Thursday, June 23, 2016

The Partridge Family - "I Think I Love You" (1971)

The Partridge Family - "I Think I Love You" (Billboard #1, entered 10/10/70; easy listening #8). Written by Tony Romeo. Produced by Wes Farrell. 45: "I Think I Love You"/"Somebody Wants to Love You" (Bell 1971). LP: The Partridge Family Album (Bell 1971).

"I Think I Love You" was the first of the Partridge Family's nine charting singles, and it laid out the formula for the group's adult-oriented sound. You read that right - in spite of their teen magazine appeal and kid-friendly TV show, the Partridge Family's music aimed squarely toward MOR formats. No other bubblegum group had such consistent success on the easy listening charts, and did you ever notice how, on the show, they usually did their lip-sync gigs for grown-ups in supper clubs?

A chart-topping hit, "I Think I Love You" was a schlager-esque number in the vein of Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days." Its composer, Tony Romeo, had also come up with "Indian Lake" (1968) for the Cowsills, the real-life family band that inspired The Partridge Family.

Radio man John Long, in his online memoir Puttin' on the Hits: A True Story About Top 40 Radio in 60's & 70's, reports having received a gold record from Bell for helping to "break" the record as a program director at KLWW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He'd apparently gotten it into heavy rotation before the Partridge Family TV show had even made its September 1970 debut.

The Partridge Family - "I Think I Love You"

See also: A KMPC Playlist circa 1971

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