Gary Glitter is a liability on his own record: “Always Yours” sparks to life each and every time the backing boys yell the title hook, and then the momentum gradually putters away as weak-lunged Garry oohs and aahs and cheeky-boys through[…]

“The Streak” isn’t awful as comedy records go, in fact musically it slips down very easily, a perky country number with a few good rhymes for “streak” as its highlight. But not only does Stevens succumb to the blight of […]

“Sugar Baby Love” has been ruined for me – actually, no, I don’t know if ruined is the right word – it’s been colonised by The Auteurs’ 1999 single “The Rubettes”, which hollows it out from the inside like some evil necrotising viru[…]

One of the odd things about ABBA is that they didn’t really change pop. They are still widely loved and more widely bought, but nobody now sounds much like them, or tries to. They are the giant pandas of pop, world-famous symbols viewed with im[…]

“Seasons In The Sun” is one of those records that was never not going to be enormous. The weird dolour of its intro chords, Terry Jacks’ tear-choked vocals, Brel’s terrace-ready chorus and the sheer oddness of the song….even[…]

There’s a sensibility here that’s completely vanished now from British pop. Death ballads aren’t exactly thick on the ground these days, but it’s the combination of death, jauntiness and theatre that’s really become alie[…]

“Jealous Mind” isn’t that bad a record – though Alvin Stardust does his best to make it one. Stardust took the rock and roll revival at its word and exhumed his own career, left for dead in the early sixties. From a commercial[…]

Chinn/Chapman confirm their headlock on the charts with a second number one in a row – another bubblegum playback of rock’n’roll. The strengths here are Mud’s weaknesses, a chorus and a lead vocal crammed with snarl and charis[…]

As a kid, “Tiger Feet” was pretty much my reference point for what seventies music sounded like from my (far more sophisticated) eighties vantage point – eager-to-please hoofers chanting a load of nonsense. Time and perspective ha[…]

The very definition of a tune your milkman could whistle, this delivers its melodic payload right upfront and then just hangs around for a bit, tapping its toes and honking its horns until the party wanders off somewhere else. The Ingredient X that &[…]