1958: Your Future's Looking Dim

8 — Billy Vaughn: "Sail Along Silvery Moon"

4 — Elvis Presley: "I Beg of You" / "Don't"

7 — The Silhouettes: "Get a Job"

6 — The Chantels: "Maybe"

4 — Chuck Berry: "Sweet Little Sixteen"

7 — The Champs: "Tequila"

2 — The Chordettes: "Lollipop"
8 — Connie Francis: "Who's Sorry Now?"

6 — Elvis Presley: "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck"

5 — David Seville: "Witch Doctor"

9 — The Everly Brothers: "All I Have to Do Is Dream"

6 — Bobby Freeman: "Do You Want to Dance"

1 — Sheb Wooley: "The Purple People Eater"

7 — Elvis Presley: "Hard Headed Woman"

5 — Ricky Nelson: "Poor Little Fool"

5 — Jack Scott: "My True Love"

7 — The Everly Brothers: "Bird Dog" / "Devoted to You"

4 — Robin Luke: "Suzie Darlin'"

5 — Tommy Edwards: "It's All in the Game"

8 — Conway Twitty: "It's Only Make Believe"

4 — The Kingston Trio: "Tom Dooley"

6 — Elvis Presley: "One Night" / "I Got Stung"

7 — The Teddy Bears: "To Know Him Is to Love Him"

3 — The Chipmunks with David Seville: "The Chipmunk Song"

"How does he decide the score?" I hear you ask. Good question. A lot it comes down to how a particular single measures up to the others, especially recent entries that I've reviewed. So, if I'm stuck I'll take a look at how I've scored others and see how they compare. "To Know Him Is to Love Him" felt like it ought to have been an 8 but I didn't think there was enough of a gap between it and "One Night" / "I Got Stung" which preceded it. If I have, say, a 4 earmarked for someone then I'll look at others with the same score to judge if I would rank them similarly.

With the exceptions of 1's and 10's, generally a score will have a margin of error of one point in either direction. Thus, "Do You Want to Dance" could plausibly be a 5 or a 7 depending on my mood at the time. Actually, Bobby Freeman's breakthrough hit isn't a great example: thinking about it now, it's a 6 and only a 6. But there are others this rule applies to. "Get a Job", "Tequilla", "Hard Headed Woman": all of the 7's come to think of it. 7 is a fascinating score being in that grey zone between the mediocrity of a 6 and the point where you enter banger territory of an 8.

One that is quite a bit different from the rest is "It's All in the Game" which ended up being compared to itself. Tommy Edwards' original from '51 was far too good while the remake from seven years later sounds like an anticlimax. It might have scored slightly higher had I not known about the earlier version though I can't imagine I would've been all that thrilled by it either way. Like the modern day 12" mix which sucks all the life out of a great pop song, this redo added much but also took an awful lot away from the original.

I had been worried that the novelty songs were going to drag the year down but one of them wasn't all that bad. The other two, however, are. Joining them is "Lollipop" which has next to no merit as well. Nothing else was bad though. So, four fantastic singles, five more that are quite good and bunch that are okay is not such a bad outcome. I had been expecting a whole lot worse.

Next up is 1959. We may see out first 10 this year though that does remain to be seen. On a sour note, one of the year's biggest hits is an absolute piece of crap and I don't imagine it will be the only one. But, hey, you might hate the songs but my writing about them can't be anywhere near as painful an experience as listening to them is. Right? Right???