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Why are big hits "lost?"

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tbolt909 said:
As I recall, there were many music and Teen magazines back then. David Cassidy was a Pop Idol. People could SEE what the Jacksons and Osmonds looked like. Radio DJs would announce the records they played. Hard to confuse those two groups unless people really weren't paying attention at all (which is possible)...
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tbolt:

It's early 1971. You're in a car. You've never heard "One Bad Apple" before. The AM radio is on. A commercial is playing. The station jingle follows, cold into "One Bad Apple".

Are you clairvoyant enough, first listen on an AM radio, to say "Hey! That's the Osmonds!"?---an act that has NEVER been played on Top 40 radio? An act that was on TV exactly three times in the year leading up to this---twice with Andy Williams, once with Glen Campbell, one year, ten months and four months earlier---doing material that didn't sound like this?

Assuming you're not an adolescent girl, you probably don't have your nose in Tiger Beat magazine, which probably didn't write about the Osmonds until "One Bad Apple" was a hit (that's research I don't have the stomach for).

Nobody is saying people continued to get them mixed up. But what is a fact is that people, on first listen, if a DJ didn't tell them otherwise over the intro, thought they were hearing a Jackson 5 record.

And even after the reveal, the record went #6 R&B and #1 pop, outperforming (on the pop chart), the legitimate Jackson 5 single ("Mama's Pearl") that was released three weeks later.
 
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Heck, the first time I heard the Carpenters remake of Please Mr Postman on the radio (AM) when it came out I did t realize it was the Carpenters and I was a Carpenters fan!
 
michael hagerty said:
Assuming you're not an adolescent girl, you probably don't have your nose in Tiger Beat magazine, which probably didn't write about the Osmonds until "One Bad Apple" was a hit (that's research I don't have the stomach for).
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Tiger Beat. That's I name I haven't seen in years. It's now an Internet-only fan magazine. I just checked their website, and it's stuck in 2021, literally.
 
gr8oldies said:
The Osmond Brothers, of course had a career going back to the early 1960s, singing barbershop and MOR tunes including on the Andy Williams Show. It was actually Merrill that sang lead on most of their early 70s hits with Donny as a co-lead on the choruses. Then we have Donny's solo efforts.
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I only learned about this later. To me, they were the kids who did "One Bad Apple" and I didn't know that WASN"T a Jackson 5 song. I knew some of the songs were done by one group and some by the other.
michael hagerty said:
tbolt:

It's early 1971. You're in a car. You've never heard "One Bad Apple" before. The AM radio is on. A commercial is playing. The station jingle follows, cold into "One Bad Apple".

Are you clairvoyant enough, first listen on an AM radio, to say "Hey! That's the Osmonds!"?---an act that has NEVER been played on Top 40 radio? An act that was on TV exactly three times in the year leading up to this---twice with Andy Williams, once with Glen Campbell, one year, ten months and four months earlier---doing material that didn't sound like this?

Assuming you're not an adolescent girl, you probably don't have your nose in Tiger Beat magazine, which probably didn't write about the Osmonds until "One Bad Apple" was a hit (that's research I don't have the stomach for).

Nobody is saying people continued to get them mixed up. But what is a fact is that people, on first listen, if a DJ didn't tell them otherwise over the intro, thought they were hearing a Jackson 5 record.

And even after the reveal, the record went #6 R&B and #1 pop, outperforming (on the pop chart), the legitimate Jackson 5 single ("Mama's Pearl") that was released three weeks later.
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michael hagerty said:
Nobody is saying people continued to get them mixed up. But what is a fact is that people, on first listen, if a DJ didn't tell them otherwise over the intro, thought they were hearing a Jackson 5 record.
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Maybe those people had never heard of the Jackson 5 either. Did anybody mistake Tom Petty for the Byrds the first time they heard Petty? The original post by V Chimp did not refer to when the song was new. He said people think STILL think they sound the same.

There was once a band called Klaatu. Speculation was that they were actually the Beatles reunited. That turned out to be false and the band quickly disappeared...
 
tbolt909 said:
Maybe those people had never heard of the Jackson 5 either. Did anybody mistake Tom Petty for the Byrds the first time they heard Petty? The original post by V Chimp did not refer to when the song was new. He said people think STILL think they sound the same.

There was once a band called Klaatu. Speculation was that they were actually the Beatles reunited. That turned out to be false and the band quickly disappeared...
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Do you really want people reading to think you don't see a difference between recording acts that were charting at the same time and those that were 12 years apart?

And let's use the part of my post that was the question:

tbolt:

It's early 1971. You're in a car. You've never heard "One Bad Apple" before. The AM radio is on. A commercial is playing. The station jingle follows, cold into "One Bad Apple".

Are you clairvoyant enough, first listen on an AM radio, to say "Hey! That's the Osmonds!"?---an act that has NEVER been played on Top 40 radio? An act that was on TV exactly three times in the year leading up to this---twice with Andy Williams, once with Glen Campbell, one year, ten months and four months earlier---doing material that didn't sound like this?
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michael hagerty said:
Do you really want people reading to think you don't see a difference between recording acts that were charting at the same time and those that were 12 years apart?

And let's use the part of my post that was the question:
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That's the point. Very few people knew who the Osmonds were. Do you have data that says scores of people thought "One Bad Apple" was the Jackson 5 on first listen? I didn't. Again, the original post said he thinks people STILL can't tell them apart. They must not hear very well...
 
michael hagerty said:
Who did you think they were?
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I don't remember thinking about it one way or the other. I recall the Jackson 5 and The Osmonds both got Cartoon TV shows about a year later. That should have made it obvious on which was which.

