A Mixed Bag of Hits
Summer 1973
Episode date - July 3, 2013
As excited as I get when recounting the music that was released in 1973, it is not nearly as easy to get excited about pop music from this same era.
I don’t think there was ever a time when the difference between the album charts and the singles charts were so starkly contrasted. This era certainly signified the ‘premature prediction of death’ for the hit single, as it looked like the artistic merit and validity of the hit single ceased to exist.
Of course, we all know that the concept of a hit single rose from the ashes with the onset of the digital age, but with this show we focus on a time when pop radio was a drastically disparate hit-or-miss affair.
Here are a few examples, as featured in this program;
1) Pinball Wizard/See Me Feel Me- The New Seekers (as a ‘Bad Hit’)
2) Right Place, Wrong Time – Dr. John
3) Money – Pink Floyd
4) Let’s Get It On – Marvin Gaye
5) The Morning After – Maureen McGovern (as a ‘Bad Hit’)
6) Delta Dawn – Helen Reddy (as a ‘Bad Hit’)
7) Live and Let Die – Wings
8) Feelin’ Stronger Every Day – Chicago
9) Here I Am (Come and Take Me)- Al Green
10) Who’s in the Strawberry Patch with Sally – Dawn (as a ’Bad Hit’ - duh)
11) Soul Makossa – Manu Dibango
12) Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – Elton John