Best Hit Single Ever Recorded

[par4ken]

That's a really tough one, I've had many favorites over the years, most from the late sixties and early seventies. Off the top of my head it's hard to top Smith - "Baby it's You", Gayle McCormick's vocals are much punchier than the Beatles version!

 

[AshBuchanan]

Living in the Past, a perfect piece of sunny 60s pop.

 

[M-D-Z]

I've never been much of a singles music buyer.
But THIS one is pretty easy for me.

I had already purchased Chain of Fools prior to this one, but the stand out single...
Rocksteady by Aretha Franklin (1971)

When I first heard it on the radio, it was one of those moments where I said like WOAH!, I gotta have this recording, then I heard the BP drum fill and realized how important the drums (with exactly the right feel) can be SO indispensable in a vocal song.

Read the line-up below .....
Copied and pasted from Wikipedia:

Aretha Franklin – lead vocals, piano
Donny Hathaway – electric piano, organ
Bernard Purdie – drums
Cornell Dupree – guitar
Richard Tee – organ
Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
The Sweethearts of Soul (Brenda Bryant, Margaret Branch, Pat Smith) [4] — backing vocals
Robert Popwell, Dr. John – percussion
The Memphis Horns
Wayne Jackson – trumpet
Andrew Love – tenor saxophone
Gene Paul – engineer
Jerry Wexler – production
Tom Dowd – horn arrangement, production
Arif Mardin – production

I have purchased thousands of recordings over the last fifty years JUST because ONE of the above listed names was on a record I never heard before. Back then you could not 'google-it' for a quick YouTube listen.
But this song was made by as stellar a group as ever was assembled.
I always felt that Arif Marvin produced the best material for MANY artists, especially Chaka Khan!

Side note: Check out Steven Stills' full album (you know the one starting out with 'Love The One You're With') another incredible lineup including Jimi Hendrix.

 

[Tornado Red]

Pink Floyd - Coming Back To Life...for personal reasons. Songs shuffle in and out of our lives as we all know, but this one’s a mainstay for me.

 

[Bender]

Good Vibrations - Beach Boys ---- is the first one that comes to mind for best hit single recording. the production, the movements, the hooks.

 

[M-D-Z]

Good Vibrations - Beach Boys ---- is the first one that comes to mind for best hit single recording. the production, the movements, the hooks.

Oh, HELL YEAH!
Good Vibrations!!
An absolutely KILLER SINGLE!

 

[M-D-Z]

And then no one can deny the impact of yet another GREAT single from the 70s ...
David Essex
Rock On
Two bass lines on top of drums & percussion simultaneously that work ridiculously well in synth quad.
This song is mind bending when played LOUD thru four JBL SR4718X 18" subs powered by a matching pair of Crown MacroTech 5002VZ amps in bi-amped quad and four corners of the room thru two sets of 12" three way top boxes and another rack of Crown pro-amps!

This is definitely a 'go-to-song' for messing around with several old school multichannel processors.
Fosgate Audionics DSM-3610 pro-plus
Proton SD-1000
Aphex ESP-7000
Sansui QSD-1
DBX 4BX (x2)
Aphex DriveRack (x2)

Can't wait to get the new Surround Master to try playing this song on this pro rig I got stuffed into such a tiny living room!

 

[halbroome]

Side note: Check out Steven Stills' full album (you know the one starting out with 'Love The One You're With') another incredible lineup including Jimi Hendrix.

Oh YES! Stephen Stills' first solo album was amazing, yet you could get it for next to nothing in "shit bins" when punk hit. Over the years it has held up and even more -- check out Eric Clapton's stinging solo on "Go Back Home" and you'd wonder, why was this not a classic? There is a HDCD version that sounds mighty fine!

 

[4-earredwonder]

Oh YES! Stephen Stills' first solo album was amazing, yet you could get it for next to nothing in "shit bins" when punk hit. Over the years it has held up and even more -- check out Eric Clapton's stinging solo on "Go Back Home" and you'd wonder, why was this not a classic? There is a HDCD version that sounds mighty fine!

