Saturday, December 31, 2016

America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame

image from vintagevinylnews.com

America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame launched in 2012 with a list of 40 nominees for potential induction. To be eligible for the Hall, an act must have charted between 1946 and 1975. There’s no indication of what chart – the site simply says “national charts.” An actual structure for the Hall was supposed to open in a modest 3000-square foot space in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (just outside Pittsburgh) in time for the first ceremony, but as of this post, that had yet to happen. The city, which boasts native sons Perry Como and Bobby Vinton, calls itself the country’s “small town musical capital.” Here are the inductees from 2013 to 2017:

Resources:

America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame
spin.com: Tiny Pennsylvania Town Thinks Big with Pop Music Hall of Fame (19 September 2012)

2016: Top 25 Albums

First posted 1/8/2021.

Dave’s Music Database:

Top Albums of 2016

Based on a combination of year-end lists and overall status in Dave’s Music Database, these are the top 25 albums of 2016:

Beyoncé Lemonade
David Bowie Blackstar
Drake Views
Frank Ocean Blond
Rihanna Anti
Solange A Seat at the Table
Sturgill Simpson A Sailor’s Guide to Earth
Bruno Mars 24K Magic
Radiohead A Moon Shaped Pool
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Leonard Cohen You Want It Darker
The Weeknd Starboy
A Tribe Called Quest We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service
Chance the Rapper Coloring Book
Miranda Lambert The Weight of These Wings
Bon Iver 22, a Million
The 1975 I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It
Kane Brown Kane Brown
Childish Gambino Awaken, My Love!
Moana soundtrack
Ariana Grande Dangerous Woman
Post Malone Stoney
Keith Urban Ripcord
Lady Gaga Joanne
Kendrick Lamar Untitled, Unmastered

Resources and Related Links:

Dave’s Music Database: “Other Year-End Album Awards”

Top 50 Songs of 2016

Dave’s Music Database:

Top 50 Songs of 2016

These are the top 50 songs of the year based on their overall performance in Dave’s Music Database, which is determined by combining chart data, sales figures, streaming, video views, and aggregates from year-end lists.

Check out “Top Songs and Albums of the Year” lists here.

The Chainsmokers with Halsey “Closer”
Drake with WizKid & Kyla “One Dance”
Justin Timberlake “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”
Rihanna with Drake “Work”
Sia with Sean Paul “Cheap Thrills”
Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like” (2016)
The Weeknd with Daft Punk “Starboy”
Twenty One Pilots “Heathens”
Rae Sremmurd with Gucci Mane “Black Beatles”
The Chainsmokers with Daya “Don’t Let Me Down”
Beyoncé “Formation”
Pinkfong! “Baby Shark”
Bruno Mars “24K Magic”
Calvin Harris & Rihanna “This Is What You Came For”
Fifth Harmony with Ty Dolla $ign “Work from Home”
Migos with Lil Uzi Vert “Bad and Boujee”
Major Lazer with Justin Bieber & MØ “Cold Water”
Zayn “Pillow Talk”
Shawn Mendes “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back”
James Arthur “Say You Won’t Let Go”
Post Malone with Quavo “Congratulations”
Shawn Mendes “Treat You Better”
Bruno Mars with Cardi B “Finesse”
Maroon 5 with Kendrick Lamar “Don’t Wanna Know”
DJ Snake with Justin Bieber “Let Me Love You”
Clean Bandit with Sean Paul & Anne-Marie “Rockabye”
Florida Georgia Line “H.O.L.Y”
Ariana Grande with Nicki Minaj “Side to Side”
Rihanna “Needed Me”
Lizzo “Good As Hell”
The Weeknd with Daft Punk “I Feel It Coming”
D.R.A.M. with Lil Yachty “Broccoli”
Zayn with Taylor Swift “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”
Rag ‘n’ Bone Man “Human”
Charlie Puth with Selena Gomez “We Don’t Talk Anymore”
Childish Gambino “Redbone”
Saint JHN with Imanbek “Roses”
Drake with Rihanna “Too Good”
Alice Merton “No Roots”
The Lumineers “Ophelia”
Kings of Leon “Waste a Moment”
Gnash with Olivia O’Brien “I Hate U, I Love U”
Post Malone “I Fall Apart”
Leonard Cohen “You Want It Darker”
Meghan Trainor “No”
Dwayne Johnson “You’re Welcome”
Little Big Town “Better Man”
Rihanna “Love on the Brain”
Lil Wayne with Wiz Khalifa & Imagine Dragons “Sucker for Pain”
Drake “Controlla”

Resources/Related Links:

Dave’s Music Database: Top Songs and Albums by Year lists
Dave’s Music Database: Songs of the Year lists

First posted 12/26/2021.

