1978

419. ABBA – Take a Chance on Me (1978)

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The Intro

ABBA broke Slade’s record for most UK number 1s in the 70s with this, their seventh. A return to the uplifting pop that made their name, Take a Chance on Me is one of their biggest anthems.

Before

The Swedish superstars released their fifth and most ambitious LP to date, ABBA: The Album in December 1977. It came out in conjunction with ABBA: The Movie, a docu-drama about their Australian tour. It also stars Tom Oliver, better known these days as Lou Carpenter in Neighbours, as their bodyguard.

The album’s second track and second single, Take a Chance on Me was recorded 15 August 1977 at Marcus Music Studio. Its origins lay in Björn Ulvaeus’ love of jogging. To pace himself he would repeat a ‘tck-a-ch’ rhythm to himself and found it so catchy, he and Benny Andersson set it to music and originally called it Billy Boy. Andersson wasn’t a fan of ‘We could go dancing, we can go walking, as long as we’re together’ but relented in the end. Unusually, Take a Chance on Me is mainly keyboard and synthesiser-led by Andersson. Ulvaeus only plays an acoustic guitar this time. Session musicians on this are drummer Roger Palm, Malando Gassama on percussion and Rutger Gunnarsson on bass.

Review

Now that I’m a little more aware of how ABBA’s songs developed, I’m really interested in Take a Chance on Me‘s place in their discography. Knowing Me, Knowing You was a bleak look at the end of a relationship and The Name of the Game a reticent chance of potential love. This seventh number 1 turns their last chart-topper on its head and now Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog are urging someone to give their love another chance. There’s no pleading, no begging, no tears. They’re merely asking someone who sounds to have panicked to change their mind and give it a whirl, as what’s the worst that could happen?

Suitably, the music propelling Take a Chance on Me is upbeat and it’s their most life-affirming pop single since the magnificent Dancing Queen. The jogging rhythm is so effective, you wonder how nobody ever thought of it before. Was it a nod to Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express? Combined with the ‘ba-ba-ba-ba-ba’, it’s a very effective double whammy and when the two are given full prominence at the song’s close, it’s a dizzying display of pop brilliance. Having said that, the verses are reminiscent of The Name of the Game, with a slow, slinky disco groove to give chance to recover from the incredibly infectious chorus. The spoken word bits are cheesy but they just about get away with it. The supercool may scoff at the almost Europop ‘oompah’ synths but I’m having none of it. I’m a fan of this one.

The video is also good fun. Each band member gets a square to sing inside, which is reminiscent of the opening titles of The Brady Bunch. Then Frida and Agnetha are trying to persuade glum-looking Björn and Benny in a minimalistic white studio which occasionally switches to black. It’s another iconic ABBA moment.

After

This marked the end of ABBA’s very impressive run of UK number 1s in the 70s. I’d imagine it was pretty satisfying to knock copycats Brotherhood of Man from their perch too. It also topped many other charts and went top 10 in the US. The hits of course continued, even as their relationships soured. Two more number 1s would be notched up before their demise.

The Outro

14 years later Take a Chance on Me was back at number 1 courtesy of synth-pop duo Erasure. Their Abba-esque EP was their only chart-topper and was partly responsible for the ABBA revival of the 90s, for better or worse. Since then it’s been memorably sang by Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge and Julie Walters in the hit film Mamma Mia!. So I’m told. I’ll never watch it.

The Info

Written, produced & arranged by

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

3 (18 February-10 March)

Meanwhile…

18 February: 20 suspects are arrested in connection with the La Mon restaurant bombing by the IRA.

20 February: Severe blizzards hit the south west of England.

8 March: Douglas Adams’ cult sci-fi series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first broadcast by BBC Radio 4. 

418. Brotherhood of Man – Figaro (1978)

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The Intro

Brotherhood of Man took their perceived similarity too far with their second number 1 Angelo. When their next single tanked they followed it up with another song named after a man with a similar name to Fernando. It paid off yet again and gave them a hat trick of chart toppers.

Before

The quartet had released Highwayman after Angelo but scuppered a major chance of promoting it on the 1977 Royal Variety Performance by electing to play the former instead. Figaro was their first release from their seventh album B for Brotherhood. As usual, singers Lee Sheriden and Martin Lee penned the track with producer and manager Tony Hiller. I don’t want to be cruel and call them a low budget Stig Anderson, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus but…

Review

I was incredibly scathing about Angelo and couldn’t believe it when I saw they topped the charts a third time with what was bound to be another Fernando rip-off. So, put it down to very low expectations but I was pleasantly surprised by this. That’s mainly down to it not actually sounding like a straightforward ABBA copy. And I’m all for a bit of wah-wah guitar and the bawdy brass and song’s theme put me in mind of some kind of politically incorrect 70s British comedy film.

Figaro is a lecherous Spanish waiter intent on pursuing the opposite sex. The dirty dog is constantly at it, winking at the girls with his guitar and wandering the beaches looking for prey. The idea came about when Hiller’s daughter returned from a holiday with tales of real-life Figaros trying to romance her and other young ladies. It’s total throwaway nonsense of course, but it’s better than other Brotherhood of Man songs Angelo and Save Your Kisses For Me. Was the title this time around a reference to Bohemian Rhapsody?

After

Brotherhood of Man’s downfall came soon after. The next single Beautiful Lover was the last time they troubled the charts, peaking at 15. A compilation LP, Twenty Greatest, did at least give them their biggest album chart placing at six.

Hiller set up Dazzle Records in 1980 and signed his group but perhaps due to missing Pye’s promotional budget, they stopped selling well. They signed with Warwick Records. No, I’ve never heard of them either. Sheriden opted to leave in 1982 to study for a degree in music. He was replaced by Barry Upton, later a songwriter for Sonia and Steps.

