Even MORE schlocky #1 hits!

Because you asked 4 it, & because I couldn't resist, here comes Part 3 of Musical Junk Through The Years, an embarrassing compendium of huge #1 hit singles (according 2 BILLBOARD magazine) -- mosta which should never have bn released ... or which supposed "rock&roll fans" never should've bought....
...Don't know how I missed some of these in my researching -- I plead poor eyesight, or it could B because I actually LIKED a couple of these. Nevertheless, here's another list of embarrassing not-very-rock&roll hits up thru about 1992, which is when I started seriously tuning-out most "current" stuff....
We'll start with some stuff from the early-to-mid '70s that I somehow overlooked. Comb thru yer collection & see how many of these you own -- & then recycle them IMMEDIATELY!:

* Guess Who -- "American Woman."
* Beatles -- "The Long and Winding Road."
* Three Dog Night -- "Black and White."
* Elton John -- "Crocodile Rock." (wore out pretty quick....)
* Bee Gees -- "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" (a pretty pile of cheez....)
* Barry Manilow -- "Mandy."
* Elton John -- "Philadelphia Freedom," "Island Girl."
* Tony Orlando & Dawn -- "He Don't Love You Like I Love You."
* Paul McCartney & Wings -- "Listen to What the Man Said." (So SLICK & meaningless. But the album it's from is pretty great....)
* Neil Sedaka & Elton John -- "Bad Blood."
* C.W. McCall -- "Convoy."
* Diana Ross -- "Theme from MAHOGANY (Do You Know Where You're Going To?)."
* John Sebastian -- "Welcome Back."
* Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta -- "You're the One That I Want."
* Frankie Valli -- "Grease."
* Player -- "Baby Come Back."
* Commodores -- "Three Times a Lady."
* Donna Summer -- "MacArthur Park." (& "I Love You" barely got in2 the Top 40....)
* Exile -- "Kiss You All Over."
* Olivia Newton-John -- "Magic."
* Sheena Easton -- "Morning Train (9 to 5)." (& "You Could Have Been With Me" barely made the Top 20....)
* Air Supply -- "The One That You Love."
* Blondie -- "The Tide is High." (Tired!)
* Christopher Cross -- "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)."
* Steve Miller -- "Abracadabra."
* Toni Basil -- "Mickey."
* Men at Work -- "Down Under." (Wore out REAL quick.)
* Stevie Wonder -- "Part-Time Lover," "I Just Called to Say I Love You."
* Wham! -- "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go." (Is this the most annoying #1 song of all time?)
* Whitney Houston -- "The Greatest Love of All." (George Benson's version is better....)
* Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald -- "On My Own."
* Bananarama -- "Venus." (Shocking Blue's original was Great Trash, & also went 2 #1 back in 1970....)
* Phil Collins -- "A Groovy Kind of Love." (Jeez, Phil's had 7 #1's?! & yet "You'll Be in My Heart" only peaked at #21...?)
* Beach Boys -- "Kokomo."
* Bangles -- "Eternal Flame." (Yes, I loved them too, but this was as much cut&paste hackery as anything by Barry Manilow....)
* Bette Midler -- "Wind Beneath My Wings."
* Whitney Houston -- "I Will Always Love You." #1 4 14 weeks in Winter '92.

...& justa quick note 2 say thanx 2 every1 4 making October my 2nd-best-read month ever with 850 page views. The 17 posts I bashed-up were the most in quite awhile 2, but I hadda lot I wanted 2 tell you about.
If you're still out there crouching in a yurt somewhere on the Mongolian steppe -- & I can tell by my readership statistics that some of you ARE -- please let me hear from you.
I still can't tell how many of you R actually READING these ravings & how many of you have stumbled in here by accident. You don't havta comment, but feel free 2 click on those immediate-response buttons at the end of this post & all the other posts. Don't be strangers....
Up next: Something new, I hope....

400!?

Don't know if this means anything 2 any1 other than me, but if you count the 225+ posts I did at my old dead website + the 175 or so I've done here (a couple have been deleted along the way), that makes just over 400 ... in a little over 2 years.
I don't believe it. I thot I was pretty-well written-out last summer, that I didn't have a whole lot left. But somehow stuff keeps bubbling up....
If I hadn't been down 4 2 months awhile back with no computer, I mighta gotten here even sooner. This is still just as much fun 4 me as it ever was, & sometimes even more compulsive. At the end of some posts I've been tempted 2 add "Powered by Caffeine" rather than "Powered by Blogger" or whatever -- this is possibly 1 of them....
Anyway, I hope some of you out there at least laugh 1nce in awhile when you read this stuff, or think of some piece of music you haven't heard in 30 years. If any of that happens, I've done something worthwhile.
My thanx 2 the folks who read & comment here regularly -- especially Rastro & Crabby, & Drew & Gardenhead & Adam & Perplexio & the few others who comment now & then. You guys keep me going.
& apparently SOMEone else is looking at this stuff: Blogger claims I'm getting 800+ pageviews ("hits"?) per month lately, & the #'s keep going up -- if you can believe Blogger. Not sure if I do. Apparently folks from all over the planet stumble in here by accident. I'm really big in Bolivia & Latvia. Ghod knows what they must think....
OK: If you're crouched in a yurt out on the Mongolian steppe somewhere & you ended up HERE somehow, will ya 4 Chrissakes COMMENT & let me know what led you here, what you think, etc? It's making me crazy....
In the future I hope 2 drag-in more nostalgia, more music writing, more odd experiences from my Air Force & newspaper-reporting career, more embarrassing personal stuff, moremoremore. Maybe I'll do some more rough drafts 4 a critical guide 2 Strange Music, a book I've wanted 2 write 4 more than 20 years. I'll keep going as long as the World's Smallest Laptop holds out.
4 now, I'd just like 2 thank the Academy & every1 I've ever met in my entire life....
Thanx 2 my son ADD who set-up my 1st website & gave me the best Xmas present I've ever had, the gift that keeps on giving. Thanx 2 Mark Prindle, who immediately & without hesitation started pointing people in my direction; & 2 Don Ignacio, who dived in soon afterward; & 2 Drew, who's sent me more visitors lately than any1 else.
Thanx 2 Gardenhead, who encouraged me when things got dark; & 2 Mary, who got me 2 TALK 2 somebody when things got REALLY dark -- I think she probably still reads this stuff & might be wondering what I'm thinking these days: I don't know, sweetie. Did I ever?
I remain amazed by what this Internet can do: When I posted that review of Andrew Foster Altschul's DEUS EX MACHINA yesterday, within 30 minutes after it was up somebody found the post thru a Google search. Amazing. It's the closest thing 2 James Blish & Ursula K. LeGuin's instant communication. Or as close as I want 2 get, anyway....
& I'm still surprised by how much this has come 2 mean 2 me. This right here is how I deal with the world, how I relax, un-stress, de-compress. Writing about music & books is WAY easier than trying 2 figure out why there was a double-fatality shooting in the Wal-Mart parking lot a mile down the road from my house. & a helluva lot more comforting. If I were 2 lose this, I'd feel like I'd had something amputated.
Hope it's working 4 you, 2. Thanx 4 reading....