50 Years Ago Today: The Monkees’ hit #1 with “I’m a Believer”

I’m a Believer

The Monkees

Writer(s): Neil Diamond (see lyrics here)

Released: November 12, 1966

First Charted: December 3, 1966

Peak: 1⁷ US, 1⁸ CB, 1⁵ HR, 1⁴ UK, 1² CN, 1¹ AU (Click for codes to singles charts.)

Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.4 UK, 10.0 world (includes US + UK)

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 21.28 video, 221.6 streaming

Awards: (Click on award for more details).

About the Song:

Jeff Barry discovered Neil Diamond singing in a coffee house in Greenwich Village. ^BR They became two of the biggest talents for the hit-making machine known as the Brill Building. Diamond has become one of the most successful singer/songwriters, ranking #3 all-time on the adult contemporary charts and in the top 25 for the pop charts. However, his biggest success came via a made-for-television group.

That group, the Monkees, were modeled after the playful spirit of the Beatles’ movies. ^JA-95 While they fought to play their own songs, producers limited the Monkees to singing and brought in session musicians for the instruments. ^SF The show, which aired from 1966 to 1968, propelled the Monkees to the top of the charts with debut single “Last Train to Clarksville.”

When publisher Don Kirshner was seeking a million-selling follow-up, he turned to Barry and Elle Greenwich, Diamond’s producers, after hearing Diamond’s top 10 hit “Cherry Cherry” on the radio. ^BR Kirshner picked out several songs Diamond was prepping for his next album, among them “I’m a Believer.” The head of Diamond’s record company couldn’t believe he’d give away potential number ones, but, as Diamond says, “I couldn’t have cared less because I had to pay the rent.” ^SF After all, Diamond intended to give the song to country artist Eddy Arnold. ^KL-129

In the Monkees’ hands, the song became the biggest hit of 1966 ^WHC and “one of the Hot 100’s finest specimens of pure pop genius.” ^BB100 The song went to #1 for 7 weeks in the U.S. and sold 10 million copies worldwide, making it one of the world’s all-time best-selling songs. Diamond still recorded the song, releasing it on his 1967 album Just for You and as a single in 1971, peaking at #51. The song resurfaced in 2001 when the alternative rock group Smash Mouth recorded it for the movie Shrek and took it to #25 on the pop charts.

Resources and Related Links:

DMDB Encyclopedia entry for The Monkees
DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Neil Diamond
DMDB blog entry: The Monkees debuts on TV: September 12, 1966
^BB100 Billboard (9/08). “All-Time Hot 100”
^BR Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 216.
^JA David A. Jasen. (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
^KL Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh (2005). 1000 UK Number One Hits: The Stories Behind Every Number One Single Since 1952. London, Great Britain: Omnibus Press. Page 129.
^SF Songfacts.com
^WHC Joel Whitburn (1999). A Century of Pop Music. Menomonee Falls, WI; Record Research, Inc. Page 91.

First posted 3/1/2012; updated 4/25/2021.

Friday, December 23, 2016

50 years ago: Buffalo Springfield released “For What It’s Worth”

First posted 4/19/2020; updated 2/7/2021.

For What It’s Worth

Buffalo Springfield

Writer(s): Stephen Stills (see lyrics here)

Released: December 23, 1966

First Charted: January 14, 1967

Peak: 7 US, 7 CB, 8 HR, 1 CL, 9 CN (Click for codes to singles charts.)

Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK)

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 3.0 radio, 52.6 video, -- streaming

Awards: (Click on award for more details).

