Dave's Music Database Hall of Fame: Song Inductees (January 2021)

Originally posted 1/22/2021. In honor of the 10th anniversary of the DMDB blog on January 22, 2019, Dave’s Music Database launched its own Hall of Fame. This is the ninth set of song inductees. From 1973 to 1982, there were four major charts which tracked U.S. pop songs: Billboard (1898-), Cashbox (1950-1996), Hit Records (1954-1982), and Radio & Records (1973-). 106 songs topped all four charts during that time. (See “USA #1 Pop Songs: 1890-present”). When narrowed down further, there were only 12 songs which combined for 20 or more weeks on top of those four charts.

Bee Gees “Night Fever” (1977) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

“How Deep Is Your Love” was the first single from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and “Stayin’ Alive” is the one which endured to become the most iconic, but “Night Fever” was the biggest hit at the time. In the U.S., the first two spent a combined 7 weeks atop the chart, but “Night Fever” stayed there for a whopping 8 weeks. It was the biggest #1 of the year. Read more.

Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive” (1977) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

For better or worse, there are few songs more associated with disco than “Stayin’ Alive.” BB100 “Confident, cocky, streetwise and upbeat,” LW the song perfectly complements John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever, the movie from which the song came. LW The song was not intended as a single, but after fans saw trailers for the movie, they swamped radio stations and RSO Records with calls for the song. WK Read more.

Blondie “Call Me” (1980) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

Composer and producer Giorgio Moroder, best known for his work with Donna Summer, approached Blondie about writing the theme song for the movie American Gigolo. BB Debbie Harry, the lead singer, said the band jumped at the chance “to work with their hero…‘He was the king of disco…And we were still the anti-establishment invaders.’” RS After seeing a rough cut of the film, BR1 she wrote lyrics in just a few hours from the perspective of a male prostitute – the main character of the film. WK The song’s six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart earned it the distinction of the magazine’s top song of the year. Read more.

Debby Boone “You Light Up My Life” (1977) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

Director Joe Brooks commissioned Debby Boone, the daughter of legendary singer Pat Boone, to record a new version of his song “You Light Up My Life” initially featured in the 1977 movie of the same name. Her version became the biggest #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit of the 1970s. Its 10 weeks on top of the chart made it the biggest #1 since Elvis Presley topped the charts for 11 weeks in 1956 with his double A-side hit “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Hound Dog.” Read more.

Kim Carnes “Bette Davis Eyes” (1981) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

Songwriter Donna Weiss wrote the lyrics while Jackie DeShannon, whose “What the World Needs Now Is Now” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” were both top tens, wrote most of the music. BR1 DeShannon recorded a honky-tonk version of the song for her 1975 album New Arrangement. When Carnes was given the song, she wasn’t convinced it had hit potential. BR1 However, when her synthesizer player, Bill Cuomo, reworked the track into a new-wavish pop song, BB100 Carnes was sold. So was the record buying public – it hit #1 in 31 countries WK and topped 1981’s year-end Hot 100 in the U.S. BB100 Read more.

Chic “Le Freak” (1978) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

“Le Freak” became the best-selling single in the history of Atlantic Records. BR1 It came about when Chic members Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were invited to New York City’s famed disco club Studio 54 by Grace Jones on New Year’s Eve in 1977. However, she forgot to notify the staff and the pair and the doorman told them to “fuck off” as he slammed the door on them. They used it in a song, changing it to “freak out” after realizing radio would never play it otherwise. WK Read more.

Andy Gibb “Shadow Dancing” (1978) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

The Gibb brothers (Barry, Maurice, Robin, and Andy) dominated the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978. Andy’s brothers – the Bee Gees – had three #1 songs from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack while “Shadow Dancing” was Andy’s third #1 song, making him the first solo artist in the U.S. pop chart history to have his first three releases hit #1. WK “Shadow Dancing” was also named the biggest song of the year by Billboard magazine. Read more.

