Today’s playlist celebrates the November 30 birthdays of Generation X’s Billy Idol, Shuggie Otis, Peter Paul and Mary’s Noel Paul Stookey, No Age’s Dean Allen Spunt, The Pointer Sisters’ June Pointer, The Runaways’ Cherie Currie, Whodini’s Jalil, Luther Ingram, The Beloved’s Jon Marsh, The Grass Roots’ Rob Grill, Des’ree, Frank Ifield, Allan Sherman, and American Bandstand‘s Dick Clark.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Facebook
Follow Tunes du Jour on Twitter
Follow me on Instagram
This week’s Throwback Thursday playlist focuses on 1976. It’s easy to remember some of the cheesier songs to make the pop chart (I’ve included examples of those), though there were a lot of great hits as well. Disco was still growing in popularity and having an influence on r&b and pop music. Punk rock was now on major labels, though it wouldn’t influence the pop chart for a while. Pick out the gems of 1976’s output and you’ll have a nice selection of tunes, as evidenced below.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Facebook.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Twitter.
Follow me on Instagram.
Inspired by the season and the November 30 birthdays of June Pointer, Allan Sherman, Billy Idol, Whodini’s Jalil, Shuggie Otis, Des’ree, Luther Ingram, The Runaways’ Cherie Currie, and Dick Clark.
Inspired by Black Music Month, LGBTQ Pride Month, the June 5 birthdays of The Psychedelic Furs’ Richard Butler, Badfinger’s Tom Evans, Ronnie Dyson, Laurie Anderson, Aesop Rock, Marky Mark, and Cherish’s Felisha and Fallon King; and the June 4 birthdays of The Mamas and the Papas’ Michelle Phillips, Freddy Fender, Peter & Gordon’s Gordon Waller, El DeBarge and Devin the Dude.
In October of 1975, the band Queen played for their manager, John Reid, a song they recently finished recording that they wanted to release as their next single. Reid told them the track would not get any airplay. He played it for another artist he managed, Elton John, who reportedly said “Are you mad? You’ll never get that on the radio!”
Queen stayed firm, not relenting when their record company begged them to at least edit the song down from its nearly six-minute duration.
To promote the song, the band was invited to play on England’s hugely successful Top of the Pops television program. They were unable to appear due to tour commitments, so they did something that wasn’t very common in 1975 – they filmed a videoclip. Top of the Pops aired the clip. As the song rose up the charts, the video was shown repeatedly. Soon other artists in the UK made videos for their records, which is why when MTV launched in the United States in 1981, many of the clips they aired were of UK acts.
The single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” went to #1 in England in December of that year, where it stayed for nine weeks. It got knocked from the top spot by a song whose title consisted of a phrase used in “Bohemian Rhapsody” – ABBA’s “Mamma Mia.” “Bohemian Rhapsody” hit #1 again there in December of 1991, a few weeks after the death of the band’s lead singer and the song’s composer, Freddie Mercury.
In the United States, the song didn’t go to #1, but it did hit the top ten in 1976 and 1992.
For this week’s Throwback Thursday playlist, Tunes du Jour revisits 1976 (part I can be found here), kicking off with the Queen classic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Click here to like Tunes du Jour on Facebook!
Follow me on Twitter: @TunesDuJour
Follow me on Instagram: @GlennSchwartz