About the Song:

“It feels like an anti-war song, but ‘For What It’s Worth’ was far more domestic than that.” ^DT “It sprang out of the civil war in miniature that [songwriter Stephen] Stills was witnessing on Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip at the time.” ^TB It became “a defining sound of the time period, in which inter-generational discord was rampant and youth were attempting to assert themselves against authority figures.” ^KW It “established Stephen Stills as a spokesman for ‘60s youth.” ^SJ

Pandora’s Box, a nightclub on L.A.’s Sunset Strip, closed down and there were, as Stills said, “a bunch of kids having a funeral for a bar.” ^CR “The LAPD decided to run a line-up across the street, like there was some kind of revolution going on.” ^CR Stills had just visited Latin America “and was horrified at how similar the tensions in that region on the brink of revolution were to those in a developed democracy.” ^TB “The Summer of Love was unraveling before it even began.” ^RS500

Another account suggests the “crowds of longhairs” ^MA were “blocking sdewalks, smoking dope, spilling into the streets…Neighborhood businessmen complained of the disruptions,” ^MA concerned the “scruffy hippies were chasing away legitimate customers.” ^SJ When the Los Angeles police force was “called upon to rid the street of ‘undesirables,’ they busted heads.” ^MA

“When song lyrics stick in our minds…the reason is not to be found in the lyrics alone, but in the combination fo lyrics and tune and beat and performance and, most of all, sound.” ^WI “The song is a call to awareness and, at least implicitly, resistance, but there is also a plea for brotherhood, a rejection of ‘us and them’ thinking.” ^WK That message is accompanied by “Neil Young’s guitar [which] tolled like a funeral bell;” ^RS500 it “had a beautiful ringing...basically one note…that sounded like heaven opening. The entire apocalypse was in that one note.” ^CR

Resources and Related Links:

Buffalo Springfield’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry
^CR Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 357-8.
^SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. Page 183.
^MA Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New York, NY; New American Library. Pages 838-9.
^KW Mic.com (12/25/2013). “30 Songs That Changed the Course of Musical History” by Kayli Woods
^RS500 Rolling Stone (4/7/2011). “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”
^DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Pag 69.
^TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 96.
^WI Paul Williams (1993). Rock and Roll: The Best 100 Singles. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. Pages 45-6.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

The Top 100 Songs of the Pre-Rock Era (1890-1953)

Book:

The Top 100 Songs of the Pre-Rock Era, 1890-1953

Also available through DavesMusicDatabase.com.

The Top 100 Songs of the Pre-Rock Era, 1890-1953 book is available through Amazon or through DavesMusicDatabase.com.

This is a companion book to The Top 100 Songs of the Rock Era, 1954-1999, available at DavesMusicDatabase.com as a standard book or ebook! In the beginning stages of writing that book, my intent was to write a “top 100 songs of all time” book. As I quickly discovered, most lists proclaiming to highlight “the best of all time” seem to be under the impression that music didn’t exist prior to 1950. I decided to retool my project to focus on the rock era and put together another book focused on the “forgotten years.”

This is the result. As always with DMDB lists, the rankings are determined by aggregating multiple best-of lists and factoring in songs’ sales, chart stats, and awards. It should be noted that in the pre-rock era there were often multiple versions of a song. In fact, some best-of lists did not list a specific version. When the latter occurred, all versions of a song were given points. Once all points were compiled, only the top version of a song was included in this list.

1. Bing Crosby “White Christmas” (1942)
2. Judy Garland “Over the Rainbow” (1939)
3. Fre Astaire “Night and Day” (1932)
4. Arthur Collins with Byron Harlan “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1911)
5. Glenn Miller “In the Mood” (1939)
6. Artie Shaw “Stardust” (1941)
7. Fred Astaire “Cheek to Cheek” (1935)
8. Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong “St. Louis Blues” (1925)
9. Gene Austin “My Blue Heaven” (1927)
10. Artie Shaw “Begin the Beguine” (1938)

11. American Quartet “Over There” (1917)
12. Paul Whiteman “Whispering” (1920)
13. Al Jolson “Swanee” (1920)
14. Al Jolson “April Showers” (1922)
15. Ethel Waters “Stormy Weather (Keeps Rainin' All the Time)” (1933)
16. Billy Murray “You’re a Grand Old Flag (aka “The Grand Old Rag”)” (1906)
17. Peerless Quartet “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” (1911)
18. Tommy Dorsey with Jack Leonard “All the Things You Are” (1939)
19. Fred Astaire “The Way You Look Tonight” (1936)
20. Haydn Quartet “Sweet Adeline (You’re the Flower of My Heart)” (1904)