The Knack “My Sharona” (1979) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

The New York Times called “My Sharona” “an emblem of the new wave era in rock.” WK Doug Fieger, the lead singer of the Knack, fell for the real-life Sharona Alperin when she was in a relationship with someone else. He wrote the song in about 15 minutes, saying she “sparked something and I started writing a lot of songs feverishly in a short amount of time.” WK The song “compressed a sense of teenage sexual frustration into its stutter beat built on simple rock and roll.” BR1 They eventually ended up together and even became engaged, but his alcoholism and rock n’ roll lifestyle led to their breakup. Read more.

Lionel Richie & Diana Ross “Endless Love” (1981) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

In 2002, Richie told Billboard magazine, “When I put out ‘Endless Love’…during the days of disco, the reaction was, ‘Are you nuts?’” BB100 However, this unforgettable ballad from the completely forgettable Brooke Shields and Tom Cruise movie of the same name was the biggest hit Motown had up to that time, not to mention the biggest soundtrack single and most successful duet. BR1 Richie and Ross both had numerous #1’s with their groups the Supremes and the Commodores respectively and as solo acts, but this was the biggest hit for both of them. Read more.

Kenny Rogers “Lady” (1980) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

In 1980, Kenny Rogers’ record label wanted a Greatest Hits package to ring in the Christmas season. Rogers turned to the Commodores’ Lionel Richie for new material to add to the collection. Rogers said, “The idea was that Lionel would come from R&B and I’d come from country, and we’d meet somewhere in the middle.” BR1 The resulting “Lady” became Rogers’ fourth million-selling single and his first #1 on the pop charts. BB100 It was also the biggest pop song of 1980 WHC and the first song of the decade to hit Billboard’s pop, country, adult contemporary, and R&B charts, BR1 hitting #1 on the first three. Read more.

Rod Stewart “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)” (1976) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

Some radio programmers, the BBC, and Jesse Jackson’s People United to Save Humanity all saw this song as too sexually explicit, but public demand won out in the end and the song became the biggest #1 of 1976 WHC and the best-sellig song in the United States the following year. WK 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. In 2018, Billboard ranked the song the 19th biggest in the history of the Hot 100. Read more.

Rod Stewart “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” (1978) Inducted January 2021 as “Song with 20+ weeks atop 4 pop charts”

According to Carmine Appice, who had recently joined Stewart’s band and co-wrote the song, Stewart “was always looking at the charts and listening. He was a big fan of the Rolling Stones…so he wanted to do some kind of disco-y song, something like ‘Miss You.’” SF Some fans and critics thought his “defection to disco was unforgivable” BR1 but “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” gave Stewart his third chart-topping hit after “Maggie May” in 1971 and “Tonight’s the Night” in 1976. Read more.

Dennis DeYoung charted with Back to the World

Back to the World Dennis DeYoung

Charted: March 29, 1986 Peak: 108 US Sales (in millions): -- Genre: rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. This Is the Time [3:57] (6/28/86, 93 US, 32 AC) Warning Shot [4:27] Call Me [4:49] (3/15/86, 54 US, 5 AC) Unanswered Prayers [6:37] Black Wall [5:53] Southbound Ryan [4:43] I’m So Lucky [4:43] Person to Person [4:57] All songs written by Dennis DeYoung.

