Throwing back to the week of September 26, 1976, we find two splendid only-in-the-70s tracks atop the Billboard Hot 100: Wild Cherry’s ‘Play That Funky Music‘ and England Dan and John Ford Coley’s ‘I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.’
As both have been featured already, that brings us to #3, Walter Murphy’s disco take on one of the world’s best-known classical pieces: ‘A Fifth of Beethoven.’
Last week I marveled that The Rolling Stones not only released an album in 2023, but that the album — Hackney Diamonds — was one of their best.
Well, imagine my shock to discover they did it all over again three years later. This year’s Foreign Tongues isn’t quite the equal of Hackney Diamonds, but it’s pretty close.
And I hate to harp on the age thing, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are now closer to 85 than 80. Ronnie Wood, the baby of the group, is a spry 79. How is it possible these guys are still releasing great rock-n-roll albums 62 years into their storied career?
Today’s post covers the only album missing from my Tom Petty Deep Dive, his second record with the band Mudcrutch.
Titled simply 2, this 2016 release was the final studio recording made by Petty, who died a year later after six months of touring. 2 came eight years after the previous, self-titled, Mudcrutch album, with two Heartbreakers albums dropping in-between.
Another album I’ve come close to covering in full is Paul Simon’s 1986 masterpiece Graceland. This is an album that will never leave my shortlist of the greatest ever recorded, so it makes sense that it has shown up so often on the site.
I’ve given the Song of the Day treatment to all but two of Graceland‘s 11 tracks, and while several of those posts were more about the album as a whole than the specific song, that still counts for these purposes.
When I did a quick Hootie & the Blowfish Deep Dive in 2019, I didn’t expect I’d ever have to revisit it. After all, it had been 14 years since the band’s last album. I guess they never officially broke up, but they were on an indefinite hiatus that made way for lead singer Darius Rucker’s successful solo career.
Maybe they read my posts and were inspired to give it another shot. In November of that year, they dropped Imperfect Circle, their seventh studio album. And I’m here seven years later to complete the deep dive. Let’s see if this leads to another release.
