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Post by TRAVIS222 on Feb 9, 2016 20:58:53 GMT -5
I`ve often wondered why Linda didn`t have more #1 singles. Thinking back, I believe that by releasing `It`s So Easy` less than a month after `Blue Bayou`, Asylum Records put the two songs up against each other. This prevented either from hitting the top spot. BB was released 7/23/77 and was climbing the charts when ISE was put out on 10/20/77. They were both in the top 10 by 11/16/77. BB peaked at #3, ISO at #5. If released alone, I think BB could have knocked out `You light up my Life`, which was in it`s 10th and last week at #1. Releasing ITS a month later would have put it near the top spot right before the Staying Alive juggernaut. Just a little food for thought....PS great site! |
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Post by erik on Feb 9, 2016 22:06:10 GMT -5
The problem with that is that, in that very week, the Bee Gees were right in there as well with "How Deep Is Your Love?" (this, and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER had just been released in the movie theaters, with its soundtrack soon to follow), along with Crystal Gayle's "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue." Linda did have some fairly stiff competition during those final three months of 1977.
I think Asylum may have been hedging its bets with "Blue Bayou", and they wanted to put out "It's So Easy" as a follow-up in case "Blue Bayou" began to lose its momentum. As incredible as it might seem, they may have also underestimated what they were getting themselves into.
Just for arcane chart matters here: "Blue Bayou" entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 09/10/77 at #84, and then broke into the Top 40 at #40 on 10/08/77. That same weekend, "It's So Easy" entered the Hot 100 at #77; and three weeks later, on 10/29/77, it broke into the Top 40 at #34. And that very weekend, "Blue Bayou" was at #21. Both songs were climbing.
An artist or group having two songs on the Hot 100 during a single chart week wasn't exactly noteworthy, as that had happened a few times during the 70s itself; and of course Elvis and the Beatles each often had multiple songs on the Hot 100. But usually, it would be one song going up the chart, and another descending it. This time around, though, Linda had two songs on the Hot 100 at the same time, and both were climbing. This hadn't been seen on Billboard's Hot 100 at any time since April 1964, when the Beatles themselves owned the entire Top Five (and had nine other songs on the Hot 100); and above all else, no other female artist in history had ever been able to do it. This, and the fact that, on December 3, 1977, Linda's album Simple Dreams was topping both Billboard's Top 200 album chart, and their C&W album chart (on the latter, she had disloged the final official album of one of her heroes, Elvis In Concert, from the catbird seat).
I would also add that "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy" were at #1 and #2 in terms of radio airplay here in Los Angeles during the final six weeks of 1977, and "Blue Bayou" was also #1 on the playlist of KLAC AM-570, then the highest-rated country music radio station in America.
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Post by Tony on Feb 12, 2016 1:57:59 GMT -5
Chart placements were just a statistical game based on reported airplay and other factors. The best "selling" song might not be the #1 song. Don't Know Much and Somewhere Out There both hit #1 on the chart that was based purely on sales, but neither hit #1 on the Hot 100.
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Post by sliderocker on Feb 13, 2016 20:23:56 GMT -5
Not really. "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy" were million sellers and their chart placements were inconsequential as Billboard's Top 40/100/200 singles charts have always a manipulative mix of sales and radio airplay. Not to mention a bias in favor of some artists or a prejudice against certain artists. I've always felt the charts should be sales based only with no radio airplay factored into the equation. It's blatantly unfair to deny a record the number one position because another record had more radio airplay. The sales may not have been equal and all of the radio airplay could not change that fact.
A good example of how radio airplay affected the charts occurred in 1972 when Elvis Presley's million selling single "Burning Love" failed to make number one in Billboard because Chuck Berry's "My Ding a Ling" received more radio airplay than Elvis's record. Berry's record sales came in at just under a million, something like 973,000 copies. "Burning Love" was said to have sold 2,000,000 copies. The Berry single, popular as it was, could not have received that much airplay to make up for the difference in sales.
