The sound of the atom splitting. Break open the basic unit of pop music, the hook, and we discover a mess of gimmickry, noises and ideas so primeval you can often barely describe them, let alone hum one. Find one strong enough and you can top the cha[…]

In which, if you like, post-punk gets invented eleven years (or maybe two weeks) before punk. Which is to say, when I listen to the instrumental break on this record, bright guitar and sharp keyboard slicing tuneless chunks out of each other, it&#821[…]

There’s so much happening in pop at this point that some records end up nudging into the canon almost by accident – they were just in the right place at the right time and got caught up in the general magic of things. “Do Wah Diddy […]

The Beatles at a peak of high-energy Fabness, “A Hard Day’s Night” is crammed with hooks and ideas – they don’t all neccessarily fit, but the record’s so irrepressible it’s hard to care. The opening chord mak[…]

When it comes to the blues, I’m an outsider. I don’t enjoy it much, I don’t know a lot about it, and life being short I’m likely to stay that way. So if you are a blues fan, feel freer than ever to ignore me. My brushes with t[…]

Nik Cohn’s AwopBopaLooBopaLopBamBoom is the best book on Sixties pop, it makes everything else seem like marginalia. He’s almost always right, so I only ever open it when I’m stumped by a record. And “House Of The Rising Sun&#[…]

The last few number ones have often seemed like throwbacks – records not as sharply of their time as “I Want To Hold Your Hand” or “Glad All Over”, records that would have fitted contentedly into 1959 or ’60. That […]

It’s less irksome to hear the full-bore Cilla treatment given to a song you don’t know from subtler versions – and besides, she has competition here from a particularly piercing string arrangement. But even so my heart sinks as the […]

Genteel, repetitive ballad whose soft, trained vocals and precise lyrics (“reminiscent of you”) initially seem to drape the record in a smothering courtliness. Repeated listens make “Juliet” seem no less quaint, but its charm […]

Love’s a funny thing. A catch-all ingredient for pop songs – particularly these pop songs, at this time – the word can stand for anything from a pang of mild yearning to physical passion to an all-encompassing mystical force. This s[…]