{"id":1017704,"date":"2026-08-22T20:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1017704\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T20:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:13:16","slug":"3-of-the-best-first-classic-rock-hits-of-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1017704\/","title":{"rendered":"3 of the Best First Classic Rock Hits of 1974"},"content":{"rendered":"

Classic rock took on all types of sounds during the mid-70s. Here are some hits that charted on Billboard at the beginning of 1974.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Locomotion\u201d by Grand Funk Railroad<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

Grand Funk Railroad<\/a>\u2018s version of this song was released in February of 1974 and eventually peaked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in May. The first time it went to No. 1 was with Little Eva in 1962.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

This song is about the \u201cLocomotion\u201d dance trend that is believed to have emerged around the early 60s. As Grand Funk\u2019s Don Brewer told Songfacts<\/a>, the song was a bit of a \u201ctongue in cheek\u201d thing for the group.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026It just had this huge sound to it\u2014it sounded like a big party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBennie And The Jets\u201d by Elton John<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

This song went No. 1 for John after being released in February of 1974. It was John\u2019s first No. 1 hit of that year. Although this song sounds like it was recorded live, that part of the song was actually crafted in the studio, as John\u2019s producer Gus Dudgeon shared.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some weird reason, Elton happened to have hit the opening piano chord of the song exactly one bar before the song actually started,\u201d he explained<\/a> in 1993. \u201cSo I was doing the mix and this chord kept coming on which you normally wouldn\u2019t expect to hear. I turned to engineer [David Hentschel] and I said, \u2018What does that remind you of? \u2026 It\u2019s the sort of thing that people do on stage just before they\u2019re going to start a song.\u2019 Just to kind of get everybody, \u2018Okay, here we go, ready?\u2019 For some reason that chord being there made me think, \u2018Maybe we should fake-live this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHooked On A Feeling\u201d by Blue Swede & Bj\u00f6rn Skifs<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

In 1973, Blue Swede & Bj\u00f6rn Skifs released a cover of \u201cHooked On A Feeling\u201d. The song was originally recorded in the late 60s by B.J. Thomas. This song went to No. 1 on Billboard in April of 1974. \u201cHooked On A Feeling\u201d is about that uncanny high you get when you fall for someone, as the lyrics share:<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t stop this feeling
Deep inside of me
Girl, you just don\u2019t realize
What you do to me
When you hold me
In your arms so tight
You let me know
Everything\u2019s alright.<\/p>\n

Photo by: Arthur Grimm\/United Archives via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Classic rock took on all types of sounds during the mid-70s. Here are some hits that charted on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1017705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[20829,976,171,975,4185,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1017704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-classic-rock","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117140994035009128","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1017705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}