Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Guns N' Roses released Greatest Hits

Guns N’ Roses

A Retrospective: 1987-1994

Overview:

Rock group formed in Los Angeles in 1985. Their debut album, 1987’s Appetite for Destruction, was the biggest selling debut of all time with 30 million copies sold worldwide and ranks as one of the top 100 albums of all time. The follow-up albums Use Your Illusion I & II rank in the top 1000 albums of all time.

“Sweet Child O' Mine,” a #1 single from Appetite, ranks as one of the top 100 songs of all time. The songs “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and “November Rain” rank in the top 1% of all time.

The Players:

  • W. Axl Rose (vocals: 1985-)
  • Saul “Slash” Hudson (guitar: 1985-1996, 2016-)
  • Izzy Stradlin (rhythm guitar: 1985-1991)
  • Duff McKagan (bass: 1985-1997, 2016-)
  • Steven Adler (drums: 1985-1990)
  • Dizzy Reed (keyboards: 1990-)
  • Matt Sorum (drums: 1990-1997)

On the Web:

Lists:

Awards:

Compilations:

Under each album snapshot, songs featured on the anthologies are noted. If the song charted, the date of the song’s release or first chart appearance and its chart peaks are noted in parentheses. Click for codes to charts.

Appetite for Destruction (1987):

  • Welcome to the Jungle (9/28/87, 7 US, 9 CB, 13 GR, 10 RR, 37 AR, 24 UK, 41 AU, 1 DF, sales: 1.1 million worldwide) G
  • Sweet Child O' Mine (6/11/88, 12 US, 613 CB, 12 GR, 12 RR, 7 AR, 6 UK, 7 CN, 11 AU, 1 DF, sales: 4.6 million worldwide) G
  • Paradise City (11/30/88, 5 US, 4 CB, 9 GR, 4 RR, 14 AR, 6 UK, 10 CN, 48 AU, 15 DF) G

Click here for DMDB album page.

GN’R Lies (1988):

  • Patience (12/24/88, 4 US, 4 CB, 4 GR, 6 RR, 7 AR, 10 UK, 16 AU, 1 DF) G

Click here for DMDB album page.

Use Your Illusion I (1991):

  • Don’t Cry (9/17/91, 10 US, 7 CB, 9 GR, 13 RR, 3 AR, 8 UK, 11 CN, 5 AU, 16 DF) G
  • November Rain (9/28/91, 3 US, 13 CB, 4 GR, 2 RR, 15 AR, 4 UK, 5 CN, 5 AU, 2 DF) G
  • Live and Let Die (9/28/91, 33 US, 26 CB, 26 GR, 26 RR, 20 AR, 5 UK, 56 CN, 10 AU, 13 DF) G

Click here for DMDB album page.

Use Your Illusion II (1991):

  • Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (9/28/87, 18 AR, 2 UK, 56 CN, 12 AU, 4 DF) G
  • Civil War (8/4/90, 4 AR, 11 UK, 45 AU, 1 DF) G
  • You Could Be Mine (6/21/91, 29 US, 3 AR, 3 UK, 30 CN, 3 AU, 16 DF) G
  • Yesterdays (10/17/92, 72 US, 58 CB, 13 AR, 8 UK, 52 CN, 14 AU, 33 DF) G

Click here for DMDB album page.

The Spaghetti Incident? (1993):

  • Ain’t It Fun (11/13/93, 8 AR, 9 UK, 32 DF) G
  • Since I Don’t Have You (2/11/94, 69 US, 62 CB, 28 GR, 31 RR, 10 UK, 20 CN, 47 AU, 12 DF) G

Click here for DMDB album page.

Greatest Hits

Guns N’ Roses

Released: March 23, 2004

Recorded: 1987-1994

Peak: 3 US, 13 UK, 2 CN, 2 AU, 11 DF

Sales (in millions): 6.0 US, 2.1 UK, 12.72 world (includes US and UK)

Genre: classic rock/hair band/metal

Rating:

4.067 out of 5.00 (average of 12 ratings)

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Tracks: (1) Welcome to the Jungle (2) Sweet Child O' Mine (3) Patience (4) Paradise City (5) Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (6) Civil War (7) You Could Be Mine (8) Don’t Cry (9) November Rain (10) Live and Let Die (11) Yesterdays (12) Ain’t It Fun (13) Since I Don’t Have You (14) Sympathy for the Devil

Total Running Time: 79:24

Tracks Not on Previously Noted Albums:

  • Sympathy for the Devil (from the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack) (11/19/94, 55 US, 10 AR, 9 UK, 48 CN, 12 AU, 13 DF) G

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First posted 2/11/2023.

