Why wasn't Superwoman by Stevie Wonder a bigger hit?

[Oliverlogan263]

Wiki said it reached #33 on Billboard. I heard at the time it kind of flopped. Yet it's my favorite song of his and in my opinion it has it all. What happened with that?

[FunkyMonkee]

Man, I can go through my massive collection and pull out TONS of records that SHOULD'VE been huge hits but either weren't at all or never made it to the top 40! Mostly, it's because radio refuses to play them so, the record buying public has no idea they even exist! I'm listening to one right now that never got past the demo pressing stage! I love psychedelic music and I lived through that era and bought SHITLOADS of records back then and had NO IDEA there was THIS MUCH great psych as what I've been listening to for the past week or better. I'm going through my newly updated Psych Demos collection of well over 3100 songs and I'm only just at the half way point!
As for Steve, up until the very late `80's, I listened to radio all the time and I seriously doubt I ever heard "Master Blaster" more than twice when it first came out and completely forgot all about it until about 10 years ago!!
Y'know what got me to quit listening to radio? Listening to a progressive station from Summer 1974 up until I quite listening in the late 80's and hearing nothing but the same 12 fucking records played over and over again every fucking day for the past 15 years!! and, here am I sitting on over 62,000 records spanning the past 120-some years and NOBODY will give me HALF a fucking chance to share them on my own radio show!!

[Oliverlogan263]

Dude I totally feel you! Radio is so whack nowadays and only plays like the same handful of songs all the time. Like you said, there's just soooo much incredible music out there that never gets a chance to be heard.

It blows my mind how big your record collection is - 62k? That's nuts man, you must have some seriously obscure deep cuts in there. And over 3k psych demos? I'm drooling imagining all that unheard psych goodness.

It's such a shame more stations won't give collectors like you a shot to DJ. I'd be glued to a show where you get to share all these gems that got buried. People are missing out! Radio is so formulaic, we need dudes with REAL passion and knowledge like you helping more people discover cool new jams.

Maybe someday streaming will change things and open doors for specialty shows. Until then, just keep crate digging and spreading the word any way you can. Maybe we can start our own online station haha! Anyways, mad respect for all you do to keep the true spirit of music exploration alive brotha 🤘

[FunkyMonkee]

THAT'S one of the biggest reasons I'd love to do a radio show! SO MUCH GREAT music out there that hardly anybody knows anything about!! I wanna play a lot of that for people to hear!
Yeah, lots of deep cuts! Did you know that Elton John did a psych album before he went solo? There was also a band called, Argosy, that only recorded one psych single. When they broke up, the singer eventually started a new band called, Supertramp and the pianist went solo as, Elton John.
A Canadian psych band called, The Collectors eventually changed their name to, Chilliwack and had a few minor hits in Canada.
Southwest F. O. B. recorded one album then broke up. Two of them became Seals & Crofts and the other two became England Dan & John Ford Coley. They were all related.
There was a band in Chicago called, The Exceptions. They did a few singles, I don't think they ever did an album. After they broke up, half of them started a new psych band called, Aorta and the others started a band called, Chicago Transit Authority, quickly shortened to, Chicago.
There was a sort of novelty band in England called, Scaffold. Paul McCartney's brother was in the band using the last name, McGear. One of the guys left and the other two recorded another novelty album. followed by a single called, "Ex Art Student". On that song, there's a long spacey sitar solo played by Jimi Hendrix. It was his first sitar solo.
In the `50's, we had The Everly Brothers. Shortly after they hit it big in England, another pair of brothers got some fame sounding almost exactly like them. They were, The Dowland Brothers. In their band were another pair of brothers with the name. Giles. Those two left the group and formed one called, The Trendsetters Ltd.. They shortened it to The Trendsetters, then again to, The Trend. They broke up that band and started another called, The Brain.

[FunkyMonkee]

Not long after that, they wanted to start another band and were looking for a singing keyboardist and wound up with a non-singing guitarist and they called themselves, Giles, Giles & Fripp. After one album, they gained a few more people and changed their name to, King Crimson.
When I first started building The Enpsychlopedia in July 1999, I only had a few dozen good psych tunes for the project. I was mostly looking for the kind that makes you see things BEFORE you take the drugs!! I started looking for more psych and found TONS of great stuff I never knew existed!! At the moment, the project is 23 CD's long and will be at least 170 by the time I'm done with it.
I've been trying for decades to get an air shift!! At a local college station, they were ready to give me one `til they found out I wasn't a student so, I signed up for a class and then they said they didn't have room for me that semester! So, next semester, I tried again, still no room! At the local progressive station, I was friends with most of the people that worked there and one of the jocks invited me into the studio one night just to keep him company while he was on the air. I asked if I could bring in some records for the Oldies Show he was doing that night. He said I could so, I brought in a few hundred records with me. That impressed him. Somebody called up and wanted to hear, "Sunshine" by Jonathan Edwards. He'd never heard of it (it was only about 6 years old) and I said, "I have it!" I opened the box of singles, whipped it out and gave it to him so, he played it on the air! That really impressed him! He told me he was going to talk to the PD about giving me the oldies show. The next week, they gave it to another jock and, 2 weeks later, they stopped it completely!!
Yeah, we certainly do!! Most of the jocks, even back in the `70's and `80's, just saw it as a means to pay the bills and didn't much care about the music.

[FunkyMonkee]

Today, I don't think they even HAVE jocks other than to push buttons and pop in every so often so it SOUNDS like they're playing the records but, actually, the shows are all pre-programed on computers!!
I guess an online station would be good! My cousin does a talk show online in New York.
Thanks! I needed that! And thanks for having the drive and passion to WANT to hear that stuff!! Ever since I started building The Enpsychlopedia, I've been trying to find people to share it with. I've found almost nobody. There's some that SAY they're interested but, when it comes to actually listening to it, they just don't have the time or inclination for it! Their loss!!

[Joshydavid25]

I guess it could depend on what type of songs were popular at the time, and it does seem like a pretty long song.. Maybe people just weren't in the mood for long melancholic songs.. It is a good song though..

[Oliverlogan263]

I could say that too. It may be too long of a song for others taste too. Timing and luck is always one of the variables when creating a hit.

It could also be these reasons: Early 70s was the peak of upbeat, optimistic soul/funk. Songs like "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" and "Superstition" were dominating the charts.

- At over 6 minutes, "Superwoman" is longer than most singles at the time. Radio probably wasn't keen to play such a long, emotional track.

- The song has a melancholy, introspective vibe that's not exactly danceable summer fun either. Different energy than the hits of that era.

- Wonder was also still relatively new on the scene in '72. Didn't have the star power yet to make a long, moodier cut a blockbuster hit single.

Either way, Wonder was well ahead of his time, and that one has aged very well even if it wasn't made for 1972 pop tastes.

[Joshydavid25]

That totally makes sense.. Him being a new artist and not putting out a pop song and instead a long melancholic song is what didn't get him to the top.. But 33 on the Billboards is still impressive enough..

[Nikki1989]

He had just as many absolute stinkers as he did anything memorable. His good songwriting had pretty much dried up by the mid 70s.