The REAL shame is that this album was poised for an MLP DVD~A 5.1 release by Rhino/Warner and actually appeared as a pre~order on a few websites but then was canceled for some inexplicable reason.

 

[halbroome]

The REAL shame is that this album was poised for an MLP DVD~A 5.1 release by Rhino/Warner and actually appeared as a pre~order on a few websites but then was canceled for some inexplicable reason.

My guess is that the stellar lineup -- Mama Cass, Clapton, Hendrix, and a lot of others I can't recall right now -- meant that at least one of them had an estate that either said "no" or wanted too much of the profits. Sigh.

 

[4-earredwonder]

My guess is that the stellar lineup -- Mama Cass, Clapton, Hendrix, and a lot of others I can't recall right now -- meant that at least one of them had an estate that either said "no" or wanted too much of the profits. Sigh.

Or that Warner/Rhino decided to pull the plug on any future DVD~A/RBCD combo discs because of poor sales figures. This was slated to be released when those wonderful Jackson Browne: Running on Empty and Seal MLP DVD~As and David Crosby's If I Can Only Remember my Name titles were released as MLP DVD~A/RBCD digipacks a few years back. And then Rhino tried those LOSSY DTS QUAD DVD~Vs of Chicago Transit Authority and The Best of Aretha Franklin and pulled THAT plug, as well.

 

[Ranasakawa]

Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum

 

[Ranasakawa]

Three great songs.

Listen to the acoustic version of summer breeze on you tube by Seals and Croft, absolutely breathtaking

 

[elmer]

That's a really tough one, I've had many favorites over the years, most from the late sixties and early seventies. Off the top of my head it's hard to top Smith - "Baby it's You", Gayle McCormick's vocals are much punchier than the Beatles version!

There was a short lived show on the ABC network in 1969- "The Music Scene" hosted by David Steinberg and others (Lily Tomlin too). A few comedy bits interrupted by the musical acts of the day. It was here that I first saw Smith and Gayle McCormick. I was 15 years old - while it seems a bit dated now, at the time, I was quite taken. Either way, an outstanding version of the song.

 

[Mesozoic Mike]

My favorite? That depends... What year is it?

If it's 1965, then I'm eight years old, and life is good. I'm hanging out on the old green couch in the basement on a rainy Saturday afternoon, reading a Hardy Boys adventure book and listening to the old Zenith tube radio. It's DJ Lou Gutenberger on KSTT AM, and he just played the coolest song I ever heard, ever:

I really like that song, cute singer too.

 

[Frogmort]

A little before my time, but this song really speaks to me emotionally for some reason.

 

[Frogmort]

Just found this time capsule:

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

I really like that song, cute singer too.

I was absolutely crazy about that song as a kid. And here's the cool part: Eventually, "You Were On My Mind" began to fade from the US Top 40 charts, and it fell from heavy rotation. Right about that time, our family took a vacation up to Canada for a week or so. As we traveled north, we discovered that the Canadian charts were a week or two behind the US, so the song was just getting hot up there - I got to hear it all over again!

 

[Franklin]

For many years this has been my favourite song of all time; it failed to make the UK top 40 the first time and never made a top ten placing in three attempts that I'm aware of:



But this is a new contender for my top spot. Amazing chorus and great video. Love it:

 

[Eggplant]

At first thought this a silly question — who can pick just one?
(And it’s not about surround sound.)
What’s interesting to me about this thread is how people’s suggestions really hit me as contenders.

A great single must be all of the following:

Unforgettable.
Irresistible.
Addictive.
Singable.
Powerful.

And ...

Beautiful.
(The sound.)

All these previous mentions qualify:

Magic (Pilot)
Good Vibrations (Beach Boys)*
Rock On (David Essex)
Living in the Past (Jethro Tull)

*— disqualified for mono

Plus, I like them. ~^..^~

Note that only two of these are available in surround — one quad, the other a recent 5.1.
The Pilot tune is one of the most painful Quads That Weren’t:
Never was, never could have been, never will be.
Actually, so is GV — but for different (technical) reasons.

And I’ll add one of my own:

I’m Not in Love (10cc)
(Kinda sorta available in 5.1)