Best Song: Electric Light Orchestra - Livin' Thing
When the Top of the Pops reruns began for 1976 I do remember thinking there was a lot of crap on them but then Electric Light Orchestra would come on and it would be a breath of fresh air. I knew this particular record way before the Top of the Pops reruns and always liked it even when I had no idea who or what it was in the early days.
Worst Song: Julie Covington - Don't Cry For Me Argentina
The worst film I've ever watched was the 90s version of Evita. What I hated about it was that it was nothing but rubbish music with "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" being a part of that. Therefore any version of that record brings back those memories of how painful it was to watch that film.
Top 40 Review
1976 was a year that goes down as one of the worst in history for music. It was jointly the lowest 70s year in the best year search. It's therefore interesting to see whether things had started to turn around at Christmas.
We'll start with the Christmas songs which were the well known "When A Child Is Born" by Johnny Mathis which was also the Christmas number one. There was also "Ring Out Solstice Bells" by Jethro Tull which is still one you hear at Christmas. Finally there's "Bionic Santa" by Chris Hill, a novelty record that's clips of other records with some commentary and is long forgotten. As usual they all get zero.
One of the problems with 1976 was the quantity of novelty hits but despite it being the time of year for that, aside from Chris Hill the only novelty record really is "Grandma's Party" by Paul Nicholas.
In addition to ELO, another group that was often reliable for a good record on 70s Top of the Pops was 10cc and they are in this Top 40 with "Things We Do For Love" which gets full marks.
Queen never fitted into any scene as such in the 70s and there music was a mixed bag, but in this Top 40 they had one of their better hits with "Somebody To Love".
Many of the records in this Top 40 would fit into the soft rock genre which on paper is a sign of blandness, but isn't all bad. We have "If Not You" by Dr Hook which I've always found quite amusing and "Living Next Door To Alice" by Smokie which is impossible to listen to without adding "Alice who the fuck is Alice" to.
Glam rock was more or less finished with just Mud doing a cover of "Lean on Me" which gets no marks. Disco had credible acts like Barry White and KC & the Sunshine band but also had the sort of rubbish that gave it a bad name from Boney M and Tina Charles.
Most significantly though we have the beginning of punk in the Top 40 with the Sex Pistols in there with their debut hit "Anarchy in the UK" which naturally gets full marks.
Signs the charts were starting to go in the right direction and for a year that has such a bad reputation this is a very respectable score.
Score: 13.5
Table
1976 is the best Christmas charts so far then and is better than it's best year charts, but a bit like 1962 was helped by The Beatles happening 1976 is helped by punk happening:
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