Folks, I’ll be the first to tell you that our last CHART ATTACK! was just a little depressing. Marky Mark? Ugh! Color Me Badd? Ugggggh! Bryan Adams? Uggggggghhhh! Good news, though: I’m pleased to report that this week’s Top 10 is much, much better — sure, there are some mild clunkers, but the majority of these songs are absolutely fantastic. See if you agree as we attack November 3, 1973!
10. All I Know — Garfunkel 
9. Space Race — Billy Preston
8. Let’s Get It On — Marvin Gaye
7. Ramblin’ Man — The Allman Brothers Band
6. Heartbeat – It’s a Lovebeat — The DeFranco Family Featuring Tony DeFranco
5. Paper Roses — Marie Osmond
4. Half-Breed — Cher
3. Keep On Truckin’ (Part 1) — Eddie Kendricks
2. Angie — The Rolling Stones
1. Midnight Train to Georgia — Gladys Knight & the Pips
10. All I Know — Garfunkel (download)
Following the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel in 1970, Art Garfunkel removed his focus from the music business; for three years, he focused on his acting career, appearing in Mike Nichols movies such as Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge, taught mathematics at a private school in Connecticut, and studied classical music in Europe. Finally, in 1973, he assembled a group of songwriters (what, you thought he was going to write songs himself?) and recorded songs for a new album, entitled Angel Clare. The first single, “All I Know,” was written by Jimmy Webb (the first of many Garfunkel/Webb collaborations) and was his first solo entry on the Top 10 — and by “first,” I mean “only,” though he did have three #1 hits on the Adult Contemporary charts. The song is exactly what you’d expect: musically, it’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” minus the bridge or troubled water, and lyrically, it’s deep into Mellow Gold territory. Art’s voice sounds a touch creepy here on the original, especially any time he gets near a low note. Still, it’s quite pretty, and you really can’t go wrong with songs like these, especially ones that feature Webb’s beautiful piano. The only thing I don’t understand is why, for his first few albums, Art was only billed as “Garfunkel.” Was he concerned that if he added the “Art,” people wouldn’t know who he was? How many Garfunkels are out there, really? If he wanted to capitalize on familiarity, perhaps he should have billed himself as “& Garfunkel.”
I found a nice video of Art Garfunkel performing “All I Know” on Saturday Night Live, but it’s on a Chinese website and I can’t figure out how to embed it. Still, it’s worth a watch; the song is much more effective in this stripped-down incarnation.
9. Space Race — Billy Preston
I personally had never heard “Space Race” before this week, but if you watched American Bandstand regularly, chances are you’ll recognize it as the music played during the mid-show commercial break, from 1974 until the show’s end. It worked great for that purpose, too — a sequel of sorts to 1972’s “Outa-Space,” “Space Race” is a thick slab of instrumental funk with a fantastic groove. But here’s the thing: on American Bandstand, you never got to hear more than a few seconds of the song. At around a minute and a half, it becomes pretty clear that a better title would have been “Holy Crap You Guys, I Just Got a New Keyboard and Look at All the Cool Sounds I Can Make, Wah Wah Wah Wah!” I can’t help but wonder if this song is what inspired Daryl Dragon to buy a Casio, and that just breaks my heart. Still, I can’t give Billy Preston too much grief. Apart from having the world’s greatest afro, the man was an unbelievable talent. And who doesn’t love the hell out of “Nothing From Nothing”?
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Maia Sharp, Echo (2009, Crooked Crown Records)
There’s never been a musical trend that Cher has been afraid to jump upon. From watered down hippie-dippy love songs to disco to adult contemporary schlock, the Dark Lady has matched only maybe Bowie in appropriating the current musical climate for her own campy needs. And New Wave was no exception.
During my years on the ‘net, I’ve been a member of various E-mail lists and participated in countless discussion forums, and if there’s one recurring theme that never fails to rankle me, it’s when people so emphatically hold up an artist’s early work as the gold standard of their career that they refuse to acknowledge their later albums as being anything other than complete and total dogshit.