Since I've been listening to lots of music from 1978 while putting together a CD set, I thought other people might want to hear what people were listening to that year as well.
Bob Welch, “Sentimental Lady,” #8, January 8, 1978
Welch made a smart move by recycling one of his best Fleetwood Mac songs for his first solo album (after two flop LPs with a power trio, Paris, which no doubt confused his fans). He made a better move by bringing in Mac mates Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, and Lindsey Buckingham (who joined the band after Welch left, actually replacing him) to work on the song. Nowadays Welch has no communication with them (apparently he was excluded from the membership list for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), but back then anything any member of Fleetwood Mac appeared on pretty much guaranteed a Top 20 hit. The resulting publicity (plus a paucity of other rock albums at the time) made Welch’s album French Kiss a surprise smash.
Bay City Rollers, “The Way I Feel Tonight,” #24, January 8, 1978
The Rollers’ last Top 40 entry – heck, their last entry on the American singles charts at all – is a drippy ballad that could have been recorded by half the artists in the Arista stable (no surprise; the album was produced by Harry Maslin, who later produced many of Air Supply’s hits). Hard to believe they made four studio albums after this one.
Diana Ross, “Gettin’ Ready for Love,” #27, January 8, 1978
Given that “Love Hangover” had been a huge #1 hit nine months before, the first single from Ross’ new album peaking below the top 20 was kind of a disaster. One of the problems Ross has always had is she almost never sticks with the same producers from one album to the next, so you never get the same sound. This was produced by Richard Perry after Carly Simon and Ringo Starr, but before The Pointer Sisters, so he probably didn’t have a handle on how to handle middle-of-the-road R&B just yet. It’s also a little too “girly,” given Ross was nearly 34 years old at the time.
Cheech & Chong, “Bloat On (Featuring The Bloaters),” #41, January 8, 1978
Parody of The Floaters’ “Float On” and a salute/warning to overeating, which probably would have benefited by appearing on an album quickly after its release (C&C had some label issues, so the single came out on Ode Records, but didn’t appear on an album until two years later on Warner Brothers). Comedy records were having a tough time making Top 40, and the belching at the top and end of the record probably put off some radio stations. Shame, since it’s pretty funny on the whole, and is a good reminder that Tommy Chong is also a damn good musician – he’d been in the Motown band Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers (“Does Your Mother Know About Me”) for a long time, including when they were known as Four [gross euphemism for black men] and a [gross euphemism for a Chinese man].
Cheech & Chong And The Bloaters. Bloat On.1977 by capitainfunkk
KC & The Sunshine Band, “Wrap Your Arms Around Me,” #48, January 8, 1978
The start of a fallow period for KC and the guys – five of their previous seven singles went to either #1 or #2, but this started a run of six singles that didn’t break Top 30. It doesn’t sound significantly different than the others, so it’s hard to say why, except maybe market oversaturation – too much disco from other artists, and too much KC in too short a period.
Eric Carmen, “Boats Against the Current,” #88, January 8, 1978
Pretty but inconsequential mopey ballad that suffered in comparison with Carmen’s big hit in a similar vein, “All by Myself.” I’m sure a few people were wondering, “Is this the same guy from The Raspberries?”
David Castle, “The Loneliest Man on the Moon,” #89, January 8, 1978
Never heard this one before looking it up on YouTube; it's out of print. And, well, it's definitely different. Castle's one and only hit.
The Alan Parsons Project, “Don’t Let It Show,” #92, January 8, 1978
A good ballad that never should have been released as a single, from their breakthrough album I Robot. It took a couple of years for Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson to write songs that would work on Top 40 radio.
Player, “Baby Come Back,” #1, January 15, 1978
Standard pop-rock single notable because a lot of people thought it was Hall & Oates. It has a little similarity to “She’s Gone,” I suppose, but while lead singer Peter Beckett has a similar range to Daryl Hall, he has none of the latter’s vocal characteristics. Huge hit from RSO Records in between huge hits from their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
Dolly Parton, “Here You Come Again,” #3, January 15, 1978
Parton’s first big Top 40 pop hit, but the singer-songwriter went elsewhere for this one; it’s written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, who had been around since the Brill Building in the early 1960s. Parton’s voice was certainly unique for top 40 radio at the time; a lot of listeners (like myself) undoubtedly thought she was a new artist, and didn’t realize she’d been hitting the country charts for 10 years.
