby,” “Rock the Boat.” Only a few of those found a home even at the format’s fringes; now Classic Hits is mostly living in the ‘80s anyway. Scott says this year’s “Lost 45s!” countdown will evenly split between ‘70s and ‘80s, but 1974 will maintain a strong presence, given the iconic nature of many of that year’s hits.
In a year that stretched from “Eres Tu” to “Radar Love,” the rockin’ pop records of mid-‘70s screaming Top 40 aren’t the songs with 1974’s highest “Lost Factor”—our calculation of which songs traveled the furthest between saturation airplay then and negligible airplay today. Even “Seasons in the Sun” only finishes at No. 36 in our calculations. “The Night Chicago Died,” another one of the year’s top provocations, is No. 48. The Blue Swede version of “Hooked on a Feeling” is actually the No. 21 most-played song of the year’s Billboard Top 100 hits.
The two songs that do have the highest “Lost Factor” of the year are songs that would undoubtedly be controversial lyrically today, in part because they were controversial in 1974. “(You’re) Having My Baby” by Paul Anka is No. 1 with a Lost Factor of 73, higher than any “Lost Factor” number from the 1980s, although still short of the perfect 100 score for 1960’s “Theme From A Summer Place.” We haven’t announced rankings for the entire ‘70s yet, but when we do, Anka’s hit will be the newest song in a top 10 otherwise dominated by 1970-72 titles. Mac Davis’s “One Hell of a Woman,” a song that drew similar accusations of chauvinism, is second with a 46 score.
Here are the top “lost factor” hits of 1974, based on points for their standing for the year divided by the number of plays they receive now. In parenthesis is the “lost factor,” followed by the number of spins the songs received in the U.S. and Canada according to BDS in the week prior to my calculations.
- Paul Anka, “(You’re) Having My Baby” (lost factor 73, spins for the week 1)
- Mac Davis, “One Hell of a Woman” (46, 2)
- Jim Stafford, “Spiders and Snakes” (43, 2)
- Cher, “Dark Lady” (34, 2)
- O’Jays, “Put Your Hands Together” (33, 0)
- Helen Reddy, “Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)” (30, 1)
- Ray Stevens, “The Streak” (23, 4)
- Mike Oldfield, “Tubular Bells (Theme From ‘The Exorcist)” (22, 0)
- Donny & Marie Osmond, “I’m Leaving It (All) Up to You” (20, 0)
- Bo Donaldson & Heywoods, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” (20, 4)
- Sister Janet Mead, “The Lord’s Prayer” (15, 0)
- Lamont Dozier, “Trying to Hold On to My Woman” (14, 0)
- Ringo Starr, “Oh My My” (14, 2)
- Marvin Hamlisch, “The Entertainer (Music From The Sting)” (13, 4)
- Barbra Streisand, “The Way We Were” (11, 9)
Streisand, like other ‘70s MOR artists, is becoming a familiar presence in our “Lost Factor” articles. When we looked at the Lost Factor for 1977 songs, “Evergreen” was a rare exception of a megahit now lost to time. It was the No. 4 song of 1977, but still made our top 15 most lost. But “The Way We Were” was the No. 1 song of its year.
The rest of the top 15 fits with established themes among songs with high lost factors: novelties (“Spiders And Snakes,” “The Streak”); teen acts (Donny & Marie, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” the latter of which sort of ticks the novelty box as well); instrumental movie themes from The Exorcist and The Sting); female pop/MOR acts (Cher, Helen Reddy, Streisand, although Lost Factor perennial Olivia Newton-John doesn’t make her first appearance this year until No. 39).
As is also the case in most of the early ‘70s calculations I’ve done, there are also a couple of R&B titles among the top 15 — “Put Your Hands Together” and “Tryin’ to Hold on to My Woman” — that I don’t regard as in any way risible. Both were songs that didn’t cross over in every market. Where they did, neither typically reached power rotation — another distinguishing factor of many of the songs that are the most lost now. The former also had the issue of being overshadowed by the O’Jays single that followed, “For the Love of Money.”
