(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.)
Elvis Presley - "Good Luck Charm"
Hit Number 1: April 21, 1962
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
"Good Luck Charm" is certainly not Elvis' greatest work, but it's still a good song. Songwriters Aaron Schroder and Wally Gold kept it pretty simple here by creating a song about a guy who doesn't need any sort of things that are said to give off good luck, because all he wants is the girl. The girl is his only "good luck charm". To me, it sort of seems like a song that was put together and recorded all in the same day. Now, that probably didn't happen, but the point I'm trying to make here is that "Good Luck Charm" has no intriguing qualities or any sort of uniqueness. In fact, if Elvis hadn't recorded it, it might have not even reached the top spot on the charts. But since everyone in America was going crazy over him still, it still managed to reach that spot. Hell, it even spent FIVE weeks over in England at #1! That's 3 weeks longer than it even spent at #1 in America.
Even though "Good Luck Charm" is a pretty vanilla song when you compare it to other Elvis hits, it's kind of hard to not at least like it a little bit. Something about Elvis' delivery brings some swagger in to the song, turning it into something that's kind of hard to resist. It's pretty fun, and it's catchy enough that it can be pretty memorable too. Even though he's done way better in the past, since I'm dedicating time out of my day to this one particular Elvis song, I have to give some sort of insight on my own thoughts about this individual song. And that is I think "Good Luck Charm" is a good song, and I really see no big problems with it.
This is the last time we will see Elvis in this blog for a while. We will see him again in 1969, after a true masterpiece of his hit the top spot.
GRADE: 7/10
spot on!