It’s that time once again, boys and girls. Our survey brings us now to 1974, which, just like the year before it, was a banner year for #1s - I had to go all the way to #53 this year to fill in the 25 spots for our poll.
What’s your favorite of this motley bunch of jams?
I had to go with Midnight at the Oasis. That song was the summer of 1974 for me. Each time I hear it I can still smell the suntan lotion and hear the waves at Lake Michigan.
For me it came down to the 3 finalists, “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination,” “Help Me,” and “Rock On.”
“I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” - the song is a good one, but Joan Osborne’s cover of it turned out better, I thought. Joan slowed the tempo to what feels appropriate—smoky R&B verging on funk, with a healthy pulse but comfortable and unhurried like good sex—compared to which Gladys’s original arrangement sounds rushed, like the oomph didn’t keep up with the beat. Joan recorded its oomph with a tighter backing track also. Joan Osborne, let it be noted, has a solid history of making covers that outdo the originals.
“Help Me” was fun to revisit and remember why it made such an impression in 1974 and onwards, didn’t it feel good? You dance with the lady with the hole in her stocking, didn’t it feel good?
“Rock On” was a radically original hit record, one of the first to explore the possibilities of texture and to give texture a prominent role in the song. I went back and listened to Essex’s original, which broke no new ground in terms of melody, harmony, or rhythm, but as was typical of the unique burst of creativeness in the first half of the 1970s, it was a revolutionary experiment into a new musical dimension when it appeared. I tried to compare it with the Blondie cover that I have. Essex clearly provided a fascinating example of what can be done with texture. Blondie’s cover had the better vocal delivery, and the original texture was overlaid with hard rock. I want to give points to Essex for the cool textural experiment, but I enjoy Blondie’s hard rock remake even better, according to my hips.
So after considering all that I made up my mind to give the nod to Joni.
I was in the middle of college in 1974. Not only wasn’t I listening to top-40 music, I’m not sure I even knew anyone who was. It was all albums, all the time.
So I recognize about eight of the songs on this list - songs that either showed up on albums that friends were playing then or later, or songs that had some staying power on the radio - and went with Steely Dan.
Yeah, I still love that song for its guitar work. Muldaur sang a lot of sexually suggestive songs. I’m sure that it was a surprise to her that this became a hit.
I picked ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ for the same reason. Amos Garrett with his special stringbending technique. He did some great guitar work with Great Speckled Bird, too.
Listening through the list besides the ones I already like, the Aretha Franklin song is also pretty good. It came down to her and Eddie Kendrick, I gave Eddie the vote since no one had done so till I did.
Oh my. This was the period when I worked as a Top 40 disc jockey. I had hoped to never even see some of these titles ever again. Even if I can tell you their exact lengths and how many seconds of intro there is to talk over.
Plan to see I was into FM Album rock in 74. There’s only 8 on the list I can remember from then. And 2 that I only know from the movies The Sting and Pulp Fiction.