Here are the songs with more than 100 spins for the previous week that now punch above their weight — getting the most monitored spins at broadcast radio, compared to their year-end placing for 1974. (Incredibly, “Sweet Home Alabama,” a fall release, falls between the cracks and does not make the year-end chart for either 1974 or 1975, joining 1977’s “Brick House” and 1970’s “I Think I Love You” among the most flagrant omissions.)
- Steve Miller Band, “The Joker”
- Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “Takin’ Care of Business”
- Elton John, “Bennie and the Jets”
- Golden Earring, “Radar Love”
- Elton John, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”
Just for fun, I created my own 1974 playlist without many of the most flagrant provocations (although your mileage may differ). Check out “1974 Without Apologies.”
Thanks for the kind mention Sean! Indeed, “The Lost 45s” plays all those tunes–plus overlooked charted
’74 gems like “Star” by Stealers Wheel & “So You are a Star” by the Hudson Brothers. Listeners have a capacity to remember more tunes than Classic Hits PDs give them credit for and zealously support “The Lost 45s” brand because of this. It’s almost always #1 in all 25+ demos (since 1986) at stations across the country. Just recorded the 10,053rd artist interview as well, so listeners can hear stories about the records from the artists themselves (Casey Kasem sometimes got facts wrong from PR sheets he was sent at the time). To be the music authority of the 70s and 80s, you can’t spin just 300 songs. This specialty show gives stations a chance to play them all, proving they are the true authority of the era. Can’t keep pretending that Leo Sayer & Culture Club don’t exist. Listeners will no longer trust you. Why not be able to tell them that yeah, “Driver’s Seat” (Sniff ‘n’ the Tears) can be heard on this weekend’s specialty show? By the way, Paul Roberts of the group explains their name this week on the program. Thanks again Sean! -Barry https://www.lost45.com
I would also say that “Sweet Home Ala-bummer” (as I like to call it) is perhaps one of the most-played Classic Rock tracks of all time. Personally my reaction to it is not unlike what Merry Clayton had to say in the documentary “20 Feet From Stardom” 🙂
Concerning instrumental themes, I’ve wondered whether some of that era’s Moog-heavy game-show themes could’ve theoretically worked as actual singles–even though I acknowledge that they never would’ve actually been released as such. That includes Perrey and Kingsley’s “The Savers” (which was recorded a few years before, but was being used at the time as the original theme for “The Joker’s Wild”), several of Score Productions’ then-current compositions (most notably, the ones by Edd Kalehoff), and perhaps even Mort Garson’s work for Heatter-Quigley.
Even if I weren’t a fan of old game shows, something like this edit/recreation of the ’70s theme to “Tattletales” might still work better than “Tubular Bells”…
I believe a person’s opinion about the music of 1974 correlates directly with their feelings about Jim Stafford having three songs in the year end top 100.
This was the year I graduated high school and I remember us thinking how great most of those songs were.
Now, I have to say I’m not surprised they don’t get more airplay in regular rotation, because those members of my graduating class that I am still in touch with wonder “what were we thinking”?
This is NOT meant as a slam against Barry Scott. He is great at what he does, and weekend programs that go beyond the regular playlist are an important part of most Classic Hits stations. But please, Barry … the comments about PDs “not giving credit to the listeners for” is disingenuous when you know perfectly well that research dictates what belongs in regular rotation (the ones listeners want to hear over and over) and what belongs in accent programs such as your fine show (the ones that would be burnt to a crisp if we played them more frequently).
I, for one, cringe when I hear the unmistakable opening of that happy little song about death that Sean references at the outset.
Abba itself has been polarizing. I think entire movies have been made about this. Nonetheless, from later on in their career, “The Visitors” is a tremendously underappreciated tune.
But back to 1974. The quote, “This, in my opinion, is the playlist that killed AM Top 40 radio,” resonated. That was the year I switched most of my listening to progressive rock radio (including the legendary KSHE). I was a year from graduating from high school, so it kind of figures. That’s why I don’t remember all these tunes. But any format that not just found room for Ray Stevens, but that kept serving him up time and again, certainly earned its eventual downfall.