21. Gene Autry “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (1949)
22. Patti Page “Tennessee Waltz” (1950)
23. Bing Crosby “Pennies from Heaven” (1936)
24. The Harmonicats “Peg O’ My Heart” (1947)
25. Dooley Wilson “As Time Goes By” (1942)
26. The Mills Brothers “Paper Doll” (1942)
27. Paul Robeson “Ol’ Man River” (1928)
28. Al Jolson “You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)” (1913)
29. Billy Murray with the Haydn Quartet “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (1908)
30. Coleman Hawkins “Body and Soul” (1940)

31. American Quartet “Moonlight Bay” (1912)
32. Ben Selvin “Dardanella” (1920)
33. Billy Murray “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis” (1904)
34. Billy Murray “Give My Regards to Broadway” (1905)
35. Jo Stafford “You Belong to Me” (1952)
36. Billy Murray with Haydn Quartet “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” (1910)
37. Thomas “Fats” Waller “Ain’t Misbehavin’” (1929)
38. The Weavers “Goodnight Irene” (1950)
39. Marion Harris “Tea for Two” (1925)
40. Ella Ftizgerald with Chick Webb “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” (1938)

41. Duke Ellington “Mood Indigo” (1931)
42. Vernon Dalhart “The Prisoner’s Song” (1925)
43. Vaughn Monroe “Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)” (1949)
44. Haydn Quartet “In the Good Old Summertime” (1903)
45. Les Brown with Doris Day “Sentimental Journey” (1945)
46. Tommy Dorsey with Frank Sinatra “I’ll Never Smile Again” (1940)
47. Francis Craig with Bob Lamm “Near You” (1947)
48. Cliff Edwards I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” (1928)
49. Harry MacDonough with Miss Walton “Shine on, Harvest Moon” (1909)
50. Byron Harlan “School Days (When We Were a Couple of Kids)” (1907)

51. Glenn Miller “Chattanooga Choo Choo” (1941)
52. Nat “King” Cole “The Christmas Song” (1946)
53. Isham Jones “It Had to Be You” (1924)
54. Cliff Edwards “When You Wish Upon a Star” (1940)
55. Ben Selvin “Happy Days Are Here Again” (1930)
56. Paul Whiteman with Bob Lawrence “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (1933)
57. Original Dixieland Jazz Band “Tiger Rag” (1918)
58. Kate Smith “God Bless America” (1939)
59. Les Paul with Mary Ford “How High the Moon” (1951)
60. Glen Gray with Kenny Sargent “Blue Moon” (1935)

61. Red Nichols “I Got Rhythm” (1930)
62. Nat “King” Cole “Mona Lisa” (1950)
63. Dinah Shore & Her Harper Valley Boys “Buttons and Bows” (1948)
64. Billy Murray “Yankee Doodle Boy” (1905)
65. Henry Burr with Albert Campbell “Till We Meet Again” (1919)
66. Bing Crosby “I’ll Be Seeing You” (1944)
67. Chauncey Olcott “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” (1913)
68. Arthur Collins “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home” (1902)
69. John McCormack “It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary” (1915)
70. George Olsen with Fran Frey, Bob Rice, & Edward Joye “Always” (1926)

71. Larry Clinton with Bea Wain “Deep Purple” (1939)
72. The Ink Spots “The Gypsy” (1946)
73. Billie Holiday “Strange Fruit” (1939)
74. Al Jolson “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody” (1918)
75. Byron Harlan “My Gal Sal” (1907)
76. Bing Crosby “Swinging on a Star” (1944)
77. Al Jolson “Sonny Boy” (1928)
78. Byron Harlan “Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie” (1906)
79. Van & Schenck “Ain’t We Got Fun?” (1921)
80. Harry James with Helen Forrest “I’ve Heard That Song Before” (1943)

81. Artie Shaw “Frenesi” (1940)
82. American Quartet with Billy Murray “Casey Jones” (1910)
83. Ted Lewis “On the Sunny Side of the Street” (1930)
84. Little Jack Little “I’m in the Mood for Love” (1935)
85. Gertrude Lawrence “Someone to Watch Over Me” (1927)
86. Pee Wee Hunt “Twelfth Street Rag” (1948)
87. Marion Harris “After You’ve Gone” (1919)
88. Perry Como “Some Enchanted Evening” (1949)
89. Judy Garland with Gene Kelly “For Me and My Gal” (1942)
90. Arthur Collins & Byron Harlan “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” (1918)

