US #1s of 1969

"Suspicious Minds", slightly surprisingly.

voted Temptations for "OOOOOOooooooooh-YYAAHH *crazy ride cymbal*"

that's my all-time favorite tempts song but jeez "everyday people" and "suspicious minds" make this impossible to decide

i heard "in the year 2525" in a store the other day, must've been on the oldies station. this song gave me nightmares when I was a kid now it just sounds weird. or silly.

Not a bad one on the list, but I'll take "Aquarius," in which the 5th Dimension tie everything together, bridging the generation gap. And for Joe Osborn throwing it down on the bass in "Let the Sunshine In."

Love "Suspicious Minds," but these lyrics give me pause...

"When an old friend I know stops by to say hello..."
Well, at least it's not an old friend you DON'T know - how embarassing would that be!"[/i}

"I'm caught in a trap / I can't walk out"
[i]If you could just walk out it wouldn't be much of a trap, E"

Sorry for botching the italics.

This is not an easy list.

These:

Tommy James & the Shondells, "Crimson and Clover"
Sly & the Family Stone, "Everyday People"
The 5th Dimension, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)"
Henry Mancini, "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet"
The Rolling Stones, "Honky Tonk Women"
The Archies, "Sugar, Sugar"
Elvis Presley, "Suspicious Minds"
The Beatles, "Come Together"
Steam, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"
Diana Ross & The Supremes, "Someday We'll Be Together"

are all songs that are ensconced in my subconscious mind somewhere. I had a slight inclination to get all Geir and vote for Mancini's 'melody' but I think I have to be city-proud and vote for Sly and the Family Stone.

Suspicious Minds

c r i i i i m s o o o n a n d c c l l l o o o v v v e r
o o o o v e e e e r a n d o o o o o v v e e e r

1. Elvis
2. Tempts
3. Stones
4. Archies
5. Sly Stone
6. Tommy Roe

At last I get to vote for the Archies in something!

These are all good

Yeah, awesome list. Both Tommys are pure pop perfection, and those may be both the first Beatles and Stones songs I had active knowledge of (just coming out of a huge 24/7 Monkees fixation.) I loved 2525 back then, too. Think I'm voting "Dizzy."

"In the Year 2525" is the stupidest song ever next to "Take a Letter Maria." The only thing good about it is it is probably what Dukes of the Stratosphear were playing off of when they wrote 'What in the World??..', which is a funny and awesome song. Just that guy's voice in 2525 (Zager's? Evans'?), trying to be all profundo portent and just coming off like a shitbag. Worst thing on the way to work, I walk by a mailbox with a giant 2525 on it, so I think about the song 2x a workday.

I've stared at that list a lot this morning and can't decide. Probably Sly.

My friends had Zager on their radio show doing a phone interview once. They wanted to talk about what the song meant, but Zager was the guitarist and was only interested in talking about unconventional tuning, so I guess the singer was Evans. I think that Zager secretly thought that the song was stupid, too.

Voted Hot Fun, btw. xpost

Sly

"In the Year 2525" is the stupidest song ever

Gotta opine there were/are waaaay stupider hit singles -- "They're Coming To Take me Away, Ha-Haaa" surely ranks, did Napoleon XIV chart in Britain? -- but yeah, a song with the subtitle "Exordium and Terminus" is obviously cosmic claptrap, that's kind of the fun of it. (1969 was also the year The Moody Blues released that LP that starts with the "10 billion butterfly sneezes" oratory.) The lyrics about selecting your kids from a test tube fascinated the Twilight Zone-loving 11-year-old me, in the same way The Buoy's "Timothy" did.

2525 haters begone!!!!

I too surprised myself with an Elvis vote.

"Dizzy" over "Sugar Sugar" (over Elvis and Stones and "Wedding Bell Blues" etc), though I will always be proud to overrate "In the Year 2525," which was one of the first songs I ever consciously liked.

It took Dalida's version of "2525" to make me realize the brilliance of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGxN8yX4Qv0

The slow intro to "2525," before it goes all flamenco, sounds like the melody line to "Epitaph" by King Crimson (also released '69.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I'd never heard this 2525 song before ... seems like the kinda thing I'd be into but it really has nothing going on except for that one melody line/chord progression and is otherwise totally boring. how the fuck did something like this get to #1?

2525 (Exordium and Terminus) [RCA Victor, 1969]
Zager & Evans make Simon & Garfunkel sound like Marx & Engels. The only reason this is not an E is that the title song has sold a million copies. That means they have to be doing something right. D-

it isn't even a remotely clever song - there's no lyrical twist (its just "this is what things will be like IN THE FUTURE!"), no hook, no changes (apart from ooh a key change where they go up a whole step - lazy). its just weird, why was this successful.

IIRC a "one-hit wonders" piece from Mojo, "2525" was kind of a fluke, a b-side that took off in the midwest that had a little help from a "future shock" tangent in the media.

History from wiki:

The song was originally written in 1964 and recorded and released in 1967 on the Truth Records label. After a radio station in Odessa, Texas popularized the two-year old record, RCA Records distributed the song nationwide. Sales of the original hit recording (including singles sales, album usage and compilation inclusions) now total over 10 million units worldwide.

More fun

Their followup single on RCA-Victor, "Mr. Turnkey" (a song about a rapist who nails his own wrist to the wall as punishment for his crime), failed to chart.

hahaha waht

bahahaha ok that kind of makes their existence worthwhile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUQuXwNKMkU

10,000,000 Zager & Evans Fans Can't Be Wrong

Maybe this is heretical, but I prefer FYC's version of "Suspicious Minds" and Joan Jett's "Crimson and Clover" (proving what great songs they are).

Thus, it frees me to vote for the Temptations.

1. come together
2. everyday people
3. suspicious minds

<333 "Take a Letter Maria."

1. come together
2. everyday people
3. suspicious minds

― why is Barack Obama rarely seen dancing (hmmmm), Thursday, July 9, 2009 3:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

those are my top 3 too, but i'd make "come together" #3 and bump the other two up.

("crimson and clover" is one of my favorite songs ever, but i think it took joan jett to realize its full potential.)

The "50 Worst Records of All Time" guys were right: Stupidest thing about "2525" is when they exhaust all the rhymes for "five" and are forced to use 7510.

Like Alfred, I'll take FYC's "Suspicious Minds" over the King's. Frankly I've never known why it's considered one of his greats, it could practically be anyone's unremarkable voice among the doubletracked harmony and background singers.

Voted "Wedding Bell Blues", with Sly and the Archies coming close.

more cowbell

How would one decide that "Come Together" should be on this list and not "Something"?

Great list. I went with the Tempts, but it's good to see the love for "Suspicious Minds." I could just as easily have voted for that, Tommy James, Sly, or the Stones.

its that whole "double A-side" issue

(x-post)

(Something is waaaaaay better than Come Together btw, and I probably would've voted for it over Everyday People too)

Am I the only "Leaving On A Jet Plane" lover??

Fantastic year for #1s--all that's missing is CCR, who I think had a few #2s that year. Anyway...
1. "Wedding Bell Blues"
2. "Crimson and Clover"
3. "Dizzy"
4. "Everyday People"
5. "Leaving on a Jet Plane"
6. "Someday We'll Be Together"
The top three are almost dead even. The Rolling Stones, Elvis, and Archies records are great, but I'm a little tired of all three. The Beatles check in near the bottom with Steam and Henry Mancini!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Poor, poor Beatles.

Get Back is really not that great a song

PP, on double a-sides I've taken the first listed. I've been consistent about this.

And here's 1969 rated for ya.

wrong link, it seems?

lol of course.

Just the #1s.