I was listening to Miles Davis records anyway back then...
 
michael hagerty said:
In fairness to all, the confusion happened exactly once, when the Osmonds hired producer Rick Hall to get them a hit and he had them cut "One Bad Apple" at his FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

It was written by George Jackson (no relation---he later co-wrote Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll"), who sent it to the Jackson 5. Motown rejected it and had the J5 cut "ABC", which was written inside Motown.

At a time when there was exactly one group with an 11-year old lead vocalist singing pop songs with an R&B groove, it was easy for some people, hearing it on an AM radio, without visuals to think it was another Jackson Five record.

Once. But never again, and certainly not still.

And the timing was perfect---the Jackson 5 had four hits up to that point, with the most recent a ballad ("I'll Be There").

"One Bad Apple" got on the radio three full weeks ahead of the J5's fifth single, "Mama's Pearl" and not only outperformed it on the Hot 100 (the Osmonds peaked at #1, the Jacksons at #3), it went top ten on the Billboard R&B chart, peaking at #6 .

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I think this is a case where we can see that not every listener is a musician, music producer, or radio industry type who can automatically ID and/or differentiate a similar sounding group at first hearing. A lot of listeners aren't necessarily musically sophisticated. If that were the case, Disco Duck would never have been a hit, and Vanilla Ice would have been forever stuck doing clubs in Dallas. A lot of people just want to hear something that makes them feel good. Then, if they like the song, they will check out who actually made it.

I think some of that is still the case today. Countless times I've seen comments under YT music vids where someone (doesn't matter which demographic) says "I didn't know ______________ (fill in name of artist) did this song!"

The reason One Bad Apple became a hit was because it was a catchy song that made people feel good.

Edit: upon hearing the Osmonds' track. very R&B. The bass player is doing his best to imitate James Jamerson. Not bad, really.
 
boombox4 said:
Edit: upon hearing the Osmonds' track. very R&B. The bass player is doing his best to imitate James Jamerson. Not bad, really.
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No ordinary bassist, it turns out. A little research reveals that he was Bob Wray, a top session player whose work is on dozens of hits, recorded mainly in Muscle Shoals and Nashville. I recognized his name immediately, having seen it in the listing of musicians on the albums of many favorite country artists. "One Bad Apple" was only the beginning for him, according to this profile:
blues.gr

Bassist Bob Wray talks about the legend of Muscle Shoals, Rick Hall, Ray Charles, BB King and Johnny Cash

Music to me should be soothing, have positive effects on ones thoughts and not involve aggressive lyrics. Cultures change and so does music. Bob Wray: Walk O…
blues.gr blues.gr
 
tbolt909 said:
I don't remember thinking about it one way or the other. I recall the Jackson 5 and The Osmonds both got Cartoon TV shows about a year later. That should have made it obvious on which was which.

I was listening to Miles Davis records anyway back then...
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One more time, tbolt---a line you actually responded directly to:

michael hagerty said:

Nobody is saying people continued to get them mixed up. But what is a fact is that people, on first listen, if a DJ didn't tell them otherwise over the intro, thought they were hearing a Jackson 5 record.
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I know someone said people "get" them confused--present tense. I think it was a grammatical error. But if that's your argument---anything beyond first listen, unannounced, your debate is with that poster.

Meantime, "I was listening to Miles Davis records anyway back then" (congratulations on taste beyond your years) kinda takes you out of a plausible position of judging what the typical AM radio listener thought when:

...there was exactly one group with an 11-year old lead vocalist singing pop songs with an R&B groove.
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CTListener said:
Or their 11-year-old, squeaky-voiced lead singer. If they had one, he certainly was nowhere to be heard on "The Rain, The Park and Other Things," "Indian Lake" or "Hair."
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Yeah, that too. I vaguely recall there being one or more young kids in the Cowsills (who inspired TV writers to cook up The Partridge Family), but they didn't get lead vocals on the singles.
 
michael hagerty said:
It's early 1971. You're in a car. You've never heard "One Bad Apple" before. The AM radio is on. A commercial is playing. The station jingle follows, cold into "One Bad Apple".

Are you clairvoyant enough, first listen on an AM radio, to say "Hey! That's the Osmonds!"?---an act that has NEVER been played on Top 40 radio? An act that was on TV exactly three times in the year leading up to this---twice with Andy Williams, once with Glen Campbell, one year, ten months and four months earlier---doing material that didn't sound like this?
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Surprised no one's mentioned this, but legend has it that one of those people fooled was none other than Berry Gordy himself. The way the story goes was that he was in his car and heard "One Bad Apple", and was livid that a J5 record had been released without his knowledge or approval. When he got to the office he called his head of A&R on the carpet and demanded to know why this happened. The A&R exec, who was aware of the Osmonds record explained the situation to Gordy.
 
tbolt909 said:
I don't remember thinking about it one way or the other. I recall the Jackson 5 and The Osmonds both got Cartoon TV shows about a year later. That should have made it obvious on which was which.
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Again, not something young adults would notice even though they listened to Top 40 radio stations.
tbolt909 said:
I was listening to Miles Davis records anyway back then...
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And, as a person whose first radio job was at an all-jazz FM in a major market, I can say that such preferences put you in a very small segment of the population.
 
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