Billboard charts and the 1970s revival of pop music from the 1950s

 

For people of a certain age, "Billboard charts" is synonymous with fame. Basically, if your band or record or composition appeared on one of the Billboard charts tracking album or single releases, you are part of pop music history, even if it was #99 on the Billboard Hot 100 or a one-hit wonder on the Adult Contemporary chart in September of 1986.

What can explain pop artists re-appearing on the Billboard charts after a long hiatus? In a discussion of late-20th century pop music trends, there was a comment from a younger person, expressing surprise about early 60s crooner Frankie Valli showing up more than a decade after his last appearance, when Billboard mostly featured disco, "AOR" (album-oriented rock), and New Wave:

The fact that Valli topped the charts again in 1978 with “Grease” still boggles my mind.

Reading this, I thought: Not if you were living through the 1950s nostalgia revival which was going strong at the time and lingered through the early 80s.

50s nostalgia was everywhere. It was on TV (Happy Days and Sha Na Na), the movies (American Graffiti, Porky's) and the radio. Not only were there retro musical acts like The Stray Cats, there were retro projects by established artists returning to the music they grew up with, such as Robert Plant's The Honeydrippers as well as individual songs by 70s stars like Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."

By the mid 80s, the 50s nostalgia trend had mostly faded away in the larger pop culture sphere. There were still movies about the 50s, but they tended to be serious stories or biopics as opposed to Baby Boomers reliving youthful times.

In the music arena, the Stray Cats and a few newer bands like Reverend Horton Heat and Guana Batz carried the 50s torch, but on a much smaller stage, and maybe dialed ahead a few years to the early 60s. 

Billy Joel's "For The Longest Time" and Robert Plant were two of the last major acts to attempt to surf the 50s retro wave. When I saw Plant at the Worcester Centrum in 1985, The Honeydrippers segment at the end of the set felt silly and forced. The legions of fans wearing Zoso t-shirts would have much rather liked an obscure Led Zeppelin track. 

But then again, this was the era of Payola 2.0, when record company executives could sideline heavy metal fans and pretend long-haired rockers wanted to listen to "Sea of Love." Of course, no one wanted to hear it. Nostalgia rock faded to the margins, and people mostly forgot the late 70s revival.