Herb's iTunes Top 20 Songs - as of June 2007

[Mike Blakesley]

I thought it would be fun to post the top-selling Herb Alpert songs on iTunes.

First the list, and then some statistics.

1. This Guy's In Love With You
2. Rise
3. A Taste of Honey
4. Spanish Flea
5. Tijuana Taxi
6. The Lonely Bull (El Solo Toro)
7. Casino Royale
8. Whipped Cream
9. Zorba The Greek
10. The Girl From Ipanema
11. Whipped Cream (Rewhipped version)
12. Green Peppers
13. Mexican Shuffle
14. Rotation
15. Chasing Shadows
16. Bittersweet Samba
17. Love Potion #9
18. South of the Border
19. Walk, Don't Run
20. 1980

Now, slicing-and-dicing the list:

15 of the 20 songs are from the Tijuana Brass era

1 song from THE LONELY BULL
None from VOLUME 2
3 from SOUTH OF THE BORDER
5 from the original WHIPPED CREAM AND OTHER DELIGHTS
4 from GOING PLACES

Surprisingly, none from WHAT NOW MY LOVE even though it was Herb's best (or second-best) selling TJB album. But, see my note about "Bubbling under" later on.

No songs from S.R.O. either, not even "The Work Song" which was a hit and had TV special exposure. (See below, again.)

One each from SOUNDS LIKE and BEAT OF THE BRASS .

Sadly, nothing from any of the iTunes exclusive albums.

Then, the solo years:
3 songs from RISE
and one each from REWHIPPED and a various-artists collection.

Six of the TJB songs are from the band's stable of songwriters, and four of those are by Sol Lake.

Only four of the 20 songs had been hits for other artists before Herb got hold of them (as far as I can tell).

The fact that the best selling song is a vocal, yet it's the ONLY vocal on the list, should encourage Herb to make any future albums instrumental-only!

Bubbling under: The next three songs in order are "What Now My Love," "The Work Song" and the RE-WHIPPED version of "A Taste of Honey."

How else can we analyze this list?

 

[Captaindave]

Well, I'm not at all surprised that most of the songs are from the 1960s TJB era. That is the music for which Herb Alpert will always be by far the best known. Similarly, Sol Lake songs are definitive of the famous TJB sound and style. So, IMO, it all works together that way.

IMO, the originality of the Tijuana Brass sound and style was further developed by much original music written for that particular artist, so not many of the songs would have been previously recorded.

My opinion is that most of the fans of Herb Alpert - the more serious fans of this forum would be excluded - would have more or less "lost track" of Herb Alpert with the end of the 1960s and "This Guy's In Love..." I will speculate that by the time Rise came along, the earlier audience for Herb Alpert and the TJB had pretty much moved on. Rise was most popular during the disco years, and that was a whole different era for those who were big TJB fans in the sixties - like me. Many of us "sixties" people found things had changed a lot during the seventies decade and thereafter. We kind of got "hung up" at the close of the sixties and did not move forward with the changing times.

FWIW...

 

[Captaindave]

Just as another thought...I agree..the success of "This Guy..." should not be seen as a demand for more vocal releases. Although it was a hit and Herb handled it well, it was also one of those "right time and place" things. I remember - I was 17 at the time. There was a special aura or mystique of some kind "in the air" at that time. The song, the singer, the "magical moment in time" - it was all very special.

I think it's very interesting that Chasing Shadows is on the list.

What do you make of that?

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I was surprised at that, myself.

The other one that surprised me was "1980." Great song that it is, it wasn't a single or anything.

The list goes to show that things don't change much. Herb's most popular songs then are still his most popular. (I suppose it might be partly due to the fact that many of the same people who bought the LPs, the 45s, the reels, the 8 tracks, the cassettes and the CDs are now downloading the files!)

 

[Harry]

Brain cramp: "Chasing Shadows" - what's it from?

Harry

 

[Rudy]

It's from a jazz compilation CD that was released in the past few years on Telarc (Maximum Grooves--Coast To Coast).

 

[Captain Bacardi]

The other one that surprised me was "1980." Great song that it is, it wasn't a single or anything.

It was the 'B' side of the "Street Life" 45.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[Harry]

It's from a jazz compilation CD that was released in the past few years on Telarc (Maximum Grooves--Coast To Coast).

I figured I probably had it and just forgot about it - and that's the case.

This track has probably been around on iTunes longer than the Shout! stuff, giving it an edge in number of downloads just by the sheer fact that it was a Herb Alpert track that was available,

Harry

 

[Captaindave]

Regarding "This Guy's..." being at the top of the list after 39 years...

For anyone old enough to remember, by the time "This Guy's.." was big on the charts in 1968, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had been a famous name in pop music in front of mainstream America for six years.

Grammy awards, TV specials, constant radio airplay, regular release of popular albums, SRO concerts - IMO, all these things that had gone before helped make "This Guy's..." a huge hit. It was the culmination of several years of fame.

Even though I will always associate Herb Alpert with a trumpet and the Tijuana Brass sound, I am thinking that "This Guy's ..." has become one of Herb Alpert's best known "signature songs." At the Herb Alpert at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1996 - 28 years after it was big on the charts - it was the closing song on that program.

And, I think that many people will always tend to like vocal music more than instrumental music anyway. Maybe it has something to do with everyone having a voice (even if they can't sing well), but not everyone can play an instrument? I dunno...Herb Alpert was unique in being able to make instrumental music popular. It is usually vocally based artists that make it really big.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

This track has probably been around on iTunes longer than the Shout! stuff,

Yes. When I first signed-on to iTunes, of course one of the first searches I did was for Herb, and that song would come up all by itself. So it probably scored a significant number of downloads just from people wanting to know what it sounded like. (I listened to the sample...that was enough for me.)

 

[Rudy]

I don't think it's a coincidence that the top two downloads also coincide with the songs' runs at #1 on the Billboard charts. "This Guy..." sat there for four weeks, and "Rise" for two. I equate that more with general overall popularity, and/or people assembling hit songs from certain years. IOW, downloading it because it was a *hit*, not because it was Herb.