Encouraged by the huge success of Bucks Fizz, Brotherhood of Man signed with EMI in 1982 and Hiller had high hopes of ripping off another Eurovision-winning group. A year later Hiller, Lee and Upton wrote a tune for A Song for Europe for Hiller’s male/female trio Rubic (how early 80s!) but they came fifth. When Upton decided to leave in 1984, the whole group called it a day.

However in 1985 Sheriden returned with Lee, Nicky Stevens and Sandra Stevens for a one-off TV reunion and decided to continue. They became stalwarts of the nostalgia circuit, becoming regulars at Butlins and other holiday camps. As well as their hits from the 70s they performed tracks like 1999 by Prince. That I have to hear.

The Outro

As 2000 dawned they cut back on touring but two years later they unveiled their show The Seventies Story, a nostalgic look back at the decade that brought them their glory years. They still tour now, sometimes with the current incarnation of Bucks Fizz and are often wheeled out for Eurovision-related shows, remaining one of the most successful winners of the competition.

The Info

Written by

Tony Hiller, Lee Sheriden & Martin Lee

Producer

Tony Hiller

Weeks at number 1

1 (11-17 February)

Trivia

Births

12 February: Welsh rugby player Gethin Jones

Meanwhile…

13 February: Anna Ford becomes the first female newsreader on ITV. Also on this day, an opinion poll conducted for the Daily Mail shows the Conservatives 11 points ahead of the Labour government, with an election due by October next year. The quick turnaround for the Conservatives, who last month were behind Labour, is believed to be due to Margaret Thatcher’s recent negative comments on immigration.

17 February: 12 people are killed by the Provisional IRA in the bombing of the La Mon restaurant in Belfast. It was one of the most horrific incidents in The Troubles, with some bodies left melted and unrecognisable by incineration.

417. Althia & Donna – Up Town Top Ranking (1978)

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The Intro

It was starting to look like Wings would be at number 1 forever in those first few freezing weeks of 1978. It took two Jamaican teenagers to knock Mull of Kintyre/Girls School from the top.

Before

17-year-old Althea Forrest and Donna Reid, 18, started out singing on the sidewalks of Kingston, Jamaica. They were spotted by the singer Jacob Miller, who introduced them to producer Joe Gibbs. The duo recorded Up Town Top Ranking as a lighthearted answer song, with origins dating back to 1967.

That year, ‘Godfather of Rocksteady’ Alton Ellis released the track I’m Still in Love, a sweet slice of lovers rock. In the mid-70s, circa 1975, Marcia Aitken recorded her own version, produced by Gibbs. He and sound engineer Errol Thompson were known as The Mighty Two and they cut many reggae hits in Jamaica.

In 1977, deejay and producer Trinity took the backing track of Aitken’s version and toasted over the top, bragging about how sharp he looked in his Three Piece Suit. Althea & Donna, together with Thompson, wrote their reply to Trinity. With tons of tongue-in-cheek, frisky attitude, Up Town Top Ranking answered back, using the rhythm track of Aitken’s version.

Upon its original release, Althea’s name was spelt incorrectly as ‘Althia’, hence the weird spelling in the title here. Even worse, Gibbs was credited as ‘Joe Gibson’. It’s one thing to get an unknown teenager’s name wrong, but an acclaimed producer?! I’m also going with the original title – ‘Up Town’ rather than ‘Uptown’.

As fun and catchy as Up Town Top Ranking is, it’s unlikely it would have made it to number 1 had it not been for Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Allegedly he began playing it as a joke. I find that a little hard to believe, I’d imagine he just really liked it, like most people. Eventually other Radio 1 DJs began to spin it too and the rest is history.

Review

Up Town Top Ranking is a great start to the chart-toppers of 1978 and the best number 1 since I Feel Love in July 1977. In an era of often staid chart hits, it cuts through the crap by being full to the brim with the joy of being young and alive.

Althea & Donna aren’t note perfect and are outright flat at times but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that sometimes the patois is impenetrable to a 42-year-old from East Yorkshire, there’s enough that is decipherable to know that these girls are out on the town, dressed to kill and won’t take any shit from the likes of Trinity and his ego, three-piece suit or no three-piece suit:

‘True you see me in me pants and ting,
See me in me halter back,
Say, me give you heart attack’.

When they sing ‘Love is all I bring/Inna me khaki suit and ting’, they’re not coming on to the men they meet. The ‘love’ they sing of is likely a more innocent kind. The love of being alive and on the dancefloor. ‘Give me little bass make me whine out mi waist’ is all they care about. More power to them.

After

Althea & Donna cheered up a gloomy February with an appearance on Top of the Pops where they looked like they couldn’t believe their luck. The album Uptown Top Ranking followed, with backing from The Revolutionaries and produced by Karl Pitterson. It couldn’t match the magic of their one hit and nor could three singles – Puppy Dog Song, Going to Negril and Love One Another, all released in the same year.

Althea & Donna disappeared as so many one-hit wonders do but they did record more material separately, Althea occasionally under the name Althea Ranks. Both recorded covers during the 80s and then left the business. Althea was last heard of working as an events planner and Donna works for the state of Florida. They performed together again in 2018 in Jamaica.

The Outro

Up Town Top Ranking has been covered by, among others, Black Box Recorder (1998). Occasionally it gets sampled and covered but ignore all that and stick on Ellis, Aitken, Trinity and this number 1 instead.

The Info

Written by

Errol Thompson, Althea Forrest & Donna Reid

Producer

Joe Gibson

Weeks at number 1

1 (4-10 February)

Meanwhile…

9 February: 25-year-old Scotland central defender Gordon McQueen became Britain’s first £500,000 footballer in a transfer from Leeds United to Manchester United.