The Day the (Brit) Music Died

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Radio 4's arts programme "Front Row" last night reported the fact that the Billboard 100, the US pop charts has no single British entrant for the first time in 40 years. Paul Gambuccini's interpretation of this was the increasing fragmentation and localisation of the industry.

Of rather greater interest was the list of the top 5 British records on the Billboard lists over the past 50 years. A very strange list indeed. They were as follows :-

1. Candle in the Wind - Elton John 2. Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart - Vera Lynn (I kid u not) 3. Mull of Kintyre - Paul McCartney's Wings 4. ???? - Rod Stewart (can't remember title - but not one of his biggest UK hits i think) 5. Every Move You Make - Police

The Vera Lynn record appeared in 1953 and it seems to have captured the mood of the Korean war in exactly the same way as "We'll meet again" captured hearts and minds in WWII. Now that I'm writing this I'm not sure about 3. - I'm sure they played Hey Jude at some point in the programme. The Beatles had more British entries in the chart than any other artist.

The number one of course is as a direct result of the Monarchy, and gives an unusual example of just how important this instution appears to be beyond these shores. I certainly wouldn't have guessed any of these with the possible exception of Mull of Kintyre.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

Answers

American pop

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

Does anyone really care if bands make it in America? For their own commercial success many bands try to break that market, but with a population the size of Europe how do you please most of the people for some of the time? Do bands that make the trans-Atlantic crossover lose some of their roots - like U2 who have turned into stadium rock stars, or like the Rolling Stones, milking the hippies who followed them in the 60s and 70s with an annual world tour.

BTW - was the Elton John single Candle in the Wind (about Marilyn Monroe) or 'Goodbye England's Rose' (about Princess Diana)?

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002


They mentioned this on R5 it had me thinking, I bought a US artist's CD ,the strokes for the first time in years, in fact the last one was possibly Springsteen when he was good (which was a while ago)

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

But we still probably make up 40% of the album charts where the real money comes from.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

Just goes to show how bad the US music scene is these days. :(

Kind of surprised there are no Beatles songs, though Capitol tended to release so many singles so fast there probably wasn't much chance of any 1 song getting the numbers it would need for the top 5. Also a bit surprised about Mull of Kintyre. Never thought it was that popular here. Most talk I've heard of that one was how it was such a monster hit in the UK.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002



BTW Bobby, both versions are known as Candle in the Wind, and it probably is the Diana version that boosted it into the top 5. Though it also boosted interest in the original version as well, but I don't think there was ever a re-release of the original as a single.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

It's hard to imagine why anyone buys singles. I think I never owned more than 6. The last one I had contained the 2 signature tunes to "AufWiedersehen Pet". I also bought an old Manfred Mann single in a market once. "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". Brilliant song I had always liked but I had to snap it up when I looked at the writer's name - my main muse - the one and only Bob Dylan.

"Candle In The Wind" was the 1997 version.



-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

I loved singles! It was a fantastic way to purchase songs you liked, cheaply, without having to shell out for an entire album (Though I often bought albums once I decided I liked the sound of an artist's singles...ahhh, b-sides!). Plus there was something special about coming home with a bag full of a variety of music, with interesting cover art and sometimes colored vinyl and label art. UK record companies used to produced similarly creative cd singles, but there don't seem to be many of those around anymore. US record companies have all but done away with singles of any variety. I guess at $3.99-5.99 each they weren't as appealing as the old vinyl 7" at $.99 - $1.99. I'll stop here before entering into my rant about greedy record companies killing themselves(napster and such my @rse) with jacked up cd prices that make people even less willing to risk purchasing an entire album if they only know one song.

Bring back the vinyl single! (and lower the cost of cd albums!) :-)

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002


If ever there was a single I liked I'd buy the album as there was bound to be at least one other track that I liked on the LP... justifying the cost. Usually I'd end up buying the artist's entire collection!

Mind... most of the bands I liked didn't do "singles"

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002


You know the problem with music today, you can't hear the words & you can't whistle to it - bloody racket.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002


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