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. When I started pulling together the list of songs that qualified for the “Top 40 Smash Taps” feature, my geeky, secret hope was that I’d find at least one artist who accomplished the bittersweet feat of peaking at #40 on more than one occasion. Turns out it wasn’t such a crazy notion; several different acts have watched as two different tracks stalled at … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Rhythm of Love”

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. Allan Sherman’s recording career came about because of a performance at a testimonial dinner for an outgoing label president. Jim Conkling was stepping down as the top man at Warner Bros. records in 1961, when the label was still something a fledgling upstart, largely getting by with comedy albums. Sherman worked in broadcasting at the time, most notably as the creator of the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Crazy Downtown”

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. The J. Geils Band had been around a long, long time before they had the kind of commercial breakthrough that’s the stuff of rock ‘n’ roll dreams. They formed in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts and undoubtedly logged a lot of hours in the nearby Boston clubs. Their first album came out on Atlantic Records in 1970 and they had significant success over the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Angel in Blue”

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 the time Janis Joplin’s famed version of “Me and Bobby McGee” was released, the song had already been recorded by Roger Miller, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Gordon Lightfoot, original songwriter Kris Kristofferson, Bill Haley and the Comets and Sam the Sham. And that was all in the year-and-a-half span after Miller’s initial recording of the song was … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Me and Bobby McGee”

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. The line-up of the terrifically successful band the Archies was as follows: Archie Andrews on lead vocals and guitar, Reggie Mantle on rhythm guitar, Jughead Jones on drums, Betty Cooper on tambourine and Veronica Lodge on keyboards. Except, of course, it wasn’t. Transferring the popular comic book teenagers that debuted in the pages of a standard superhero anthology series a quarter-century earlier to … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Who’s Your Baby?”

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. There aren’t many other figures in popular music whose decline from pretty cool to comically insipid is so clear and stark. The first Top 40 single that Kenny Rogers sang on was “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” which made it all the way to #5 in 1967. That was with his first truly successful band, the First … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Buy Me a Rose”

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. Evelyn King got the nickname “Champagne” because she had a bubbly personality, which couldn’t have hurt when she was recording music designed for the discotheque. King’s first album, Smooth Talk, was released in 1977 and it was meant for the dance floor as surely as Tony Manero’s white suit. Supposedly, King was working as a cleaning lady at a record label when a … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m in Love”

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. The Cure were hardly new faces in the mid-nineteen-eighties when they first started to garner some significant commercial attention in the United States. The band first got together in 1976 and released their first single, the controversial and occasionally disowned “Killing an Arab”, two years later. They quickly developed into a perennial presence on the charts in their English homeland, but had to … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Just Like Heaven”