THE HIT HAMMER: Bert Kaempfert's "Wonderland By Night"

Bert Kaempfert's "Wonderland By Night"

(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please refer to the "Poor Little Fool" post.)

Bert Kaempfert - "Wonderland By Night"

Hit Number 1: January 9, 1961

Stay at Number 1: 3 Weeks

The public really seemed to like orchestra music in the early 1960s. The song of the year last year was "The Theme From A Summer Place" by Percy Faith and his Orchestra, which was a pretty nice but also pretty forgettable piece of music that serves only as background music. The first #1 song of 1961 was another instrumental orchestra piece, this time by Bert Kaempfert, a German orchestra leader and multi-instrumentalist. His song "Wonderland By Night" is mostly known for its trumpet, which seems to serve the place of where vocals would be. It's a pretty neat song, but kind of like "The Theme From A Summer Place", it doesn't leave much of an impression on me, and mostly seems to serve as background music.

Surprisingly, the song wasn't doing that well in Kaempfert's homeland of Germany. So he brought the song over to Decca Records in New York to give it a shot in America. He thought the song was too good to not become a hit somewhere. Decca obviously liked it, and helped the song get released in America, eventually becoming a #1 hit. Kaempfert and his orchestra then became international songs because of the success of "Wonderland By Night", and they would follow with a few other hits, but never reaching #1 again. There's a lot to like about the track, the background vocalists, lush strings, and especially the meandering trumpet throughout the song. Don't get me wrong here, it truly is a good song. But it just doesn't stick with me like other songs and instrumentals do. I can't exactly explain why that is, I guess my brain just doesn't let it invade my brain cells like other songs do.

GRADE: 6/10

JUST MISSED:

Another instrumental peaked at #2 behind "Wonderland By Night". It was Ferrante & Teicher's "Exodus". It's more forgettable than "Wonderland By Night". It's a 4, but here it is anyway.