Before we finish off the 1975 Hideaway 100 with the Top 10 songs, we'd like to share a few countdown stats:
- 100 songs
- 090 songs made the Cash Box and Record World singles charts
- 089 songs made Billboard's Hot 100 chart
- 088 different artists
- 088 songs made the Gavin Reports singles chart
- 084 songs made the Top 40 of the Hot 100 chart
- 080 songs made the Radio & Records singles chart
- 061 songs made the Top 10 of the Hot 100 chart
- 056 songs ended up on the WLS year-end Big 89
- 043 songs made Billboard's Easy Listening chart
- 024 songs were Number One on the Cash Box singles chart
- 023 songs made Billboard's Hot Soul Singles chart
- 023 songs were Number One on the Hot 100 and Record World charts
- 013 songs made the Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart
- 013 songs were Number One on the Gavin Reports singles chart
- 013 songs were Number One on the Hot Soul Singles chart
- 012 artists appear on the countdown with two songs each
- 011 songs were Number One on Radio & Records singles chart
- 009 song can be found on the K-Tel album Mind Bender
- 009 songs were Number One on the Easy Listening chart
- 008 songs can be found on the K-Tel album 36 Super Gold Hits
- 008 songs were not released as singles or failed to make any chart
- 008 songs can be found on the K-Tel album Music Express
- 008 songs were Number One on the Hot Country Singles Chart
- 008 songs can be found on the Ronco album Sound Explosion
- 002 songs were Number One on six of the charts listed: "Have You Never Been Mellow" and "Get Down Tonight"
If you've missed any of the 1975 Hideaway 100 segments or want to review songs 100-11, click HERE. Now without further delay, here are the Top 10 songs.
My Uncle Sam had the Why Can't We Be Friends? album on 8-track so I heard it a lot in the Summer of 1975. The playlist on the tape was slightly altered from the vinyl copy I eventually picked up. The title song never fails to put a smile on my face when I hear it.
"Sky High" blew my eight-year-old mind the first time I heard it. It reminded me so much of "Live And Let Die" with orchestral boom and bang counterbalancing the melodic vocals. Sounded great on AM radio and didn't disappoint when I finally heard it on FM.
Wow! Two songs from one act in the Top 10, with just one song between them. It may seem like I've lost my dang mind but that's the way things worked out. "Low Rider" gets the nod over "Why Can't We Be Friends?" with its heavy bottom end, cool vocal effects, non-stop percussion, and my affinity for low-rider culture. The 50th Anniversary version of "Why Can't We Be Friends?" was recently released, featuring a 9:34 original unedited version of "Low Rider" that is well worth a listen.
Recorded and released in 1973 but unheard in North America until 1975, "Ballroom Blitz" sounds so great blaring from the car stereo, with any distortion only adding to the song's mystique. "Ballroom Blitz" is a hard-rockin' glam masterpiece, another jewel in the Chinnichap crown.
Like numbers 8 and 10 above and numbers 37, 20, and 50 before, "Sweet Emotion" can be heard in the 1993 film Dazed and Confused, as well as on the two accompanying soundtrack albums. "Sweet Emotion" is the first song heard in the movie before the studio logo has left the screen and the opening credits roll as a bright orange 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge cruises slowly through the student parking lot. It is a spectacular scene, with the slow-burning intro to "Sweet Emotion" providing an extra bit of swagger. Even before this scene, the song was my favorite Aerosmith track thanks to Uncle Sam and repeated listenings of Toys In The Attic.
I love "Get Down Tonight". It's my favorite KC and the Sunshine Band song and, if I have my druthers, I prefer to hear the 1994 Tom Moulton Mix that clocks in just a hair over nine minutes long. It has a deconstructed vintage disco vibe that I find irresistible.
Nothing else on the radio sounded like "Love Will Keep Us Together" in 1975. All those squiggly sounds from The Captain's pile of machines topped with Toni Tennille's sunshiney vocals still make bad days better and good days great when we hear it. The Love Will Keep Us Together album was among my initial order of six albums for a nickel from the RCA Music Service.
A creeping bassline punctuated with a ringing staccato guitar riff and then brief blasts of droning guitar chords kick off the song and album titled One Of These Nights. Dad picked up the eight-track, the one with the blue plastic case, and sometime later, a vinyl copy of the album appeared on his shelf next to his other Eagles albums. He listened to that album repeatedly, and I learned the tracklists of both formats as the album became my favorite from the group.
The blast of power-pop known as Pilot's "Magic" is another song that never fails to put a smile on my face whenever I hear it. It's a pure feel-good song, an earworm of the highest degree. Is it a love song? Oh yeah, this guy really loves himself a daybreak and spending time in bed with his pillow. The key to enjoying this song is not to be too critical of it, and not to scratch too deep beyond the surface. Alan Parsons's production is a crucial element of the song's appeal, giving it a polished sheen, a hard shell on the song's fluffy center. On any given day "Magic" could have topped the 1975 Hideaway 100 but today we have "Magic" as the runner-up.
This song may have had an unfair advantage over other songs as I've been reading The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969-1973 and listening to a lot of the music mentioned within it. Although "Listen To What The Man Said" shouldn't make an appearance until the second volume, the song has popped into my head more than a few times while reading about the genesis and recording of other Paul McCartney tracks. I remember being so disappointed that the song wasn't included on the Wings Greatest Hits album. McCartney himself called the song "a good summer single" and no other song takes me back to the Summer of 1975 like "Listen To What The Man Said". I hear my Aunt Judy (Sam's older sister) singing along to the song while we're sitting in her car at the newly opened Sonic Drive-In a couple of blocks from my Texas Grandma's house. Clarinets in a pop song is a great idea and Tom Scott's sax solo is fantastic. The song always evokes a crystal-clear memory and it always makes me feel good. "The wonder of it all, baby, yeah, yeah, yeah".
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