Rod Stewart, “You’re in My Heart (The Final Acclaim),” #4, January 15, 1978
Stewart’s big hit off Foot Loose and Fancy Free, near the peak of his popularity, and back when he actually wrote what he sang. I hated this song when it first came out, and I’m still put off by the lyrics today(yes, “lyrical” and “physical” rhyme, but man, is that an awkward lyric). Not even sure who’s it’s written to – the disparaged “big-bosomed lady with the Dutch accent” is clearly his ex Britt Eklund, but I don’t think it was Alana Hamilton, whom he would marry in 1979, that was in his heart at the time.
Shaun Cassidy, “Hey Deanie,” #7, January 15, 1978
Oh good, Eric Carmen again. Except he only wrote this one. Cassidy’s third and last Top 10 hit, as the momentum from The Hardy Boys Mysteries was starting to wear down. Not a bad piece of pop-rock, actually; Cassidy’s songs were a little less agonizing than those of other teen idol pop stars. (Yes, I’m talking to you, Leif Garrett and Donny Osmond.)
Wings, “Girls School,” #33, January 15, 1978
Here’s one most of us in the good ol’ USA missed altogether. This was released as the B-side of “Mull of Kintyre,” McCartney’s tribute to his Scottish home, which was a gigantic hit all over the world, hitting #1 in five countries (and it’s still the fourth-biggest selling single in the UK ever). But here in America, it held no interest – so DJs flipped the single over and started playing the trifle “Girls School” instead. That broke Top 40 (barely), but considering how hot the band had been over the previous few years, it was considered a flop. It was left off the subsequent album London Town (as was “Mull of Kintyre”), and has only been released since (to my knowledge) on a 1993 London Town rerelease. Wikipedia also notes Capitol Records’ lack of promotional enthusiasm for Paul that year helped lead to his temporary exit for Columbia Records in 1979.
Peter Frampton, “Tried to Love,” #41, January 15, 1978
Last and least of the three singles from I’m in You, following the title track and a remake of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours).” 1978 wasn’t a particularly good year for Frampton, who had this “hit” and his acting debut in the wretched Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie (well, I’ve heard it’s wretched; I’ve never actually seen it) to his credit. If Mick Jagger's on the record, he's buried in the mix.
Millie Jackson, “If You’re Not Back in Love by Monday,” #43, January 15, 1978
Odd that an R&B star with a taste for raunchy lyrics would have a big hit with a Merle Haggard ballad, but 1970s music was nothing if not unpredictable. Jackson’s career has been long and varied, but this song was one of her bigger hits, and also one of her last. She should have had a hit with her 1985 duet with Elton John, “Act of War,” but it started up slowly in the US and Geffen Records left it off the subsequent LP Ice on Fire. (It’s still pretty hard to find here.)
John Denver, “How Can I Leave You Again,” #44, January 15, 1978
One in a string of flop singles for Denver after 1975. Before that, he’d had four #1s (“Sunshine on My Shoulders,” “Annie’s Song,” “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” and “I’m Sorry”), a #2, and a #5 out of seven singles (the only lesser hit was the #13 “Sweet Surrender”). After the #13 “Fly Away” in early 1976, however, the world seemed to tire of Denver simultaneously, and he never again registered a Top 20 hit. This is a pretty confessional, but nothing that would make anyone jump out of their chair and run to the local record store.
Al Martino, “The Next Hundred Years,” #49, January 15, 1978
Seriously? Al Martino charted in 1978? The last of his long run of charts hits, and a little gimmicky at that. Love the video thought -- from the old show Dinah!
Cat Stevens, “Was Dog a Doughnut,” #70, January 15, 1978
So odd you have to wonder if Stevens was tired of the pop music grind long before his conversion. Eons from “Morning Has Broken.”
Ronnie Milsap, “What a Difference You’ve Made in My Life,” #80, January 15, 1978
Bleurgh. One of those songs that would have made me reach for the next push button on the car radio the second it started to play (not that WABC or WNBC were playing this song anyway). One in a tremendous string of Top 10 country hits that ran unbroken between 1974 and 1991, but as far as the pop charts were concerned, an unsuccessful followup to 1977’s “It Was Almost Like a Song.”
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