During the first few years of The Number Ones column at Stereogum, writer Tom Breihan frequently cited “The Billboard Book of Number One Hits” for his own research about each entry.
Coincidentally, that was one of the first music books I owned.
It initially came out in 1985, during which time my personal library was much smaller than today.
In fact, relatively few pop music reference books existed then. I got my hands on as many as I could prior to The Billboard Book of Number One Hits, and I still have most of them.
This got me to thinking: “How well have they held up over more than 40 years?”
(I also thought, “How well have I held up over more than 40 years?”
But that’s a multipart series that I don’t want to write, so ….)
With that in mind, here are five reviews of books I relied on before the internet made them somewhat superfluous.
I still respect them all, but some I love more than others, as we shall see…
Rock On: The Solid Gold Years
by Norm M. Nite
The first music book I got a copy of was this pioneering work by deejay Norm N. Nite. As an encyclopedia of artists and their singles that made the Billboard pop chart, he compiled so much information that he had to divide his work into multiple books.
This is the first, covering stars who debuted between 1955-1963, which Nite followed with The Years of Change covering 1964-1978. He later did another volume as well as other books. But I’ll just concentrate on Rock On: The Solid Gold Years for now.
For covering just 8 years, this book is surprisingly large at nearly 700 pages.
And when you have someone like Elvis Presley having over 100 chart entries, well, you can see how that makes it large.
Unfortunately, Nite was unable to get permission to use chart positions next to each song, only the month and year in which it debuted. This limits its usefulness and makes it hard in some cases to gauge the true commercial impact of an artist.
Also, Nite relied largely on press releases from companies and publicists without doing much firsthand research, which perpetuated some misinformation and resulted in some stilted entries. Still, a lot of this information on many obscure artists wasn’t available anywhere for 1970s and even 1980s, so I appreciate the effort he made here even if I wish it could’ve been better.
My rating: 5
The Book of Golden Discs
by Joseph Murrells
One of the most astounding compilations I’ve read. Author Joseph Murrells went back to the start of recordings in the early 20th century to compile every single and album reported to have sold a million copies in either the United States or the United Kingdom. He presented the results chronologically, and the amount of resulting information is mind-blowing, to say the least.
Murrells somehow went through all the trade magazines to determine and write the highest peak for every entry.
So, for example, Tell Me Something Good by Rufus is credited as a Number One hit in America:
Even though it didn’t reach that summit in Billboard. I find that fascinating to read.
More importantly, Murrells tries to categorize the sound and even describe the appeal of the single or the album while providing concise writeups about the acts themselves over the years. That alone is impressive, but he outdoes himself with multiple appendices on such topics as:
- Longest runs on the US and UK charts by singles and albums
- Most million sellers by artists
- Biggest selling original cast and soundtrack albums
All this and much more, done by one man in the 1970s. I bow to his honor for doing so much during a time when it was a challenge to compile and review so much information.
My rating: 10
The Rolling Stone Record Guide
Edited by Dave Marsh and John Swenson
OK, boomer. Here’s your late 1970s collection of reviews for thousands of albums from hundreds of acts. Edited by Dave Marsh with John Swenson—the first generation of critics for Rolling Stone magazine—the snark level for what they hate is off the charts.
Consider what Marsh says about Donny and Marie Osmond, all of whose albums received the lowest rating:
“The only people I’ve ever heard who deserved Andy Williams.
“Sometimes I wish they’d learn to ski and meet his ex-wife.”
{Claudine Longet, Andy’s former wife, served a month in jail on charges that she shot and killed her boyfriend, skier Spider Sabich.}
Oddly, Williams doesn’t get a listing. Nor does Johnny Mathis, who at the time had the longest running album on Billboard’s LP chart. Yet the largely anti-rock Frank Sinatra does get a mention. Such omissions and inclusions are confusing, as is giving blues, jazz and gospel artists their own sections.
Under each artist, they list albums alphabetically without the year of release. A bad oversight.
Time hasn’t been kind to many of the critical judgments and their none-too-subtle streak of misogyny here. While Cher and Linda Ronstadt are Kennedy Center honorees, you wouldn’t expect that given the vilification of their work.
There is some useful history and insights here despite these deficiencies, and a pretty decent summation of rock books of interest for recommending reading.
So, I’m overall slightly favorable to it, even as many of the reviews make me roll my eyes.
My rating: 6
The Top Ten
by Bob Gilbert and Gary Theroux
This was a big influence on “The Billboard Book of Number One Hits” and its author, Fred Bronson, who quotes several entries for his book. Here, Bob Gilbert and Gary Theroux devote a page each to the top 10 songs for each year from 1956 through 1980. They don’t rely on the Billboard year-end rankings though—they also incorporate what other trade magazines and top radio stations claimed were the top 10 for each year and made a judgment call on what to include.
For most of the songs profiled, the authors tried to talk to the artists, writers or producers involved. The result is pretty enjoyable and often include details previously little known about acts.
For example, in the entry for “Little Darlin’” a member of the Diamonds vocal quartet said they took advantage of their name and tilted cardboard squares into diamond-shaped posters showing each guy’s photo in the corner. Pretty cool!
All the entries are well-written and informative.
So are the two-page summaries for each year listing the top 40 songs for the year and a couple of articles on prominent artists of the period that usually didn’t make the top 10, like Harry Belafonte for 1956.
The only quibble I have is the inclusion of some records as top 10 for their year seem odd due to their unimpressive chart history, such as “She’s a Fool” for Lesley Gore in 1963, which peaked at only Number 5 on Billboard. Other than that, it’s a delight.
