Pop culture history: The first song to sell one million copies in the UK
On Family Fortunes, if the question cropped up to name the most famous musical figures in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would not be far from the top of the list. However, unlike the likes of The Beatles who would occupy the slots surrounding the little pompadour prodigy, Mozart himself was never actually recorded. In fact, aside from a coterie of the European elite in his short 35 years between 1756 and 1791, nobody had ever heard the man himself play. Back in those days, the class system was the defining element of music, but technology would soon change that and the pop culture revolution was born.
In 1887, Emile Berliner patented the very first vinyl record player – the Gramophone. Thereafter seven-inch singles would begin filtering into the houses and establishments of anyone who could afford a record player. This was the first dawn of popular music.
For the first time, people could enjoy music from the comfort of their own homes with the simple drop of a stylus. Naturally, this had a profound impact on our music tastes. People began hearing new sounds and styles and the great mixing bowl of modern music began. Even the primitive lo-fi way in which the records were recorded had an impact. While the nuance of every little fine-tuned sound that producers sweat over today was lost by the rudimentary technology, soul and bravura had to be at the forefront. Thus, genres full of expression like the blues came to prominence.
The next great leap forward for vinyl came when 45s first arrived over 70 years ago in 1949 as ‘Texarkana Baby’ by Eddy Arnold became the world’s first commercially released 45 RPM record. They changed music forever. Kids were able to snap them up for a handful of pocket change and could swap the newly portable rock ‘n’ roll vibes around until they were beaten up beyond recognition, by which time the next big single would be out anyway. 45s ensured that music was now exchangeable on the playground.
In the UK, the record that typified this new fast fix was the Bill Haley & The Comets classic ‘(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock’. The song became such a pop culture sensation that it became the first single in UK history to sell one million copies. Since its release in 1954, a further 178 singles have achieved the feat. Bing Crosby’s single ‘White Christmas’ might be the oldest song on the list, but Bill Haley and his Comets were rather fittingly the first to pass the post.
Originally written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers in 1952, this simple 12-bar blues classic defined the early era of rock ‘n’ roll. As producer Milt Gabler would later state: “I was aware that rock was starting. I knew what was happening in the Philadelphia area, and ‘Crazy Man, Crazy’ had been a hit about a year before that. It already was starting and I wanted to take it from there.” The pace it picked up ‘from there’ is nothing short of startling. Pop culture was underway.
