The top five on Billboard 50 years ago was
1. Still Crazy After All These Years - Paul Simon
2. Red Octopus - Jefferson Starship
3. Windsong - John Denver
4. Prisoner in Disguise - Linda Ronstadt
5. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy - Elton John
This is the most mainstream records of course and it just shows how great popular taste was at the time. Only the John Denver record isn’t regarded as an absolute classic and even that contains some memorable ecological songs like Calypso and the title track whose lyrics were very prescient
The title track of Paul Simon's record is instant melancholic nostalgia, as it was even at the time. Miracles from Red Octopus similarly evokes times past with a lush, wistful chorus. And the Ronstadt record features her phlegmy, throat tearing cover of Heatwave and it’s forgotten now but she did a version of I Will Always Love You here too. She really was the Queen of reinterpretation and the list of musicians on the album is the absolute cream of the crop from Danny Kortchmar to Russ Kunkel.
As for Elton, he rates that album as his and Bernie Taupin’s best work. And what a product it is with elaborate artwork. A fully realised artistic vision by Alan Aldridge.
Now compare it to the autotuned abominations we see in the top five now. There is no comparison. And it isn’t just nostalgia, in a like-for-like comparison, we’ve got proper artists against marketed products. Even the sainted Taylor Swift, popular she may be but her music sounds like discarded demos in comparison.
We were lucky to grow up with this music before things became very artificial, almost inhuman.
