I Love #1s - 1958

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Last week we saw that 1986 was a smashing year for number ones, with Diana Ross, Falco and Europe all getting 30 ticks or more. However Queen Madge reigned supreme with 36 ticks for Papa Don't Preach. Now intrepid poll-tickers, cast your minds back.... It's 1958 and rock'n'roll is in full swing! OR IS IT?

[Poll #782959]

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Connie Francis! What DECADE were you living in, wumman??

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I have only heard three of these. I am a bad poptimist. A rocktimist, if you will.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I have heard NONE of these! Not one!

Genius!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

It's a bra' bricht moonlicht nicht!

Re: Genius!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

greatest Scottish song of the C20th.

A rock1st spekes

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

Hoots Mon is not better than Jailhouse Rock. Really. Come on.

Re: A rock1st spekes

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes it is. JHR sounds like a million other Elvish songs. Hoots Mon is UNIQUE.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised by how many I DO know and like!

But I don't think I've heard Michael Holliday, Connie Francis, Kalin Twins or Tommy Edwards.

I keep remembering Freddie Starr performing 'It's Only Make Believe' on TV once so could not tickit.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

What sort of a name is Conway Twitty, anyway?

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Most of these are songs I really know primarily (or only) from mail order albums advertised during weekend daytime television (in the pre-cable era!) with names like "20 Golden Voices." Conway Twitty is, I believe, one of the All Time Greats of County Music.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

All time grate of c*nty music more like. Twitty was the James Blunt of his day, loathed by rock'n'rollers, beatniks and swing fans equally.

[(Anonymous)]

...but not in this era. He was a Sun Records rockabilly cat with country roots who went pure country in the mid-60s. Recorded some great duets with Loretta Lynn.

The Story of My Life

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Anyone remember a band from the 80s called Social Distortion? Kind of a cross between punk and rockabilly, albeit aimed at radio play. They had a hit called "The Story of My Life" and it's all I can think of when I see that time.

Re: The Story of My Life

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I think one of them works 2 floors below me.

Everley Bros

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

They were actually pretty good, weren't they?

All I Have To Do Is Dream
Bye Bye Love
Wake Up Little Susie

ALL GOLD

Re: Everley Bros

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Yes they were. Also I saw them with Simon and Garfunkels in Hype Park a year or two back.

Is this Pop?

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

This era was so different, the word "pop" seems wholly inappropriate. When did the Pop Era actually begin?

Re: Is this Pop?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

When Mum Records eg Perry Como stopped getting to no 1

Re: Is this Pop?

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Hoots Mon is so clearly pop. Ditto Jailhouse Rock.

Re: Is this Pop?

[mippy.livejournal.com]

1963, no? First Beatles record. Even Philip Larkin wrote a poem about it, and he was too cornish to be remotely pop.

Re: Is this Pop?

[koganbot]

I don't understand the question or many of the answers (for which I blame the question, not myself). The popular culture era begins in the 1910s with the great popularity of movies; music joins this in the Roaring Twenties when record sales explode. But pop music becomes its own territory/force somewhat in opposition to the rest of popular culture in the late '40s early '50s with the advent of rock 'n' roll, sort of a mass teen netherworld, though not uncomplicatedly so, given that the word "pop" was used for the Como stuff that rock 'n' roll was supposedly displacing, but rock 'n' roll drew heavily on this pop anyway, and Elvis is such a complex figure in that he strove for pop legitimacy and antipop legitimacy simultaneously. (And Elvis may have dominated the teen landscape emotionally, but that doesn't mean he was the most popular: I read a poll of teens from an Illinois high school in 1958 where Pat Boone beat Elvis decisively, especially among the girls.) And rock 'n' roll was generally considered by its nonfans as the worst manifestation of pop rather than as something other than pop.

So the word "pop" already had multiple usages, e.g. anything that was popular (including rock 'n' roll and r&b when it crossed to the pop charts), but also only the "old" Como stuff that rock 'n' roll was sort of challenging/displacing (as opposed to rock 'n' roll and r&b).

In the novel Blackboard Jungle the kids want to hear Perry Como and they smash that teachers' snooty jazz records; in the movie version a couple years later it's rock 'n' roll they want to hear.

The number ones on this chart pull from both pre-rock 'n' roll pop and rock 'n' roll. I don't see what's particularly strange about that, though I'm sure the charts undercounted rock 'n' roll and r&b.

The rise of TV helped the rise of rock 'n' roll/pop as its own territory, in that TV displaced radio as the form for serial narratives, leaving the radio open to be seized by music aimed at teens.

Anyway, that pop music era probably dies in the mid '80s when rock and pop are basically embraced by TV, and the teen movie thing gets way bigger than it had been previously (though obv. it had existed since the '50s).

I'm not answering your question, am I? You mean when did the current pop music era begin, right? But I don't think we're in a pop music era right now in the way that the Sixties and Seventies were a pop music era, i.e., pop music had an impact different from the culture as a whole. Pop music is all over everywhere, both mainstream and in myriad different subcultures, squirting in and out of the mass attention. I guess one could claim that hip-hop and r&b are in the old rock 'n' roll position, but it's hard to really match up the old landscape and the new.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

According to Everyhit.com "Great Balls Of Fire" was #1 this year too. Bit of an omission if so as it's better than anything else here :)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Rly? Is that not Dec 57?

[juror8.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed that no emo band has covered "Stupid Cupid" yet.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I've just remembered how ace Hoots Mon is.

But: the best cover ever is Eilert Pilarm's version of Jailhouse Rock. Or Yaelhouseroq as he has it.