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Airplay/Streaming (in millions):
-- radio, 27.04 video, 82.03 streaming
Awards:
Click on award for more details.
About the Song:
During the mid-‘70s, a stagnant economy, labor strikes, and the “perpetually drizzly weather that has always afflicted the country” TB contributed to general dissatisfaction amongst British youth and “things seemed to assume a permanent greyness.” TB The Sex Pistols “contempt for their dreary culture and moribund music scene” TB put them at the forefront of the British punk scene.
Then band had generated buzz with their live shows and “the groundswell that was clearly building..for snotty, amateurish rock bands.” TC EMI signed the band and their first single, “Anarchy in the U.K.,” as released in late 1976. It is “what the beginning of a revolution sounds like.” RS500 Its “wit and anger make it the great political protest song of our times.” MC It certainly generated controversy – British radio banned it and EMI “pulled the single and dropped the band, which just made them more notorious. ‘I don’t understand it,’ Rotten said in 1977. ‘All we’re trying to do is destroy everything.’” RS500
The Sex Pistols “were not only sincere in their desire to make rock that smashed rock, but…they were absolutely equal to the task.” MA They “essentially…reinforced what the garage bands of the ‘60s had demonstrated – you don’t need technique to make rock & roll.” TC
Actually, though, while “Anarchy” certainly displayed combative lyrics by opening with “I am an anti-Christ” and ending with “Destroy!” it was otherwise “comparatively familiar, highly competent hard-rock.” TB Steve “Jones made his guitar sound like a pub brawl, while [Johnny] Rotten snarled, spat, [and] snickered” RS500 with an “evil cackle.” RS500 This is a band, which despite its reputation for not being able to play, “understood perfectly how to make rock and roll effects in the recording studio.” MA
Resources:
TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 735.
MA Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New York, NY; New American Library. Pages 72-3.
Airplay/Streaming (in millions):
1.0 radio, 259.14 video, 459.32 streaming
Awards:
Click on award for more details.
About the Song:
“The now-familiar a cappella intro for ‘Carry on Wayward Son’ was the sonic hook that would help Kansas score their first major hit, a feat that was a long time coming for the band. Like many groups in the time period, Kansas toured and recorded relentlessly, supporting three albums that sold modestly despite their growing live following.” UCR
Steve Walsh, the band’s singer, ran into writer’s block while the band was working on their fourth album, 1976’s Leftoverture. However, guitarist Kerry Livgren shared a song he wrote just two days before the band started recording. SF The band was polishing songs they already had and not looking for new ones. When they heard Livgren’s idea for “Carry on Wayward Son,” “they knew the songwriting gold that they had on hand and went straight into the recording studio without even pausing to rehearse the track.” UCR It became the album’s lead track and the group’s first top-40 hit.
The song is about “a man embattled with the voices and visions in his head.” UCR Livgren said it was “partially about himself and the struggles and pressures he was facing at the time when the band's career was on the line.” SF While the song “expresses spiritual searching,” SF Livgren said it “was not written to express anything specifically religious.” SF He did, however, become an evangelical Christian in 1980. SF
The song is notable for its “very distinctive intro” SF with a cappella vocals. It “is driven forward by guitar riffing, organ swells and solos from nearly every member in the band.” UCR Even though the song ran nearly five and a half minutes, it felt “comparatively restrained” UCR “next to some of the proggier moments on Leftoverture.” UCR
Like they had with Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber presented Evita first as a studio album and then developed it into a stage production. It wasn’t a monstrous hit in the U.S. like the studio version of Superstar had been, but in the UK, it spawned a #1 hit with Don’t Cry for Me Argentina and a top 20 hit with Another Suitcase in Another Hall. R-C
For the opera based on the real-life Eva Peron, Webber “naturally drew upon Latin themes, at least of an ersatz sort (On This Night of a Thousand Stars aped Pérez Prado’s 1955 hit ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’), to add to his taste in pop/rock and affection for Puccini.” R-C For his part, Rice “had a big, rich story to tell about a social-climbing peasant who achieves the highest rungs of power, only to succumb to early death.” R-C He used “the fictional Che (based on Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara), to challenge Evita’s ruthlessness. The subject matter attracted the criticism that it glamorized a fascist, but Rice’s very point was to present a cautionary tale about the deceptive appeal of such a person.” R-C
“The choice of Julie Covington, who could negotiate the musical range of the title role and sing without warmth, was perfect; no stage successor matched her willingness to make Evita unsympathetic C.T. (Colm) Wilkinson's Che was her match, and the rest of the cast sang effectively.” R-C
Twenty years later, Madonna took the lead in the film version. She gambled on it establishing her “as a proper movie star and respected actress.” R-S She “gives a startlingly accomplished and nuanced performance,” R-S but it “is impossible to listen to her without getting the impression that she is trying really hard to be credible.” R-S
As such, the soundtrack “remains curiously unengaging,” R-S although it is “an exquisitely produced and expertly rendered” R-S “audio document of the entire film, since there is no dialogue in the movie.” R-S “Even with the faults, Evita has its merits, including the written-for-film ballad You Must Love Me, and is worth investigating. It just isn't the definitive work that it wishes to be.” R-S
Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, -- UK, 1.0 world (includes US + UK)
Airplay/Streaming (in millions):
-- radio, 16.8 video, -- streaming
Awards:
Click on award for more details.
About the Song:
In the Paul Nelson-Lester Bang biography Rod Stewart, critic Greil Marcus said this “is a seduction song so transparent, helpless and forthright that not even a cynic can resist it.” FB However, some program directors initially did exactly that – citing lyrics about the deflowering of a “virgin child” BB and the line “spread your wings and let me come inside” as too sexually explicit. FB The “romantic murmuring in French near the fade-out,” which was voiced by Stewart’s then-girlfriend Britt Ekland, BB was also considered too suggestive. WK Jesse Jackson’s People United to Save Humanity even target the song “as an example of one that was loosening the morals of young people.” SF
Public demand won out in the end and the song became the biggest #1 of 1976. CPM Its eight weeks on top made it the biggest #1 since the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” in November 1968. It was also the biggest hit of Stewart’s career. It was the best-selling song in the United States in 1977. WK In 2018, Billboard ranked the song the 19th biggest in the history of the Hot 100.
Dan Peek says he and Stewart were playing together in Peek’s home recording studio and Peek played him the song “Today’s the Day” from his band America. Stewart said he liked it and it gave him an idea for a song of his own. When Peek heard “Tonight’s the Night,” he laughed and said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’” WK
The famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section played on the song. They had played with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and other famous soul acts. When Stewart arrived at the studio, he refused to believe that these guys were the actual band. He found it difficult to believe “that four white guys could deliver so much soul.” SF
