The Season 14 contemporary music thread

[Stephen Morgan]

I couldn't let this thread go without my usual contribution to seventies contemporary music, especially as 1976 was such a mixed bag musically, and generally looked upon as a year of change.
1976 started off with Queen's humungous hit, Bohemian Rhapsody at number one before being replaced by Swedish giants ABBA with the second of their nine number ones, Mamma Mia. After almost two years in the wilderness of pop after their popular Eurovision win with Waterloo, Mamma Mia really set ABBA on the road to seventies superstardom, as we shall see later in this thread.
As I stated, 1976 was a bit of a mixed bag, those of you here following the Top of the Pops repeats from '76 on BBC4 will have already seen some of the novelty hits that appeared in the charts from Brotherhood of Man and The Worzels, and the hits that came throughout that famous long hot summer that year.
As Season 14 begins we have ABBA's Dancing Queen at number one, it went on to spend six weeks at that position having replaced Elton John and Kiki Dee's huge summer hit Don't Go Breaking My Heart, which itself had spent six weeks at number one.
Other good records in the charts for the week ending 4th September come from Manfred Mann with Springsteen's Blinded By The Light a new entry at 26. We find former 60's model Twiggy launching her pop career with a Country Joe and the Fish cover, Here I Go Again at 24, it peaks a few weeks later at number 17.
Cliff Richard is at number 23 with the third hit from his best selling album I'm Nearly Famous, I Can't Ask For Anything More Than You Babe.
There were a load of disco records in the charts at this time too, disco had been bubbling for about two years and was still to make a huge impact on the charts, but here we have hits from: The Real Thing, Barry White, The Bee Gees, Jesse Green, Tina Charles, Lou Rawls, The Stylistics, The Chi Lites, KC and the Sunshine Band and a delightful record from 5000 Volts entitled Dr Kiss Kiss, their lead singer, the lovely Linda Kelly, gives a wonderfully sexy performance of the song on at least five ocassions on Top Of The Pops.
I can't leave this post without mention of David Dundas with Jeans on, A track that peaked at number three. The song was originally a jingle for Levi Jeans and featured in a successful, and iconic, TV ad. The song was made into a complete single and would have topped the charts if not for Elt and Kiki.
I should also make mention of one of the first gay "love songs" in Rod Stewart's The Killing of Georgie, a six minute opus telling the true-life story of a gay acquaintance of Rod's, Georgie, who was killed by a New Jersey street gang in New York City. Although the song's lyrics state that Rod last saw Georgie in 1975, this was done for rhyming reasons only, his death actually occurring in 1974.
The song performed well in many major markets. peaking at #2 in the UK singles chart in September 1976, and at #30 in the US in July 1977.

More facts and reminscences as we move through season 14 contemporary music later.