Evolution of a song: a witty number from a minor musical becomes, in the hands of The Flamingos, one of the greatest singles of all time – romantic, courtly, enchanting, and most of all awestruck by love. They took the well-turned smooshiness o[…]

A matey vocal matched with a jaunty tune,”Hold Me Close” is clumsily eager to please. It claps me hard on the back and makes me splutter, its bogus bonhomie too loud and too close. Essex’ singing on this is such a put-on: sure, al[…]

Fads come and go in the world of business: a recurrent buzzword right now is ‘simplicity’ – boil that report down to a sheet of A4, find the “nugget” in that presentation, apply the ‘elevator test’: if you ca[…]

For a song about a guy with empty pockets, this certainly sounds opulent! But its largesse of strings and brass is a little too showy, too ostentatious, at least compared to the understated richness of the sound the Stylistics achieved with Thom Bell[…]

It’s easy to look back on the social mores of previous decades and cringe or laugh. Sometimes it’s also neccessary. There were probably good – and funny and poignant and poptastic – songs to be written about immigrants&#8217[…]

A few entries ago I compared “Oh Boy” to Westlife, which got a few commenters disagreeing. The boyband genes of “Give A Little Love”, though, are far less recessive, and when the Rollers amble into that chorus like a tram on […]

Less pillow, more comfort blanket, this gentle, stringsified reggae lope starts with a promise of heartbreak – that bowed and broken intro – which the lyrics might keep but the music doesn’t. It’s not that reggae songs can&#82[…]

“I’m Not In Love” is 10cc’s most famous song, and surely deservedly – it’s the one where their smarts crash and fragment on some vicious emotional reefs, which is also what the song’s about. So it’s a n[…]

I’m going to try and recreate the context for this one from memory. Wikipedia and – god forbid – YouTube make this a pointless exercise, I know… but then that’s rather appropriate, wouldn’t you say?
It Ain’t […]

I only have a surface-skimming knowledge of country music, but it’s pretty obvious what’s great about it: songs about grown-up situations and emotions, with clear, well-turned lyrics, whose singers often have gorgeous, expressive voices &[…]