These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. By my rough, hasty count, the Everly Brothers placed a total of twenty-seven songs into the Billboard Top 40, including three that topped the chart. The siblings were such a constant presence on early rock ‘n’ roll radio that disc jockeys routinely turning singles over, giving the B-sides enough spins to merit respectable chart placement. That was the case with “Love of My Life,” … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love of My Life” and “Bowling Green”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Throughout this life of this feature, I’ve featured several acts that wound up with two separate singles that peaked at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. As best I can tell, only one artist accomplished the strange feat more than twice. Fittingly, it’s the person dubbed “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” who did it, putting a total of four singles … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Bewildered,” “Get It Together, Part 1,” “Let a Man Come In and Do the Popcorn, Part 2” and “King Heroin”

Eurythmics might have been the most unorthodox act to claim comfortably regular residency on the pop charts in the nineteen-eighties, a time when the sudden, sizable influence of MTV already made things somewhat topsy-turvy. Of course, the music video channel contributed mightily to the U.K. duo’s rise, playing “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” so frequently that its single week at the top of the charts seems like a short-changing clerical error, at least until further scrutiny reveals that its path to the top was blocked by the Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” which held the #1 position for a remarkable … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Don’t Ask Me Why”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. I’m going to indulge in a bit of inside information here, providing the super-secret DVD commentary track backstory on this particular entry of our long-running series. Shortly after lauching the “Top 40 Smash Taps” posts some four-and-a-half years ago, I sat down to write about “Spirits in the Night,” the second of three Top 40 singles charted by Manfred Mann’s Earth band. As I … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Spirit in the Night”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. If a one-hit wonder is an artist who had a single trip to the Billboard Top 40, then Luther Ingram just barely sidesteps that designation. A staple of the R&B charts from the late nineteen-sixties to the end of the seventies — albeit one who had few major hits, even in that specialized realm — Ingram made it all the way up to #3 … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’ll Be Your Shelter (In Time of Storm)”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Tom Petty made his way into the Billboard Top 40 sixteen times, with and without the Heartbreakers (including twice with Stevie Nicks, but never as a Wilbury). His very first visit to the charts was with his group’s debut single, albeit not right away. “Breakdown” was issued in 1976, and completely stalled out on the charts, as did the band’s self-titled debut album. … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Breakdown”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. “I (Who Have Nothing)” reached the Billboard Top 40 on three different occasions. The first, and arguably now best known, version was by Ben E. King and released in 1963. Seven years later, Tom Jones carried the song close to the Top 10. By the end of the nineteen-seventies, every last page of the pop music songbook was up for grabs again, as long as … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I (Who Have Nothing)”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. While standing beside Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon claimed three chart-topping singles. Garfunkel’s mellifluous tenor was undoubtedly a central part of the appeal of at least two of those major hits, but there was little doubt that the chief songwriter of the pair was going to do just fine for himself when he went out on his own. And so it was, was Simon … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “One-Trick Pony”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Amazingly, Gladys Knight and the Pips never had a chart-topping single for Motown Records. As towering as the act was, the closest they came was with their version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” which was passed around to all of the label’s stars, including Smokey Robinson. Of course, it was Marvin Gaye who owned that particular number. His take was recorded … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “It Should Have Been Me”

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Tony Ashton and Ron Dyke have the distinction of playing on the first solo album by a Beatle. Before the seminal band had officially broken up — or even finished releasing new music — George Harrison released the album Wonderwall Music, which was also notable as the first product from the Apple record label. The same year that record came out, the twosome … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “The Resurrection Shuffle”