Any Hits Major from 1974 Vol. 2
Lately I have been reading a lot about the summer of 1974. This year marked the 50th anniversary of West Germany winning the football World Cup, which the country also hosted. I was eight years old and approached the tournament with as much wide-eyed excitement as I do modern sports with squinting cynicism. Hence my wide reading on the subject.
In my memory, the summer of 1974 was long and filled with nothing but sunshine and all the fun that brings. The reports from the World Cup suggests otherwise. In June and July, the weather was wet and awful. But photos in the family album testify to some hot days, and the music does the rest.
There was a lot of sunshine music in 1974. George McCrae’s Rock Your Baby was the big summer hit in Europe, and as summer faded, The Hues Corporation’s Rock The Boat was ubiquitous. But even the winter hits sounded like they come from summer.
This mix reflects an upbeat mood, though early in the sequence we have a double-whammy of downbeatness provided by Hot Chocolate’s tragic Emma, whose protagonist dies by suicide, and Gigliola Cinquetti’s Go (Before You Break My Heart). The latter was titled Si in the Italian original, which was the runner-up to ABBA’s Waterloo in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest (read all about that contest in the text for Any Major ABBA Songbook). Cinquetti’s English version reached #8 in the UK.
ABBA feature later in the mix with I Do I Do I Do I Do, a song that exposes the profound influence of schlager music on the Swedes. It was a Top 10 hit throughout Europe, and topped the charts in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, but stalled at #38 in the UK. Surprisingly, the song, hardly ABBA’s finest moment, reached #15 in the US Billboard Top 100, doing better than Mamma Mia, Money Money Money, Chiquitita, Gimme Gimme Gimme or Super Trouper.
This compilation follows Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1, which reflected the US experience of the charts; this lot draws from the US and European charts, though on both playlists there are obviously songs that were hits on both sides of the Atlantic. It is sequenced in a roughly chronological order, according to the UK charts, kicking off with Who Do You Think You Are, a #21 hit in the UK for Candlewick Green but in the US in the cover version by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods (and much later a hit for Saint Etienne). The mix ends with a track by Italian singer Drupi which wasn’t a hit in the UK but was huge in Germany and other parts of Europe. Drupi had hit the UK Top 20 in 1973 with Vado Via.
Recently I watched a video of The Rubettes performing Sugar Baby Love on German TV. It’s a great pop song, but seeing lead singer Alan Williams lip-synching the falsetto parts as if he had actually sung them in the studio was a bit off. Sugar Baby Love is one of those songs that preceded the formation of the group to which it was credited; the Rubettes were initially really a bunch of session musicians, and Williams was a backing vocalist on the recording. The lead vocals on the record were performed by Paul Da Vinci, but when he declined to be a Rubette, Wiliams became the frontman.
The song was initially offered to Showaddywaddy (also featured here with the thumping Hey Rock & Roll), but they turned it down, despite the backing vocals that go “oop-showaddy showaddywaddy”. At that point the producers told the session musicians that they could have Sugar Baby Love, provided they form a group. The Rubettes went on to top the charts with the song in the UK, West Germany, Netherlands and other countries, and had six further UK Top 20 hits, most of them riffing on the 1950s nostalgia wave, until their chart career fizzled out in 1977.
Around the same time the run of success of the Bay City Rollers came to an end. The biggest teen band of the 1970s became the acme of uncool for the longest time, but a sober reappraisal reveals a string of fine pop records. I made that point many years ago, in 2008.
In Germany, there was a war between the Bay City Rollers and the Sweet. Much as I’m inclined to defend BCR, in a teen-off, Sweet must be the winner. Summerlove Sensation is very good, but The Six Teens is a fantastic song. There were two versions, the album one and the much brighter single version featured here.
Elsewhere, the teen war of 1974 was between BCR fans and those of The Osmonds. In that battle I must have been in the BCR camp, though the toothy Mormons had a few songs that, with the benefit of solemn revision, are stone cold pop classics: Crazy Horses and the featured Love Me For A Reason.
It is interesting to note how well US soul was doing in the UK. Six of the tracks on this mix are soul numbers, including Johnny Bristol with Hang On In There Baby, which climbed up the UK charts to #8 at around the same time The Osmonds were climbing down from the top with Love Me For The Reason — which had been written by Johnny Bristol.
Links for all past mixes in the series are up. If you dig the feel of 1974, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1974 (other years are available, too).
As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-lipsynched covers. PW in comments.
1. Candlewick Green – Who Do You Think You Are
2. Alvin Stardust – Red Dress
3. Slade – Everyday
4. Hot Chocalate – Emma
5. Gigliola Cinquetti – Go (Before You Break My Heart)
6. The Rubettes – Sugar Baby Love
7. Showaddywaddy – Hey Rock And Roll
8. 10cc – The Wall Street Shuffle
9. The Arrows – Touch Too Much
10. The Sweet – The Six Teens
11. Bay City Rollers – Summerlove Sensation
12. George McCrae – Rock Your Baby
13. The Main Ingredient – Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely
14. The Hues Corporation – Rock The Boat
15. The Osmonds – Love Me For A Reason
16. Sweet Sensation – Sad Sweet Dreamer
17. Johnny Bristol – Hang On In There Baby
18. Abba – I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
19. David Essex – Gonna Make You A Star
20. Pilot – Magic
21. Barry White – You’re My First, My Last, My Everything
22. Drupi – Piccola e fragile
Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1
PW = amdwhah
Thanks for this! Some of these I don’t remember at all so guess I’ll have to check them out. Most though I expect that when I hear them I can still sing along every word. Appreciate the time you put into these collections