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Ollie oop song2/2/2024 His solution lies in the title of the song: “ Let’s forget about the whinin’ and the cryin’ / And the shootin’ and the dyin’ / And the fellow with a switchblade knife / Let’s think about livin’ / Let’s think about life“. Disguised as a fun, peppy country-type song, it is actually a critical examination of pop songs that use death, tragedy, and sadness as a selling point. ![]() Perhaps the one song that perfectly captures my feelings on this trend (a novelty song at that) is Bob Luman’s “Let’s Think About Livin'” (#92). I’ve heard of record companies following trends to keep listeners at bay, but this is ridiculous. It also did’t help that there simply were so many of these singles on this list. Yet while songs like these in past years had a distinctive, fairly personable quality to them, there were moments where it actually felt like each slow song blended seamlessly into the next. Now I’m not completely opposed to these types of slow, moody love tunes in fact, some of the best of this genre are found in this list, such as Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry” (#6) and Jackie Wilson’s “Night” (#34). However, I think the best way is that it mostly caters to the white heterosexual teen-agers who would slow-dance to this music at their high school dances (but at an arm’s length apart). Yet it’s hard for me to pinpoint and explain exactly what it is about this list that I found so listless. Basically this year was so boring that Guy Mitchell’s “Heartaches By The Number”, which was at #88 in the ’59 list, makes a reappearance here at #93! It’s true that the chart is determined by sales and airplay more than anything else, but the song wasn’t even ranked very highly in the first place. Artists that had previously marked past years as exciting and eccentric – Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Coasters, etc. Long gone are the prime, young, vibrant days of rock ‘n’ roll’s early era that filled the radiowaves these days, the icon of the Teen Idol is at its peak. It wouldn’t be fair to say that this year was equalled in mediocrity with 1959 – rather, this year stands on its own as a particularly special kind of bad. ![]() If I thought 1959 was a dull year in music, nothing could have prepared me for the Hot 100 of 1960. ![]() – Great Balls of Fire: Billboard’s Hot 100 of 1958 – Rock and Roll Music: Billboard’s Hot 100 of 1957 My coverage of previous years in Hot 100 year-end lists:
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