500 NYMPHOS AND A MULE!!!

C'mon Blogger, you're making it all up!
I don't really BELIEVE that 42 people viewed this blog on Wednesday, Oct. 20.
Nor do I believe that 39 people from Holland suddenly, almost overnight, started visiting this blog. That's almost 1/2 as many viewers as I've had from the US in the last week!
What attracted them? (Have I been writing about Focus? Does "tad" translate into "dick" in Dutch?) They couldn't all be visiting to read my theories about whether rock critics killed prog-rock -- at least not according 2 Blogger's stats ... & if that's why they swung by, why didn't any of them comment?
I know -- they visited so they could see ANGELINA JOLIE NAKED!!!
Sorry, guys. It was a bad joke. I personally apologize 2 the Ntire nation of the Netherlands -- most of whom apparently visited this blog in the last 24 hours.... But Ghod knows WHY.
If anything, Blogger's "Stats" info doesn't tell me ENOUGH!
All you folks from the Netherlands out there, WELCOME!
Same goes for you Americans, & my handful of buddies from the UK, & any1 else silly enuf 2 wanna C what kind of weirdness I'm up 2 here. Not that I know....
Right now there's just 1 thing I wanna know:
Is anybody else hooked-up-2 Blogger getting any kinda weird stats like these?
...& if U really R viewing this blog from 1/2way across the planet, could U mayB leave a comment, lemme know who U R & what brot U here & if it was worth it?
I'd appreciate it....

ANGELINA JOLIE NAKED!!!

Ha! Made ya look.
Hope this doesn't sound 2 silly or self-centered, but how bout Blogger's new "Stats" function, eh?
(I mean, it IS new, isn't it? I haven't been using this system 4 a year & just didn't SEE it up til last week, right? Have my eyes really gotten THAT bad?)
Anyway, something NEW 2 play with, Ghod help me. & what AMAZING (frankly unbelievable) statistical information is available right at my fingertips! (No, this is not going to be a commercial 4 Blogger/Google/whoever. Tho I'm sure they must B nice folks....)
4 instance: I'm finding it pretty hard 2 Blieve that a dozen people viewed my last post within the 1st 24 hrs after I posted it. Or that 20 people viewed this blog on the same day last week. C'mon -- there's only about 12 people in the world who know I write a blog ... sometimes. I don't even KNOW 20 people.
I'm also having a hard time Blieving that people in Ghana & Bolivia R viewing this blog. (& Ghod knows what they must think of it.)
& as 4 those folks who stumbled over the Back-Up Plan by doing a blog search -- what the Hell were they looking for?
& if all these people R allegedly out there viewing this stuff -- why the hell Rn't they commenting?
C'mon, don't B shy, I don't bite. If you're in Bolivia & you wondered who else in the world had actually heard the Raiders' 1972 non-hit "Country Wine," go ahead & drop me a line. It would actually be really cool 2 hear from you. If you're really out there. Which I'm not totally convinced about....
Maybe these visits & views R just a random thing -- Do people really do nothing but sit at home & surf the Net 24/7? & do they get PAID 4 it? & how would I go about getting a job like that? Anybody out there who can give me details -- & if there's actual $$$ involved -- fill me in & I'll split the proceeds with you (90/10, of course)....
Wow, maybe I can start attracting more attention by posting stuff with outrageous titles like the 1 above ... or how about "500 Nymphos and a Mule"! That should grab a lotta viewers. Or maybe "Make your penis 6 times bigger -- RIGHT NOW!" ... No, that 1's 2 common already.... Oh, I know -- "Never pay taxes again!!!" That's it.
All I gotta do then is sit back & C how many "hits" I get. (That IS what they're called, isn't it?) Can't wait....
But don't think this means the Back-Up Plan is gonna "go commercial." Oh no, absolutely not. I don't wanna B like every other blog out there, writing about Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers, or whether Lindsay Lohan's back in jail again. Hell no. I'd rather talk about music I was too stupid 2 appreciate 40 years ago -- or last week.
Besides, if I really wanted 2 max-out my readership, I'd probly havta start writing in Real English....
(This post brought to you by Blogger, dedicated to letting idiots express themselves worldwide -- whether anybody reads them or not....)