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.

Commodores “Brick House” charted

Brick House Commodores

Writer(s): Lionel Richie, Milan Williams, Walter Orange, Ronald LaPread, Thomas McClary, William King (see lyrics here) First Charted: Auugst 26, 1977 Peak: 5 BB, 6 CB, 5 GR, 9 HR, 10 RR, 4 RB, 32 UK, 24 CN, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 48.16 video, 138.88 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The Commodores were a horn-driven funk collective that formed at Tuskegee University (then Tuskegee Institute) in 1968. They won a freshman talent contest and went on to play fraternity parties and weekend gigs while in college. In 1972, they signed to Motown. The group’s debut album, Machine Gun, was released in 1974. The album’s instrumental title track became their first chart hit, reaching #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #7 on the R&B chart. The group, however, would come to be known more for slower fare like “Sweet Love,” “Just to Be Close to You,” and “Easy” – all of which hit the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100. These Lionel Richie-helmed ballads came to define the band. He was also the voice behind future hits such as “Three Times a Lady,” “Sail On,” and “Still.” However, the group never abandoned their funk sound. The fifth studio album, Commodores, showed both sides of the band with “Easy” as the lead single and “Brick House” as the follow-up. Drummer Walter Orange tended to handle the more upbeat, funk numbers. “Brick House” was the most successful of these. Songfacts.com said it “epitomizes the funky side of the Commodores.” SF Richie said the phrase is a play on the expression “built like a brick shithouse,” a reference to a strongly built woman. WK The band’s guitarist and trumpeter William King was tasked to write a song and fell asleep at home before completing the task. His wife Shirley, however, was also a songwriter and wrote the words while he was sleeping. The band then put a groove to the words at a jam session. SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Commodores SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 4/16/2024.

Van McCoy “The Hustle” hit #1

The Hustle Van McCoy

Writer(s): Van McCoy (see lyrics here) First Charted: April 19, 1975 Peak: 11 US, 11 CB, 11 HR, 11 RR, 2 AC, 11 RB, 3 UK, 12 CN, 9 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.25 UK, 10.0 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 63.6 video, 17.06 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “The Hustle” was a dance before it was a song. Puerto Rican teens in the South Bronx, many from a motorcycle gang, invented the dance. It went through various versions and names and gained popularity in New York clubs. The Fatback Band tried to capitalize on it in 1975 with “Spanish Hustle” and James Brown released “Hustle!!! (Dead on It).” SG However it was Van McCoy who found the greatest success. He was a “music industry lifer” SG from Washington, DC. who was playing piano by age four and writing songs at 12. He dropped out of school as a teen, moved to Philadelphia, and started a label called Rockin’ Records with his uncle. FB In the early ‘60s, he worked as a staff songwriter with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. He wrote minor hits for Gladys Knight & the Pips and Ruby & the Romantics and came close to the top 10 with Barbara Lewis’ 1965 “Baby I’m Yours” and the Presidents’ “5-10-15-20 (25 Years of Love” from 1970. He put together Peaches & Herb and arranged songs for the Stylistics. SG In 1975, McCoy released Disco Baby, a mostly instrumental and “fairly forgettable collection of slickster funk” SG which included lackuster covers of the Ohio Players’ “Fire” and the Average White Band’s “Pick Up the Pieces.” However, the album also included “The Hustle.” McCoy saw people doing the dance at a New York club called Adam’s Apple and wrote and recorded “The Hustle” with an hour of studio time left over. SG The song “didn’t have the pulsing stomp or the vocal operatics” SG that would come with later disco hits. It did, however, feature a “tense bassline… the glimmers of guitar, the bass-drum kick,” SG and the “cooling session vocalists” SG interjecting the command to “do the hustle” into an otherwise instrumental song. The Grammy winner for Best Pop Instrumental became a “landmark in the disco movement, and remains one of the records most closely associated with the 1970s dance craze.” JA Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Van McCoy FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 410. JA David A. Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 80. SG Stereogum (7/30/2019). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia First posted 10/23/2022.