91. Gene Austin “My Melancholy Baby” (1928)
92. Woody Herman “Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol’ Me)” (1941)
93. Henry Burr “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” (1909)
94. Bing Crosby “Silent Night” (1935)
95. Haydn Quartet “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet” (1909)
96. Billy Murray “In My Merry Oldsmobile” (1905)
97. Harry MacDonough “Down by the Old Mill Stream” (1911)
98. Ben Selvin “Blue Skies” (1927)
99. Rudy Vallee “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (1932)
100. Duke Ellington “Take the ‘A’ Train” (1941)

Resources and Related Links:

Originally posted 6/23/2012. Last updated 4/3/2021.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

12/18/1909: “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet” becomes Haydn Quartet’s 11th #1

image from youtube.com

Haydn Quartet “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet”

Writer(s): Stanley Murphy/ Percy Weinrich (see lyrics here)

First charted: 12/11/1909

Peak: 1¹¹ US, 1³ GA (Click for codes to singles charts.)

Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music sales)

Radio Airplay (in millions): -- Video Airplay (in millions): --

Review: The song which was originally rejected for having “no popular appeal” ^PS became the biggest song of 1909 ^WHC-16 and “a favorite of barbershop quartets and community sings.” ^JA-161 It was also the longest-running #1 for the Haydn Quartet, which included big names like Billy Murray and Harry MacDonough. They charted more than 60 hits from 1898 to 1914, including twelve trips to the top of the charts. However, their version of “Bonnet” was the biggest of their #1 hits.

Arthur Clough and Byron Harlan each took the song to the top ten in 1910. Over a quarter century later, Jimmie Lunceford took the song back to the charts, peaking at #11 in 1937. The song was also covered by Pearl Bailey, Tommy Dorsey, Coleman Hawkins, Ethel Merman, the Mills Brothers, and Hank Snow.

The memorable lyrics were scribed by Stanley Murphy, who would have success penning words for a variety of composers. Amongst his hits were “Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee” (1912), “Oh How She Could Yacki, Hacki, Wicki, Wacki, Woo” (1916), and “Sugar Moon” (1910).

Ragtime/tin pan alley composer Percy Weinrich worked with Murphy on “Sugar Moon” as well as “Bonnet.” ^PS He also composed “Wabash Avenue After Dark” (1909), “When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose” (1914), and “Minnetonka” (1921). Revenue from the hit allowed Weinrich to focus on composition and supporting the vaudevillian career of his wife, Dolly Connolly. ^PS

Resources and Related Links:

Haydn Quartet’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry

Note: Footnotes (raised letter codes) refer to sources frequently cited on the blog. Numbers following the letter code indicate page numbers. If the raised letter code is a link, it will go directly to the correct page instead of the home page of a website. You can find the sources and corresponding footnotes on the “Lists” page in the “Song Resources” section.

Award(s):

Sunday, December 11, 2016

12/11/1911: Harry MacDonough charts with “Down by the Old Mill Stream”

image from wikipedia.org

Harry MacDonough “Down by the Old Mill Stream”

Writer(s): Tell Taylor (see lyrics here)

First charted: 12/11/1911

Peak: 1⁷ US, 1³ GA (Click for codes to singles charts.)

Sales (in millions): 6.0 (sheet music sales)

Radio Airplay (in millions): -- Video Airplay (in millions): --

Review: With hundreds of songs under his belt, Tell Taylor was “one of the powerhouses in musical composition during the early 20th century,” ^PS but of all his songs, probably none is more familiar than “Down by the Old Mill Stream.” He wrote it in 1908 while sitting on the banks of the Blanchard River in Ohio, ^WK although it has been reported that it was modeled on “Down by the Old Stream,” a Joseph P. Skelly song from 1874. ^SS-436 The lyrical focus is on someone older looking back on a lifelong romance, but true to form for post-1900 songs, it focuses more on reality than sentiment. ^SS-436

Musically, MacDonough’s version was unique in that he sang the first half with an orchestra, but then the orchestra is replaced by a quartet – most likely the Haydn Quartet, of which MacDonough was a member. The rest of the song is then handled a cappella by the quartet. ^SS-436 That combination of four-part harmony alongside the “beautifully flowing melody with romantic lyrics” ^PS made the song a barbershop quartet favorite ^RCG and arguably the song that defines that genre. ^PS

The song was one of only four from 1890-1954 to sell 5 million in sheet music. ^PM-634 One of those, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” shares other traits with “Stream.” Both songs were published in 1910 and first charted in 1911. The first chart versions of each were by Arthur Clough. Usually the first charted version of a song was the biggest, but the Peerless Quartet and Harry MacDonough each topped the chart for seven weeks with, respectively, their recordings of “Sweetheart” and “Old Mill Stream,” leaving poor Arthur Clough the dubious distinction of also-ran status – twice.

