The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / Smooth FM’s listeners have decided their number 1 song OF ALL TIME…

Comments

  1. The top ten:

    1. Careless Whisper – George Michael
    2. A Different Corner – George Michael
    3. Someone Like You – Adele
    4. Hello – Adele
    5. Dancing Queen – Abba
    6. I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston
    7. Make You Feel My Love – Adele
    8. You’re the First, the Last, My Everything – Barry White
    9. Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me – George Michael and Elton John
    10. Rolling in the Deep – Adele

    Remarkable.

  3. yes – it is grim. But he very generously donated a writing credit to Andrew Ridgeley (despite the face that George wrote it before they met), which ensured Andrew never had to work again

    So – a generous act from a kind man.

    • That’s about the only thing I like about that song, the fact that it keeps Andrew Ridgeley in surfboards. Isn’t he married to one of Bananarama (or Pepsi or Shirley) as well?

      What a nice life he has. But I think that credit was also because George Michael quite possibly spent his early career pretending to be what Andrew Ridgeley actually was and he learnt a lot from doing that…

  4. Careless Whisper is a very good song. The demographic is presumably largely 45 – 55 and they’ve chosen one of the biggest and best-loved records from their youth. We do the same thing when we do polls round here.

  5. I agree. CW is an excellent song. But then again, talking of Spamdau Ballet, so is this.

    The trouble with “smooth” stations is not that they play bad songs (although there are some real stinkers), but rather that endless of hours of smooth songs is audio valium. You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth.

    A little Melt Banana would wake their listeners up a little.

  6. One thing that frustrates me about that Smooth list is that the Smoothies have such a limited range of artists in their record collection.
    How about some exquisite smooth sounds from Australia?

    The Bamboos feat Megan Washington – The Wilhelm Scream

    Alan Bennett! Now there’s a man who knows about Smooth.

  7. Another CW fan here. Great song, production and performance and its longevity is a testament to that. But I’d go for the Isleys as a better chart topper

    • You’re probably right, Nigel, but there’s no doubt that he penned some wonderful songs.

      Come on all you Smoothies! Let’s hear what would be on the Aftersmooth Radio.

      Teddy Pendergrass

      Talking of grass, here’s Commander Cody featuring the late, great Nicolette Larson

      And some smooth jazz from John Martyn backed by the Guy Barker International Quintet. From the Glasgow Walker album.

      • Smooth is smooth and much of it is very good.

        Smooth FM is smooth with the edge removed and very repetitive.

        Much like Strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable.

        Buffers. Thunk.

  9. I’ve never listened to Smooth FM, but I am sure you are right, Mr Dog. No politics, no drugs, no social comment and absolutely nothing too sexy.

    For example this incitement to lasciviousness which was banned by the Beeb in 1973.

    “Go all the way!” Filth! If 70s teens in the UK had heard it, heaven knows what would have happened.

  10. Inexplicably, my local pub in London used to play Heart FM every single afternoon.
    Whilst using the place as an office (with beer!), I’d tick off the songs they’d play.

    If you were there two hours, you’d had a bad day if 5 songs hadn’t been ticked off your list of 10.

    Their motto, with no hint of irony that I could detect, was “Heart FM – more musical choice!”

  11. Smooth is a horrible word (except in the sense of well-planed wood). As are moist, crispy and pantyhose. When Jazz FM started it was actually quite edgy, until suddenly it was infested with smoooooth jaaaaazz.

  12. Aka Dinner Jazz. No wild, frenetic honk outs that would disturb the indigestion. And it becomes very samey after a while, even if the individual sounds are good.

    But there are 50 shades of Smooth. Here is a smoothie that I’m sure is a popular request from housewives from Harrow to Hartlepool.

    And there are doubtless lashings more where that came from

  13. Glad you like the Bamboos. Attack. A very fine band from Melbourne.

    And this morning I gave Megan Washington’s solo album and was very impressed. Moreish.

    But what intrigues is: did the Tyger Tyger Hitmaker William Blake have a band? I can easily believe it.

  16. I was surprised to see they managed to eke out a whole top 500, under the suspicion that they always sound like they have a pretty limited playlist, and http://comparemyradio.com/stations/Smooth_Radio seems to bear that out, with only 624 tracks played in the past 30 days (as I write), and a very low proportion of “unique” tracks too… actually, I’d imagine collating this chart is a semi-disguised way for them to skew their playlists even further towards homogeneity… “MORE George, MORE Adele, you’re listening to SMOOTH FM!”

    • Even honing in on specific albums and playing them 4 or 5 times in a row, I’ve still probably played more than 624 tracks in the last month.
      Surely no one listens to these stations on a regular basis?

      Who ever thought the average Afterworder would own considerably more records than a radio station!

  17. Great, great song, but of course CW contains one of those unnecessary “who-oo-oh oh’s” in it right at the beginning.

    I remember Baker & Kelly used to like discussing songs that had superfluous lyrics and this was one of them

    • “Who-oo-oh oh’s” aren’t really lyrics, they’re what I’ve just decided to call “Filler Motifs”.
      They are often annoying, sometimes intensely so, but sometimes they fit right into a song.
      Good or great songs are not harmed by them, used judiciously.

  18. If you’re a builder in London, wearing high vis and a hard hat then there’s a new station just for you!
    http://www.fixradio.co.uk/
    Building an audience by giving away bacon sandwiches on building sites. First track played on launch was We Built This City on Rock and Roll by Starship. Possibly* followed by Right Said Fred by Bernard Cribbens and Fixing a Hole by The HJHM.

    *No idea actually.

Leave a Reply