Now that I’ve counted down my favorite 1977 albums, the time has come for me to highlight other albums from the year with which I’m less familiar.
Having now listened to a bunch of 1977’s most notable albums, I’m confident that my personal top ten is a great representation of the year’s best music (according to my taste, anyway). If you’re a fan of punk or electronic music, you probably feel different. Still, I did manage to hear a few new gems.
The Righteous Brothers stayed at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of April 19, 1966, with ‘(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.’ That song would surrender its perch the following week.
At #2 was Cher’s ‘Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),’ a track written by Sonny Bono and released on her sophomore solo album, The Sonny Side of Chér. This was the highest-charting song of Cher’s solo career until her trio of #1 hits in the 70s with the increasingly problematic titles ‘Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves,’ ‘Half-Breed,’ and ‘Dark Lady.’
We’re throwing back to the week of April 18, 1956, and the 50s just got interesting!
While Les Baxter’s instrumental ‘The Poor People of Paris‘ held on to the #1 spot for the sixth straight week, it was about to be unseated by the song at #2.
That was Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ the King’s first of 17 chart-topping hits on the Hot 100 (or the Best Sellers in Stores chart, as it was called before 1958).
Concluding a countdown of my favorite albums of 1977…
#1 – Rumours – Fleetwood Mac
If you ask somebody to name iconic albums, chances are it won’t take long for them to say Rumours.
Fleetwood Mac’s 11th album, but only second with Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks onboard, is the sixth best-selling album in the United States and the eighth worldwide. It’s an album everybody knows and loves, across generations and musical tastes.
Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1977…
#2 – The Stranger – Billy Joel
I recently played today’s SOTD for my wife and she said she’d never heard it before. How could that be, I asked, when she’s a big Billy Joel fan and this is the eighth of nine tracks on The Stranger, arguably the greatest Billy Joel album?
It turns out she didn’t know the ninth song, ‘Everybody Has a Dream,’ either.
We realized that she never really listened to The Stranger as an album, despite being completely familiar with its first seven tracks.
Meet Me In Montauk 