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Friday, March 19, 2004

100 years ago: “Silver Threads Among the Gold” hit #1

Silver Threads Among the Gold

Richard Jose

Writer(s): Hart Pease Danks (music), Eben E. Rexford (lyrics) (see lyrics here)

First Charted: February 6, 1904

Peak: 14 US, 30 GA (Click for codes to singles charts.)

Sales (in millions): 3.0 (sheet music)

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

“Silver Threads Among the Gold” was published in 1873 and became a barbershop quartet standard. WK It was the most frequently recorded song of the acoustic recording era WK from the 1890s to 1925. More than a hundred versions were recorded from 1903 until the Great Depression. TY2 In 1932, the song won a poll by New York’s WABC AM radio station as listerners’ favorite song, even though it was 60 years old. WK

A 1930 article in The New York Times said the love ballad, “which has stirred the hearts of more than one generation, was not the inspiration of an aging poet but a ‘re-hash’ produced on order.” WK Eben E. Rexford wrote poems for flower and garden magazine articles. He sold some verses called “Growing Old” for $3 when he was 18. When composer H.P. Danks, who’d written “Silver Threads,” wrote to Rexford requesting lyrics for a song, Rexford revised “Growing Old.” WK

Danks paid Rexford $3 for the resulting “Silver Threads Among the Gold,” which Rexford wrote for his wife. TY2 Danks turned around and sold the sentimental ballad to publishers, meaning he failed to capitalize on its future success. TY2

The first known recording was by Richard Jose in 1903. In 1904, his version reached #1. Other chart versions followed by Will Oakland (#4, 1909), John McCormack (#6, 1912), and Charles Adams (#10, 1915). Others who have recorded the song include Henry Burr (1905), Bing Crosby (1947), Jerry Lee Lewis (1956), George Ots (1958), Tapio Rautavaara (1967), and Jo Stafford (1969). WK The song was used in the Mae Mwest movie musical She Done Him Wrong in 1933. TY2

Resources:

First posted 12/14/2022.

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Saturday, March 13, 2004

On This Day (1954): Muddy Waters “Hoochie Coochie Man” charted

Hoochie Coochie Man

Muddy Waters

Writer(s): Willie Dixon (see lyrics here)

Recorded: January 7, 1954

First Charted: March 13, 1954

Peak: 3 RB, 3 DF (Click for codes to charts.)

Sales (in millions): --

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 7.76 video, 30.54 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

Music historian Steve Sullivan called Muddy Waters “the mighty rock upon which the foundation of postwar Chicago blues was constructed.” SS Chicago blues was the term for “urban blues music that came about as southern blacks moved north to find work in the industrial heartland of America. Adapted from the more rural delta blues of the Mississippi, it was originally played on acoustic guitars with whatever accompaniment was available.” LW

Waters was born McKinley Morganfield in the Mississippi Delta on April 4, 1913. He moved to Chicago in 1946 after being discovered by Alan Lomax and John Work while making field recordings for the Library of Congress. He started recording for Chess Records, which linked him to Willie Dixon, a top songwriter and session player for the label.

Dixon came to Zanzibar, a Chicago club, to see Muddy play and pitched his song “Hoochie Coochie Man” to Waters. They ran it down together in the men’s room. It was the first of many Dixon songs recorded by Waters and became Waters’ “defining song.” SS It “built on Muddy’s already-established charisma to build him an even more powerful macho image.” BH

The song “is raw sex, with no concessions to gentility.” LW The term “hoochie coochie” was a reference to “a belly dance that scandalized prurient Americans in the late 19th century.” BH It’s also blues slang for vagina. LW The song also conjured up “the powers of hoodoo magic” BH and was, as Muddy sang, a number to “make pretty women jump and shout.” BH

The song was the biggest hit of Waters’ career, reaching #3 on the R&B chart, but “its influence on rock music in general is incalculable.” LW It has been widely covered by artists as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and jazzy organist Jimmy Smith as well as multiple Chicago blues artists. BH

Resources:

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First posted 9/10/2023.

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Monday, March 1, 2004

Glenn Miller: Top 100 Songs

Glenn Miller

Top 100 Songs

Glenn Miller was born on this day in 1904 in Carinda, Iowa. The top 11 songs on this list are also in the DMDB list of the top 1000 songs of all time (see here). According to Joel Whitburn’s Pop Memories 1890-1954, Miller topped the chart 23 times (noted below by #1) and hit the top ten another fifty times. The bio of Miller from that book calls him the “leader of the most universally beloved of all big bands” and notes that Miller played trombone for the Dorsey Brothers, Benny Goodman, Red Nichols, and Ben Pollack before forming his own band in 1939. In September 1942, Miller enlisted in the Army Air Force. His plane was lost over the English channel on 12/15/1944.

