Little River Band charted with “Cool Change”

Cool Change Little River Band

Writer(s): Glenn Shorrock (see lyrics here) First Charted: October 20, 1979 Peak: 10 US, 13 CB, 3 GR, 12 HR, 5 RR, 8 AC, 15 CL, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 2.0 radio, 22.0 video, 44.74 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Formed in 1975, the rock group Little River Band found success right away, scoring a top-40 hit in the U.S. with “It’s a Long Way There” from their self-titled debut album. Over three subsequent albums, they racked up four more top-40 hits, including the #3 “Reminiscing” and #10 “Lady.” 1979’s First Under the Wire, their fifth album, became their most successful yet, reaching #10 and going platinum. Like its predecessor, it was supported by two top-10 U.S. hits. The first single, “Lonesome Loser,” reached #6 and the follow-up, “Cool Change,” peaked at #10. Ironically, the song failed to chart in the band’s native Australia, but in May 2001, it was named by the Australasian Performing Right Association oas one of the top 30 Australian songs of all time. WK In 2018, Australian radio network Triple M named it one of the top 100 “most Australian” songs of all time. WK However, the band “could’ve come from anywhere.” SS Like “easy-listening peers Pablo Cruise and Ambrosia, they existed in a gauzy, purgatory free of musical, cultural, and geographic identity.” SS “Cool Change” is a “piece of pleasant and competent soft-rock that goes down easy,” SS but things weren’t so easy-going with the band at the time. The band featured three songwriters who wrote and even recorded separately. They even toured in different buses. SS Glenn Shorrock wrote “Cool Change” amidst squabbles with Graeham Goble and essentially recorded it as a solo track, supported by session players Peter Jones on piano and Bill Harrower on saxophone. SS The song used sailing as a means of embracing the need for time alone, referencing the tranquility of being on the “cool and bright clear water.” Shorrock later admitted the song was “a cry for help.” SF Amusingly, he wasn’t much of a seafarer when he wrote the song, but he took up sailing after the song’s success. SF Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Little River Band SF Songfacts SS Spandex & Synths WK Wikipedia First posted 10/20/2020; last updated 12/6/2022.

50 years ago: “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” hit #1

Tip Toe Through the Tulips Nick Lucas

Writer(s): Joe Burke (music), Al Dubin (words) (see lyrics here) First Charted: September 28, 1929 Peak: 110 US, 18 GA, 112 SM (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.31 video, 0.54 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Nick Lucas and Winnie Lightner starred in the 1929 movie musical Gold Diggers of Broadway, which featured five songs written by Joe Burke and Al Dubin and performed by Lucas. One was “Tip Toe Through the Tulips.” He was outside of a house singing to a girl inside, asking “for her pardon if he kisses her in the moonlit garden.” TY2 Lucas reprised the song later in the show as a dance routine with girls dressed as tulips. SM Lucas was formerly a banjo player with the Russo-Rio Rito band. Nicknamed “The Singing Troubador,” he became “a national favorite in the late 20s” PM because of his “easygoing vocal and guitar style.” PM He charted 26 songs from 1925 to 1931, reaching the top 10 nineteen times. His only chart-topper, however, was his recorded version of “Tulips” in 1929. PM That same year, Jean Goldkette (#5), Johnny Marvin (#11), and Roy Fox (#18) all released charting versions. PM In 1930, the song was used in “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub,” the first Looney Tunes cartoon short. WK The song also showed up in the movies Confidential Agent (1945), Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (1951), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), and Insidious (2010). It is also mentioned in the 1997 book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. One of the more unusual versions surfaced in 1968. Singer and ukulele player Tiny Tim performed the song on the sketch comedy show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In WK in a “high-pitched falsetto rendition.” SF It was released as a single and became a #17 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Nick Lucas DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 197. SM Sharon Mawer Charts (1900-1968) SF Songfacts TY2 Don Tyler (2007). Hit Songs, 1900-1955. McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, North Carolina. Page 167. PM Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954. Record Research, Inc: Menomonee Falls, WI. Pages 283 and 597. WK Wikipedia First posted 3/16/2023.