My rating: 9
The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits
by Jo and Tim Rice, Paul Gambaccini and Mike Read
I got this one after reading The Billboard Book of Number One Hits and know this probably influenced Fred Bronson.
When he began working on his book, it was coming close to 500 number ones in the United States since “Rock Around the Clock” topped the chart in 1955.
For this effort, authors Jo and Tim Rice, Paul Gambaccini and Mike Read start with the first UK chart leader in 1952 and proceed chronologically.
It’s a little disappointing compared to The Top Ten and The Billboard Book of Number One Hits because the summaries usually run only a couple of paragraphs rather than a full page as with the other two books.
However: Compensating a good deal for that lack of detail is the fact that the book profiles a lot of artists not covered in the other books or in several cases in any other US-based tome. I love learning about Anne Shelton, Lord Rockingham’s XI, Ken Dodd and more than didn’t make it across the Atlantic.
There’s also pleasure in seeing the differences between the 2 countries.
This book has been updated over the years, but the original has a special place of affection in my heart for the effort and love shown in the compilation. It’s a fun read.
My rating: 7
Those are my thoughts and rankings.
Let me know what you think in the comments below, as well as any you may have in your library that I might have missed.
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Nice job, ozmoe! I have the Bronson book and a later edition of the Rolling Stone guide but now you make me want to pick up the others…
The first book of that type that I picked up was Peter Berry’s “…And the Hits Just Keep on Comin’,” from 1977. I got it at the time, and my friend Tony and I combed through our respective copies sharing chart trivia.
I keep my music trivia books on a shelf in my music room and they’re always good for a look back at what was considered significant as well as not-so.
(And, yes, there’s an adult contemporary book there by a certain author I didn’t know at the time I bought it. … By the way, mt, I saw what you did with your illo…)
(widens eyes and looks innocently)
“Who, me? Whatever do you mean?”
It sure wasn’t my idea, I’ll say that much!
No need to be humble. It’s a GREAT book!
https://a.co/d/1IbMRWY
No Joel Whitburn? Blasphemy!
Easy now. No one is getting excommunicated from the church of TNOCS today.
Joel was pretty much a gimme, plus he mainly provided chart info without summaries or reviews, unlike the others I mentioned here. So that’s why I omitted him.
In the early days of the Internet, I found myself chatting with Dave Marsh on CompuServe. He said something nice about my writing but then I said I liked Bjork and it was as if I had mugged his mother. I think that was my first experience with online nastiness. Still, I’d like to have a Creem t-shirt. Boy howdy!
Great job, Ozmoe! I’d like to flip through each of these books sometime.
This is a cool list, Ozmoe! I devoured that Fred Bronson book and the Top 40 Hits book of Joel Whitburn back in my teen years. It took a long time before I shelled out the money to but Joel Whitburn’s Pop Memories book, which I absolutely love as a reference, despite its reliance on Joel’s retroactive chart positions that only he knows (knew) how they were calculated.
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Also I feel the snark reverberating through the years from Dave Marsh. I never bought that Rolling Stone record guide, but I probably spent 100 hours over the years standing in various bookstores reading it. I did a lot of eye rolling, too.
That Book of Golden Discs looks fascinating. I still need to get that Number One Adult Contemporary book, though!
How do you not already own that Number One Adult Contemporary book, Link?
Ha! Yeah…I especially look forward to reading the sections from the 60s when the chart was less soft-rock and more easy listening.
I haven’t read any of these kinds of books, but I like hearing about some of the stories that come from them.
Regarding the Rolling Stone book, it’s interesting to say the least to see what was acceptable journalism back in the day that you wouldn’t see in a mainstream publication now. Wishing Donny and Marie dead? A bridge too far is an understatement. And the snark toward artists is still out there, but hopefully dialed down, especially when stans can and will retaliate. Cher I get to a degree. She had some clunker hits and went through a bit of down turn for awhile commercially, but there was no need to be flat-out mean about it. And Linda Ronstadt? I’m not here for that at all. I think with the internet being a wide open space for anybody and everybody to weigh in, the voices of critics are not as revered or held high above as much as they once were. My opinion.
I can’t remember the exact publication and author; Lester Bangs in Creem Magazine comes to mind. It was one of those quick two sentence reviews. I’m paraphrasing:
“Barry Manilow is more annoying than ever, so could somebody please shoot him?” 15 year-old me thought that it was so funny, cool and edgy.
Mercifully, I had the polar opposite opinion by the time I was a sophomore.
I love Paul McCartney, but one of my favorite quotes ever was this one from Quentin Crisp:
“Does Paul McCartney make records to annoy me personally, or does he want to get up everyone’s f*****g now with his f*****g antics?”
No need for violence or threats. But deadly just the same.
These are great. Love looking through old reference books even if just to see how writing styles and opinions have changed.
The Rolling Stone book does sound like there’s a lot of humourless elitism. Or maybe it was funny at the time but it doesn’t look that way now.
The first (and only) book I bought on this topic was Joel Whitburn’s The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits from 1992.
I practically had it memorized by 1993. I was also fascinated at how he ranked the Top 100 artists in Billboard history, and came up with my own system as a result, lost to the mists of time.
With Wikipedia, I guess there isn’t a need for this type of book anymore, but The Number Ones was a nice addition to my library.
Yay, the red guide. My uncle had it. I bought the blue one. The blue one deletes the entry on regional legends Cecilio and Kapono. My friend doesn’t believe me that the review consists of about six words. I remember part of the snark: “Nice shirts.”