“The song was originally published with not only the piano version but also with an arrangement for male vocal quartet.” ^PS The song resurfaced in the 1936 film Her Master’s Voice ^JA-51 and the Mills Brothers revived the song in the 1940s “with a more swinging style to it.” ^RCG In 1965, Alvin and the Chipmunks recorded the song and Snoopy played the song in the 2000 animated special It’s the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown. ^WK

Resources and Related Links:

Harry MacDonough’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry

Award(s):

Saturday, December 10, 2016

50 years ago: The Beach Boys hit #1 with "Good Vibrations"

Good Vibrations

The Beach Boys

Writer(s):Mike Love/Brian Wilson (see lyrics here)

Released: October 10, 1966

First Charted: October 22, 1966

Peak: 1¹ US, 1¹ CB, 1² UK, 2 CN, 1¹ AU (Click for codes to singles charts.)

Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, -- UK, 1.0 world (includes US + UK)

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 3.0 radio, 45.3 video, 241.01 streaming

Awards: (Click on award for more details).

About the Song:

At the time of its release, “Good Vibrations” was the most expensive single ever released ^BR with one claim putting the total recording cost as high as a million dollars. ^JA The song was pieced together from hundreds of recording sessions ^NPR and more than seventy hours of tape ^CR generated in four studios over seventh months time. ^RS500

The song is the “crowning achievement” ^RS500 for Brian Wilson, who has been called “rock and roll’s finest composer ever.” ^WI While still a Beach Boy in name, Wilson stayed home while the rest of the group toured. This freed him to go wild in the studio, most notably in using a theremin, which is a keyboard instrument best known for its use in soundtracks to horror films. ^HL While the end result employed the vocal talents of the other Beach Boys, none of them actually played on the song. ^KL

As for the term “good vibrations,” Wilson told Rolling Stone that his mother had explained how dogs barked at some people, but not at others, “‘that a dog would pick up vibrations from some people that you can’t see, but you can feel. And the same thing happened with people.’” ^BR

Wilson was convinced of the song’s good vibe, saying it would be better than the Righteous Brothers‘ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin.’” ^RS500 Beach Boy Bruce Johnston was a little more nervous, saying, “’we’re either going to have the biggest hit in the world – or the Beach Boys’ career is over.’” ^HL It turned out the public appreciated the song‘s vibe as well; it met with instant success, selling 400,000 in four days ^SJ and becoming the group’s first million-seller ^TB and third #1.

Resources and Related Links:

DMDB Encyclopedia entry for The Beach Boys
^BR Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 215.
^CR Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Page 779.
^HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. London, England: Blandford Books. Page 24.
^JA David A. Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 66.
^KL Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh (2005). 1000 UK Number One Hits: The Stories Behind Every Number One Single Since 1952. London, Great Britain: Omnibus Press. Page 127.
^NPR National Public Radio (1999). “The Most Important American Musical Works of the 20th Century”
^RS500 Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” (12/04).
^SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. Page 193.
^TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 83.
^WI Paul Williams (1993). Rock and Roll: The Best 100 Singles. Page 105. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.

First posted 10/22/2011; last updated 4/13/2021.

Pages

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Dave’s Music Database:

Top Albums of 2016

Dave’s Music Database:

Top 50 Songs of 2016

Resources/Related Links:

I’m a Believer

The Monkees

Friday, December 23, 2016

For What It’s Worth

Buffalo Springfield

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Book:

The Top 100 Songs of the Pre-Rock Era, 1890-1953

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Haydn Quartet “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet”

Resources and Related Links:

Award(s):

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Harry MacDonough “Down by the Old Mill Stream”

Resources and Related Links:

Award(s):

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Good Vibrations

The Beach Boys