Billboard has been accused in recent years by Elvis fans and even some critics of having a prejudice against Elvis, a charge they have repeatedly denied. Billboard even changed their practice of giving both sides of a record a chart position in 1969, replacing it by noting the flip side was being played with an F designation. But, that rule seemed to affect only Elvis 45s and not 45s by other artists. The Beatles' 45s for instance, if both sides received airplay and accounted for sales, the B-side was given its own chart position. Elvis was virtually the only artist in the 70s still receiving radio airplay on both sides of the record. The B-side to the above mentioned "Burning Love," was the song "It's a Matter of Time." It too got the F designation but Billboard doesn't count it as a number two. Had "Burning Love" made number one, the B-side would had to have been considered a number one as well, and Billboard couldn't have that.
That Linda only had one song that made it to number one was something I didn't know until a few years back. I thought she had more. Regarding "Blue Bayou," it's said to have been her best selling single as a solo artist, and not counting "Different Drum," since that record was released as a Stone Poneys. But, the fact Asylum released two 45s on her at the same time and both songs were hits for her most likely did kill a chance for "Blue Bayou" to make it to number one.
But, how well a record did in Billboard doesn't matter. Same for Cashbox, which frequently was at odds with Billboard as to what the number one song was at any given moment. The charts couldn't really be trusted because they were based on sales in about 12,500 stores across the US and in certain areas. Not in all stores and in all areas. There's no telling how many sales they actually missed. Their beloved Soundscan was supposed to be a vast improvement but they still miss sales because not all stores use Soundscan. And when you're only using a certain number of stores to determine your charts, instead of all, what's number one has no meaning because of all the others that are missed. Sure, it's a number one but it shouldn't be considered an absolute number one.
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Post by erik on Feb 13, 2016 23:12:17 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
Well, like I said, they may have been hedging their bets on "Blue Bayou" because the basic truth is that it didn't really resemble anything that was on the charts in the later half of 1977. Disco and Arena Rock were at an apex; the music of STAR WARS was omnipresent, both in John Williams' original score and Meco Monardo's discofied version of the theme; Pat Boone's daughter Debby had the longest-running #1 of the year with "You Light Up My Life"; and, last but not least, Elvis had just died a terribly premature death, and "Way Down" was a tremendous valedictory single (managing to become his 78th million-seller while bizarrely going no higher than #18). So, rightly or wrongly, they released "It's So Easy" as a secondary/alternative single.
Did this keep "Blue Bayou" from reaching #1 on the Hot 100 (even though it did so on radio stations in Los Angeles)? Maybe, maybe not. But the fact that it didn't get to #1 doesn't take away from the fact that Linda had a huge year in 1977. Setting aside the chart statistics, Linda had sellout concerts left and right that year, including twelve straight at L.A.'s Universal Amphitheater in September and October; she gave arguably the best performance ever of our national anthem in front of 58,000 at Dodger Stadium (and millions more on TV) on October 14th prior to Game 3 of the World Series; and her crossover appeal to the country music market, even though she had never put herself in the category of being a country artist in the strictest sense, was enormous.
Truth be told, Linda's popularity during the second half of 1977 matches, and arguably overwhelms, anything Taylor Swift is doing right now (IMHO).
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Post by goldie on Feb 13, 2016 23:58:38 GMT -5
I too had the feeling at the time that It's So Easy was released to either hedge their bets or symbiotically help Blue Bayou along. I was worried it was faltering but then gained momentum.