In the case of “Tubular Bells”, the issue isn’t kitschiness. Oldfield has been a very hard-to-classify artist, and music radio is about nothing but pigeonholes, Top 40’s occasional range notwithstanding. You wouldn’t expect a station limiting itself to three-minute tunes to really “get” Tubular Bells, which, after all, was an entire album. True story, though: one night in the early 1980s, I was tuning around the AM dial late at night, and encountered the Tubular Bells album. Not just the song, but the whole thing. It was on Société Radio-Canada, i.e. the French CBC!
In any event, 1974 was extreme in both some really memorable and enjoyable tunes and others that are fit only for a Trump rally. (I agree with Mike about “Sweet Home Alabama”…we all have our bêtes noires….)
Sean,
The a Spotify link at the end of this article for “1974 Without Apologies” is actually pointing to playlist “Fixing 1980”. Here is the correct link:
https://open.spotify.com/user/marsneedsscoop/playlist/6yirEN3gL0Cs9TELjat0J5?si=-ZKvpdtFT_maGJwfFAzfGg
1974…..the summer before my senior year. Working at a restaurant and enjoying the freedom of driving my 1966 Chrysler, just as “Energy Crisis ’74” was about to hit the radio and gas prices.
My selective memory remembers it sounding like a fun summer on top 40 radio.. My listening was split between CKLW,, WMEE in Fort Wayne by day; and when both of them switched pattern, WL:S, and WCFL. On the FM dial we had “Rock 95, WPTH (TM Stereo Rock) and WLBC-FM, Muncie with Drake-Chenault’s “Solid Gold”
Gary Burbank had just made the move from New Orleans to The Big 8. I seem to remember pulling into the parking lot at work to “Rock Your Baby” by George McRae into Burbank’s “Right Rev. Deuteronomy Scaggs” sermon. Some of the songs I particularly remember were “Rock the Boat”-Hues Corp, “On and On’-Gladys Knight and the Pips, “Radar Love”-Golden Earring, Johnny Bristol’s “Hang On In there Baby” and yeah—the awful “You’re Having My Baby”. A couple of tunes I particularly remember from CKLW was “Walk On” from Neil Young (Can-con) and the anti-Nixon “Fish Ain’t Bitin’ from Lamont Dozier. I don’t know if that was a local Detroit hit or had something about it that qualified it for Can-Con.
“Seasons in the Sun”–it’s still hard to get away from.. (Check out Rod McKeun’s English original—-it’s really dark and depressing)
“Tryin’ To Hold On To My Woman” (#15 nationally) and “Fish Ain’t Bitin'” (#26) were two of many R&B smashes that were far bigger at CKLW than in most places, driven by the station’s legendary attention to record sales. “Woman” went 10-1 at CKLW. “Fish” went to at least #6. Most weren’t Cancon although there were a few odd ones that counted (e.g., Detroit Emeralds, “You Want It You Got It”). I love both songs and it pains me to see “Woman” among the top “Lost Factor” hits, but I think relatively few markets heard it and it certainly wasn’t top 10 many other places (Cleveland, Louisville, New Orleans). But interesting that singles sales and the airplay that it did have made it bigger for the week and the year than “Piano Man.”
“Fish” is one of my favorite songs of that year; I only ever heard it on AT40 as it went ignored in NYC. And I’ve yet to come across an un-bleeped version. 🙂 BTW, I think the “dark and depressing” version of “Seasons” being referenced above is the original English translation of Jacques Brel’s Fremch lyric, recorded by others including Pearls Before Swine. It is indeed a great song — the narrator is middle-aged and he’s saying goodbye to his cheating wife and his crooked business partner — but it was McKuen who wrote the sappy hit version.
Regarding “Seasons in the Sun”, here’s the Kingston Trio’s version (from 1963)–which I vaguely remember hearing once a few decades ago (possibly on an in-flight music service) and then misremembered it being by the Weavers…