Best of the Rest of the Top 40: 1975

Cafe Society
1

Our survey now takes us to 1975, and man-oh-man was this a hard list to compile. This was a busy year for pop music, and I had to go all the way to #57 on the year-end chart to get our 25 picks for this year.

What’s your favorite?

Previous polls: 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974

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2

One vote for the dead horse.

3

How is Barry White not getting all the votes?

4

10CC; I’ve always liked that song.

5

I love “Ballroom Blitz” and “I’m Not in Love,” but finally chose “How Long” for Paul Carrack’s vocals.

6

Ballroom Blitz, one of my all time favorite songs. Cannot be in a bad mood while it’s playing!

7

“Why Can’t We Be Friends” got my vote, and I’m pretty surprised I’m the only one so far. It won a tight one over “Ballroom Blitz,” “Boogie On Reggae Woman,” and “I’m Not in Love” for supremacy in the world-famous Ponch8 Music Rating System.

“Chevy Van” is dead-ass last, just behind “Feelings.”

8

I read the first three entries and thought “1975 is a great year!” Then I read the rest of the list. Oh well… there were still some good ones mixed in. Voted for Janice Ian.

9

I can’t argue with that but just thinking of “Feelings” makes me think of Eunice (Carole Burnett) on the Gong Show, which was gut wrenching (in a good way).

10

There are easily a dozen songs on this list I have forgotten about and would love to hear again.

I went with Ace - “How Long?” but that’s a tough call even.

11

For those wanting the exact definition of “Musical Dreck”, this list has pretty muchan example of every major genre of the species.

Janice Ian, bless her, took us back to 1964 for a moment.

12

I voted for the Isley Brothers. Powerful song.

13

It’s my favourite too, of the few on this list that I know, but apparently we are in the minority. No runaway leader at this stage, either.

14

So where to begin? I feel the Number 1 songs of 1975 were much stronger than the Best of the Rest.

The best songs are most likely the 10cc and Ace, with singer Paul Carrack who also sang “Tempted” by Squeeze and “Living Years” and other songs with Mike and the Mechanics.

Gave the list a listen, few songs I liked were “BallroomBlitz”, “Jackie Blue”, “Magic”, “Dynomite”, “Walking in Rhythm”, and “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You”, mainly for the guitar riff.

I already voted for Sugarloaf in the 1970 poll, and “Green Eyed Lady” is a better song.

So it came down to “Jackie Blue” and “Dynomite”(just discovered through this list), and I chose the first one.

So Ozark Mountain Daredevils, here is your vote. Used to think the vocalist(drummer) was a lady.

15

I voted for 10cc. For that time the production was pretty special. At the time I’d have probably gone for Ballroom Blitz. I know Barry Manilow is not very fashionable, but I think Could It Be Magic has stood the test of time.

I’m a Brit and there’s quite a few I don’t know in the list. I’ll have to get round to You-tubing a lot of tracks in this series.

16

I went back and forth between I’m Not in Love and Ballroom Blitz, but ultimately went with the 10CC song.

17

It’s funny how I never heard of “Dynomite” before seeing this list, but it sounds EXACTLY like I thought it would.

18

Couldn’t resist you tubing that. A quality tune… proper 1975!

Cheers mate!

19

I gotta go with Linda Ronstadt. Definitely one of her best songs.