Michael Jackson “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” hit #1

Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough Michael Jackson

Writer(s): Michael Jackson (see lyrics here) Released: July 10, 1979 First Charted: July 28, 1979 Peak: 11 US, 11 CB, 2 GR, 11 HR, 5 RR, 15 RB, 3 UK, 3 CN, 13 AU, 7 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 5.0 US, 1.81 UK, 6.88 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 413.43 video, 368.37 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Michael Jackson became a star fronting his brothers in the Jackson 5 before he’d even hit puberty. The group sent four songs to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969 and ’70. While still generating hits with his brothers, Michael also launched a solo career in 1971 and hit #1 on his own the next year with “Ben,” “a lovely ballad about a killer rat from a B-movie.” SG It would be seven years before he topped the chart again. In 1975, Michael and his brothers bolted from Motown and signed with Epic Records. They weren’t as big as before, but still managed top-10 hits with 1976’s “Enjoy Yourself” and 1979’s “Shake Your Body Down to the Ground.” In 1979, Michael would also release Off the Wall, his first post-Motown solo effort. It showcased him “as a young man liberated” SG by getting some say for the first time over the songs and arrangements. The album “introduced the chic, Quincy Jones-produced sound that would soon see him dubbed the King of Pop.” TB The album’s lead single, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” was “a perfect song,” SG “an absolute miracle of pop music.” SG Jackson recorded a demo with his brother Randy playing piano. It “shows that he knew exactly what he wanted from the song. The jangling, cowbell-laden rhythm, distinctive bass and guitar licks, and Jackson’s newly developed falsetto are all there; the only extra ingredient he needed was Jones’ polished, spacious, production sheen.” TB The song is “about the ecstasy of losing yourself in something greater than you, of giving yourself over” SG – maybe that’s dancing, maybe that’s sex, maybe it’s something else. Jackson said “It’s about forces and the power of love.” FB Not yet 21, Michael is “still the same little joy-bursting kid from ‘I Want You Back,’ finding new textures in his own voice and discovering new wonders.” SG He was still a few years from becoming the most famous person on the planet, at which point “even on his most ebullient songs, he sounded paranoid and trapped.” SG Here Jackson sings “in an airy falsetto, letting the music push his voice all around.” SG “The instruments all seem to be dancing with each other: the rolling and pulsing bass, the euphoric bursts of horn, the diving strings, the layers upon layers of percussion.” SG “He understands the beat.” SG “It says a whole lot that Michael Jackson was able to use disco as a springboard into planet-dominating stardom even at the moment when the planet was getting sick of disco.” SG Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Michael Jackson FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 511. DM Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New American Library: New York, NY. Pages 317-8. SG Stereogum (2/21/2020). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 183. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 4/20/2023.

Styx charted with Cornerstone

Cornerstone Styx

Charted: October 13, 1979 Peak: 2 US, 36 UK, 11 CN, 21 AU Sales (in millions): 2.0 US Genre: classic arena rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Lights (DeYoung/Shaw) [4:38] (41 CL) Why Me (DeYoung) [3:54] (12/15/79, 26 US, 19 CB, 18 HR, 12 RR, 9 CL, 10 CN) Babe (DeYoung) [4:25] (10/6/79, 12 US, 13 CB, 12 HR, 13 RR, 6 UK, 9 AC, 1 CL, 6 UK, 16 CN, 3 AU) Never Say Never (Shaw) [3:08] Boat on the River (Shaw) [3:10] (3/16/80, --) Borrowed Time (DeYoung/Shaw) [4:58] (3/29/80, 64 US, 74 CB, 63 HR, 33 CL, 76 CN) First Time (DeYoung) [4:24] Eddie (Young) [4:15] Love in the Midnight (Shaw) [5:25] Total Running Time: 38:17 The Players: Dennis DeYoung (vocals, keyboards) Tommy Shaw (vocals, guitar) James “J.Y.” Young (guitar, vocals) Chuck Panozzo (bass) John Panozzo (drums)

Rating: 3.577 out of 5.00 (average of 20 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Styx hit the big time with 1977’s The Grand Illusion when it went top 10 and multi-platinum on the strength of two top-40 hits. 1978’s Pieces of Eight replicated the feat, setting high expectations for 1979’s Cornerstone. Commercially, the album kept pace with its predecessors’ accomplishments. In fact, it became their highest-charting album to date, landing at #2. Styx was even named America’s favorite band in a 1979 Gallup poll. AZ The album was propelled by Babe, Styx’s only #1 hit and “one of the best rock ballads ever.” AMG Dennis DeYoung wrote the song as a birthday present to his wife Suzanne, thanking her for her patience with his life on the road. WK It “is a smooth, keyboard-pampered love song that finally credited Dennis De Young's textured vocals.” AMG It is “perhaps the prototypical I-love-you-but-I-just-gotta-go power ballad,” AZ which would “endear itself to a generation of prom-goers” AZ in the same vein as their “1975 slow-dance classic ‘Lady.’” AZ The song “irked longtime fans with its MOR sweetness” UCR and created a rift in the band. Initially, First Time, also written by DeYoung, was intended as the second single, but Tommy Shaw was concerned about the band alienating its fan base by releasing two ballads in a row. He even threatened to leave and the division was so strong that DeYoung was briefly fired, although he returned to the fold before word got to the press or the public. WK Instead, Why Me, another DeYoung-penned tune, was released as the follow-up. The more upbeat tune showcased the band’s experimentation with new sounds, such as horns, as did Borrowed Time. AZ The latter, a co-write between Shaw and DeYoung, was released as the third single. The band also added mandolin and accordian to the mix on Boat on the River. That song and Lights “implement silky harmonies and welcoming choruses” AMG and showcase Tommy Shaw’s songwriting and vocals. Neither song reached the status of other Shaw favorites like “Renegade” and “Blue Collar Man,” but “Boat on the River” was a hit in Europe WK and “Lights” did get attention on album rock radio in the United States. “Cornerstone is Styx at their most accessible and melodic,” AZ emphasizing their “pop sound more than the progressive rock influences that dominated their first eight studio albums.” WK “The songs aren’t as tight or assertive as their last few albums” AMG and the album “tends to sound a tad weaker than one would expect.” AMG As evidenced by the conflict over the album’s second single, Cornerstone showed “the first fragmenting of the group’s collective artistic vision” WK eventually leading to their breakup after 1983’s Kilroy Was Here.

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Mike DeGagne AZ Amazon review by Daniel Durchholz UCR Ultimate Classic Rock WK Wikipedia First posted 3/24/2008; last updated 5/17/2021.