Prince hit #1 with “Kiss”

Kiss Prince & the Revolution

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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.

Edwin Starr “War” hit #1

War Edwin Starr

Writer(s): Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong (see lyrics here) Released: June 10, 1970 First Charted: July 11, 1970 Peak: 13 US, 12 CB, 11 HR, 3 RB, 3 UK, 1 CN, 37 AU, 5 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 25.4 video, 85.89 streaming

War Bruce Springsteen

Recorded: September 30, 1985 (live) Released: November 10, 1986 First Charted: November 21, 1986 Peak: 8 US, 9 CB, 12 RR, 4 AR, 18 UK, 11 CN, 38 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2.5 video, -- streaming

Awards (Edwin Starr): Click on award for more details. Awards (Springsteen):

About the Song: Motown liked to recycle songs amongst their roster of artists. In 1967, Gladys Knight & the Pips hit #2 with “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” The next year, Marvin Gaye took it to #1. 1967 also saw Gaye paired with Tammi Terrell for the top-20 hit “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” a song which would top the charts in 1970 – in fact, it knocked Edwin Starr’s “War” from the perch. “War” was another of those recycled songs. The song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, who also penned “Grapevine.” They also wrote several top-10 hits for the Temptations, including the #1 “I Can’t Get Next to You.” The pair wrote everything for the Temptations’ 1970 album Psychedelic Shack, which included the non-single “War.” The song was “a hard, intense stomp-chant, as visceral as what the moment demanded.” SG Motown received hundreds of letters pleading for them to release it as a single FB but head honcho Berry Gordy was leary to unleash an anti-war song SG on the group’s “large and surprisinginly conservative Black middle-class audience.” BD Whitfield asked Edwin Starr if he’d like to record it. FB He was “a journeyman soul belter who was low on the Motown totem pole.” SG Essentially he had “no fan fase to alienate.” BD He’d been signed to the label in 1966, but didn’t record anything for two-and-a-half years while contract negotiations stalled. FB Finally, in 1969 he found success with the top-10 hit “Twenty-Five Miles,” but it was followed by several failed singles. The Temptations’ version of “War” “is nasty and funky, but it’s not the vein-throbbing wail that it would eventually become.” SG Starr’s version “was harder and choppier, all its power coming from that merciless rhythmic march…The groove is huge and all-consuming…There’s fuzz all over the guitars, and a nervous tambourine tingles all through it. This is weaponized music, music that’s impossible to ignore.” SG Vocally, Starr “swipe[s] all of [James] Brown’s affectations, right down to that perfectly placed ‘good God, y’all’ on the chorus.” SG Bob Dylan says, “One can’t help but wonder whether or not the peacenik sentiment behind the song was sincere or merely the next relevant subject to be mined in the attempt to reach Young America’s wallets…Even if it was a blatant exploitation of the peace movement, it’s still a stronger song than ‘Eve of Destruction.’” BD It is ironic that the song asking, “war, what is it good for?” is co-written by Barrett Strong who gave Motown “its first hit, that oft-covered anthem of avarice – ‘Money.’” BD In 1985, Bruce Springsteen performed “War” while touring in support of his monstrously successful Born in the U.S.A. album. The song was featured on the monstrously successful live box set in 1986 and was released as a single. Before singing, Springsteen offers his own perspective on the Vietnam War, for which he received a draft notice but then failed his physical. He warns the young members of the audience that the next time the country may come looking to them and that “blind faith in your leaders, or anything, will get you killed.” Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Edwin Starr DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bruce Springsteen FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 280. BD Bob Dylan (2022). The Philosophy of Modern Song. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Pages 211-5. SG Stereogum (1/10/2019). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 11/5/2022.