Hit Parade: Spirit of ’71, Part 2

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Part 2 of our 50th episode of Hit Parade, we go back 50 years, celebrating the semicentennial of the year when, critics claim, “music changed everything.” The Quiet Beatle became the Favorite Beatle, when Mick Jagger sang lyrics even he regrets, when Carole King graduated from songwriter to singer-songwriter, and commercial juggernaut, when blaxploitation took over the charts and the Oscars, and when the radio was somehow awash in Osmonds. It wasn’t a perfect year—but Hit Parade host Chris Molanphy is fond of ’71 for personal reasons. Podcast production by Asha Saluja with help from Rosemary Belson. Sign up for Slate Plus now to get episodes in one installment as soon as they're out. You'll also get The Bridge, our trivia show and bonus deep dive. Click here for more info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Sleet magazine about
0:13.0	the hits from Coast to Coast.
0:15.0	I'm Chris Malanfee, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Sleet's Why Is This Song No.
0:20.7	1 series on our last episode.
0:23.9	This is the 50th anniversary of 1971, which has been called one of the greatest years
0:30.6	in music history.
0:32.2	On the Billboard charts, pop, rock, and soul legends were scoring both No. 1 singles
0:38.7	and No. 1 albums, including, so far, George Harrison, Janice Chaplin, and the Rolling Stones.
0:46.2	We're up to the summer of 71 when the year's biggest hitmaker was about to take her turn
0:52.8	on top.
0:54.5	As I've said so many times in this podcast, timing is everything when it comes to hit making.
1:02.2	Consider this cover of a well-known song performed by its original songwriter.
1:08.2	When this old world starts getting be done, and people are just too much, or we can fail.
1:23.8	That's Carol King with Up on the Roof, a song she and lyricist Jerry Goffin originally
1:30.7	wrote in 1962.
1:33.4	This version appeared on writer, King's largely ignored debut album as a recording artist.
1:41.7	Upon its release in 1970, the writer LP didn't chart, even though it uses some of the same
1:50.6	approaches as the album that would make King a legend just one year later, soulful singing,
1:57.9	warm piano, a 60s song reinterpreted for the 70s.
2:18.0	Somehow the world wasn't quite ready for Carol King, recording artist, who was trying
2:24.7	to come out from under the shadow of Carol King's songwriter.
2:30.0	That Carol King had been very successful.
	...

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