Links:

Awards:

Top 100 Songs

Dave’s Music Database lists are determined by song’s appearances on best-of lists, appearances on compilations and live albums by the featured act, and songs’ chart success, sales, radio airplay, streaming, and awards.

1. In the Mood (1939) #1
2. Chattanooga Choo Choo (1941) #1
3. That Old Black Magic (1943) #1
4. Moonlight Serenade (1939)
5. Tuxedo Junction (1940) #1
6. Moonlight Cocktail (1942) #1
7. Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1940) #1
8. I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo (1942) #1
9. Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me (1942) #1
10. A String of Pearls (1942) #1

11. Imagination (1940) #1
12. The Woodpecker Song (1940) #1
13. Over the Rainbow (1939) #1
14. The Nearness of You (1940)
15. Stardust (1940)
16. Skylark (1942)
17. Stairway to the Stars (1939) #1
18. Wishing Will Make It So (1939) #1
19. You and I (1941) #1
20. Elmer’s Tune (1941) #1

21. Serenade in Blue (1942)
22. Moon Love (1939) #1
23. A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (1940)
24. When You Wish Upon a Star (1940) #1
25. Careless (1940) #1
26. Dearly Beloved (1942)
27. The Little Brown Jug (1939)
28. The Man with the Mandolin (1939) #1
29. Blueberry Hill (1956)
30. (1940) #1
31. The Lady’s in Love with You (1939)

32. Blue Orchids (1939) #1
33. Danny Boy (1940)
34. Say It (Over and Over Again) (1940)
35. I’ll Never Smile Again (1949)
36. Pennsylvania 6-5000 (1940)
37. Song of the Volga Boatmen (1941) #1
38. Anvil Chorus (1941)
39. There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover (1942)
40. At Last (1942)

41. My Prayer (Avant de Mourir) (1939)
42. Blue Rain (1943)
43. Ev’rything (1942)
44. Jingle Bells (1941)
45. Moonlight Becomes You (1942)
46. Indian Summer (1940)
47. Sunrise Serenade (1939)
48. I Dreamt I Dwelt in Harlem (1941)
49. Frenesi (1941)
50. My Reverie (1938)

51. Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead (1939)
52. Always in My Heart (1942)
53. Rhapsody in Blue (1943)
54. I Know Why and So Do You (1941)
55. Sweet Eloise (1942)
56. The Starlit Hour (1940)
57. American Patrol (1942)
58. Alice Blue Gown (1940)
59. Back to Back (1939)
60. When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano (1940)

61. Faithful Forever (1939)
62. Ida (Sweet As Apple Cider) (1941)
63. Moonlight Mood (1943)
64. Juke Box Saturday Night (1942)
65. Along the Sante Fe Trail (1941)
66. In an Old Dutch Garden by an Old Dutch Mill (1940)
67. Sierra Sue (1940)
68. Cinderella Stay in My Arms (1939)
69. Perfida (Tonight) (1941)
70. I’m Stepping Out with a Memory Tonight (1940)

71. I Guess I’ll Have to Dream the Rest (1941)
72. Why Couldn’t It Last Last Night (1939)
73. The Gaucho Serenade (1940)
74. Our Love Affair (1940)
75. Shake Down the Stars (1940)
76. Devil May Care (1940)
77. Five O’Clock Whistle (1940)
78. This Changing World (1940)
79. The Little Man Who Wasn’t There (1939)
80. Speaking of Heaven (1939)

81. Crosstown (1940)
82. Hear My Song Violetta (1940)
83. Yes My Darling Daughter (1941)
84. This Time the Dream’s on Me (1941)
85. Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar (1940)
86. Say Si Si (Para Vigo Me Voy) (1940)
87. My Last Good-Bye (1939)
88. You’ve Got Me this Way (1940)
89. This Is No Laughing Matter (1942)
90. Adios (1941)

91. Orange Blossom Lane (1941)
92. My Isle of Golden Dreams (1939)
93. A Million Dreams Ago (1940)
94. We’re the Couple in the Castle (1942)
95. Solo Hop (1935)
96. Ain’tcha Comin’ Out Tonight? (1939)
97. Bluebirds in the Moonlight (1939)
98. Falling Leaves (1940)
99. Slow Freight (1940)
100. A Handful of Stars (1940)

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First posted 3/1/2004; last updated 12/12/2023.

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