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Post by eddiejinnj on Feb 14, 2016 8:30:31 GMT -5
I have not been sure how to chime in on this one because am not sure whether the second release which was a decent amt of time after Blue Bayou (I have not looked at the chart history of it to see if for some reason it took awhile to get to number 3). I will say though that having the distinction of being the first female artist to have 2 songs in the top 5 at once is imo more important than if Blue Bayou became number one (that is also IF it sold better than the 2 songs above it). eddiejinnj
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Post by erik on Feb 14, 2016 12:28:59 GMT -5
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Post by sliderocker on Feb 14, 2016 14:24:19 GMT -5
Well, like I said, they may have been hedging their bets on "Blue Bayou" because the basic truth is that it didn't really resemble anything that was on the charts in the later half of 1977. Disco and Arena Rock were at an apex; the music of STAR WARS was omnipresent, both in John Williams' original score and Meco Monardo's discofied version of the theme; Pat Boone's daughter Debby had the longest-running #1 of the year with "You Light Up My Life"; and, last but not least, Elvis had just died a terribly premature death, and "Way Down" was a tremendous valedictory single (managing to become his 78th million-seller while bizarrely going no higher than #18). So, rightly or wrongly, they released "It's So Easy" as a secondary/alternative single. It may have been a case of hedging their bets. But, I also believe that it either could've been a gamble to give Linda two hit singles at the same time or a case of an inner debate among executives at Asylum and Linda and her management over which song to release. Linda and her management may have wanted "Blue Bayou" and the Asylum executives may have wanted "It's So Easy," because of it being closer the disco era. But, I think it was because of disco that both records were big sellers. Disco has been a much maligned genre by the rock crowd but the truth is, there were a lot of records sold during the disco era that made it to the platinum level on singles and albums. Even though platinum didn't come into existence until 1978, a lot of the records released from 1975-1977 were certified as platinum, meaning two million singles sold and one million albums sold. More than just the disco records. Pop, rock, country and soul all had artists whose singles and albums sold in the millions. Once the disco era faded, so too did the sales in all the other genres. The rock crowd in succeeding in killing off a genre they despised, committed the classic act of shooting themselves in the feet just to spite their faces. Re: Elvis: Elvis's last single released while he was living, "Way Down" was certified platinum, meaning it had sold two million copies. And a lot of those copies were sold in the week that he died and there should've been enough sales and radio airplay that week to have given him one last number one. But, I've become more and more convinced over the years that Billboard had it in for Elvis for some reason. And that they had had it in for him for quite some time, possibly going all the way back to the 60s. I believe the week that he died, they did a little "special circumstances" chicanery to keep him out of the top ten and even out of the number one position by not taking his sales into account the week that he died. They did not do that with any other pop-rock artist who died. Not with Jim Croce, who had died four years earlier. And not with John Lennon, who was murdered three years later. The 45s and albums they had out at the time of their deaths made it to number one without using any "special circumstances" to deny the records their chart positions. More damning evidence can be gleaned by the number of 45s from the 70s that were certified gold for a million copies sold and checked against how well or poorly they did in Billboard. Top ten records are considered million sellers, top twenty close to a million seller and the rest of the Top 40 under a million. Some of the gold singles Elvis had in the 70s only made the lower rungs of the Top 40, yet they were still million sellers. And they had considerable radio airplay. Airplay does play a role in the records that sell, especially the million sellers. There were not that many artists with records in the lower rungs of the Top 40 that were million sellers, but Billboard has always denied they had anything against Elvis. I just don't believe them anymore. Not on Elvis. And I just wonder how many other artists they may have had it in for? |
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Post by Tony on Feb 16, 2016 15:10:43 GMT -5
As I recall, It's So Easy was released as a 45 because many influential radio stations were already playing it. Apparently they wanted an uptempo song from Linda.
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Post by erik on Feb 16, 2016 19:02:44 GMT -5
Quote by Tony:
Well, no one lost out either way, did they? (he said rhetorically)
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Post by rumba on Feb 17, 2016 4:48:57 GMT -5
It's So Easy is one of my least favorite singles of hers. She sounds bored to tears on it to me.
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Post by Tony on Feb 17, 2016 10:07:24 GMT -5
This had also happened two years earlier when Asylum released Love Is A Rose/Silver Blue as the first single from Prisoner in Disguise. Radio stations jumped on the album cut Heat Wave and Asylum was forced to issue Heat Wave/Love Is A Rose as a single.
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