Gloria Gaynor, “Never Can Say Goodbye” [October 26, 1974]
It was all downhill from here. Well, not really--some just-as-good (and maybe even better) records replicated this one’s showing--but you see my point. I have a hard time thinking of a vocal as unstintingly intense that makes less of a show of it--Gaynor just rides up, up, up, without showing any strain or even effort; the falsetto whoo-hoo-hoos are more of a breather than anything, before she goes back into business of selling the lyric. Even with a guitar part that gallops harder than anything in the country chart at the time, this is a colossus, everything you want strident pop to be, impossible to get out of the way from, not like you’d want to anyhow. 10
It was all downhill from here. Well, not really--some just-as-good (and maybe even better) records replicated this one’s showing--but you see my point. I have a hard time thinking of a vocal as unstintingly intense that makes less of a show of it--Gaynor just rides up, up, up, without showing any strain or even effort; the falsetto whoo-hoo-hoos are more of a breather than anything, before she goes back into business of selling the lyric. Even with a guitar part that gallops harder than anything in the country chart at the time, this is a colossus, everything you want strident pop to be, impossible to get out of the way from, not like you’d want to anyhow. 10