Rating: 3.288 out of 5.00 (average of 10 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Dennis DeYoung’s first solo album, Desert Moon, suggested he might do okay as a solo artist in his post-Styx career. The title cut followed the template he’d established with top-10 ballads like “Babe” and “Don’t Let It End” and gave him yet another top-10 hit. However, the follow-up single tanked at a mere #83 and the album failed to replicate the top-10, platinum-status of the five Styx albums that preceded it. With his second solo outing, Back to the World, DeYoung turns in a stronger overall effort that seemed like it might have more commercial appeal. The lead single, Call Me, seemed like another surefire hit ballad. Alas, it didn’t even reach the top 40 on the Billboard pop charts. It was, however, a top-5 adult contemporary hit. With an appearance in the movie The Karate Kid, Part II, the more uptempo This Is the Time felt like another potential hit. Unfortunately, it flopped as well, only reaching #93 on the Billboard Hot 100. Still, the album felt like a stronger effort than its predecessor. Gone was the goofiness of songs like “Boys Will Be Boys,” replaced by more contemplative, serious-issue songs like Black Wall. Reminiscent of Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon” from a few years earlier, DeYoung reflects on the perils of life as a Vietnam vet without having experienced the trauma himself. It felt like the kind of song that should have been a minor hit at album-rock radio, which had embrace so much of DeYoung’s work with Styx. It wasn’t. Similarly catchy is Southbound Ryan. The song shows DeYoung’s fondness for looking back, but does so in an upbeat, less sentimental fashion. Of course, one man’s treasure is another man’s trash. All Music Guide’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned it as a “robotic rocker” AMG which “sounds as if it was designed for a dream Beverly Hills Cop II.” AMG He similarly disliked “the Broadway-bound Person to Person” AMG and called Unanswered Prayers “a small-scale reworking of ‘Desert Moon.’” AMG Of course, he didn’t consider the latter a bad thing, as he praised the song as the highlight of the album, “graced by synthesized electric sitars.” AMG He said “this record distills every bad mainstream production idea of 1986” AMG along with DeYoung’s “schmaltzy side” AMG and “razzmatazz that seems all the more overblown when it’s filtered through stacks of synthesizers.” AMG Fans of DeYoung’s music learned long ago that heavy doses of sentimentality comes with the territory. As for sounding of its time, that’s a popular criticism from critics who like to attack music for not aging well, but I don’t see the problem. Music is rarely created with longevity in mind and, as far as 1986 albums go, I think this works just fine.

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia First posted 6/5/2021; updated 6/7/2021.

Blondie hit #1 with “Call Me”

Call Me Blondie

Writer(s): Deborah Harry/Giorgio Moroder (see lyrics here) Released: February 1, 1980 First Charted: February 16, 1980 Peak: 16 US, 17 CB, 15 GR, 16 HR, 16 RR, 11 UK, 16 CN, 4 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.25 UK, 1.4 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 2.0 radio, 82.5 video, 376.69 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Composer and producer Giorgio Moroder, best known for his work with Donna Summer, initially approached Stevie Nicks about doing a song for the movie American Gigolo. Because of a restrictive contract she’d signed with Modern Records, Nicks had to turn him down. He turned to Blondie instead for the movie’s theme song. BB Moroder gave Debbie Harry, the lead singer of Blondie, a rough instrumental called “Man Machine” and asked her to write the lyrics. WK She says the band jumped at the chance “to work with their hero…‘He was the king of disco…And we were still the anti-establishment invaders.’” RS After seeing a rough cut of the film, she went home FB and wrote lyrics in just a few hours from the perspective of a male prostitute – the main character of the film. WK Moroder didn’t enjoy the experience, however. He said he was supposed to do an entire album with the band, but that he called the band’s manager and quit because the guitarist and keyboardist were fighting in the studio. SF Harry said “He’s very nice to work with…(but) I don’t think he has a lot of patience who fool around or don’t take what they do seriously…He’s a perfectionist…so I think that people who are…less concentrated bore him him quickly.” FB The song became the band’s second #1 in the U.S. after “Heart of Glass” and spent four weeks atop the dance chart. WK The song was Blondie’s fourth chart-topper in the UK and also hit #1 in Canada. Its six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart helped it to earn the distinction of the magazine’s top song of the year. In the UK, the song was also used for an ad for a British Telecom. BB Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Blondie BB Billboard (8/2/2013). Hot 100 55th Anniversary: The All-Time Top 100 Songs” FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 524. RS Rolling Stone (4/7/2011). “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 11/13/2019; last updated 7/13/2023.