“The first punk No.1” says Marcello. Yeah, I can see what he means. Lurching speed-freak skiffle played on Christ knows what which sounds nothing remotely like any previous chart-topper: if punk is anything, it might as well be that. I&#8[…]

By way of contrast, Tab Hunter and his producers know their limitations precisely and the result is a modest, earnest and pleasant track. Alas for the MP3 age – I can’t gaze at the record sleeve and look into Tab’s dreamy eyes, what[…]

A lucky dip of styles, crazy-paved together by Frankie Vaughan’s beefy voice. A couple of years earlier this might have worked as a smartypants big-orchestra trifle. A few later and Vaughan could have turned it into an early soul thumper. As it[…]

“Singing The Blues” is an obvious smash – immediately memorable, modern enough to grab the rock’n’rollers, catchy and polite enough to hook everyone else too. The arrangements of these versions are very close (Mitchell&#[…]

Ray’s sodden grief is so public it draws spectators to their windows to gawp at a walking portrait of misery. A shame then – perhaps – that the song starts with a jaunty whistle and Johnnie wolfishly confessing that he’s &#822[…]

“A Woman In Love” boasts gale force orchestration, as if to prove that the days of the Big Number weren’t over yet. Laine meets it head on – if he was any more hammy he?d have a curly pink tail. “Your EYES! Are the EYES![…]

Straight-backed and strident march ordering a returning soldier back to his lovin’ duties with Anne. A shoo-in for No.1 in 1946 I’d have thought, but ten years later it sticks out like a teddy boy in a bearskin hat. (More anachronism fun […]

“Que Sera, Sera” is a slippery little song – its fresh optimism seems to conceal something a shade darker (the sentiment could as easily front a glum shrug as a carefree grin), but in the lyric only good things do seem to happen, so[…]

I like the vim and sharpness of this song. I like the vocal tricks the record uses – the “dum-ba-ba-dum” doo-wop intro is an instant hit; Lymon’s long high “why” is heart-melting. I love the way Lymon rushes the ve[…]

It’s my belief that no pop song with a ‘spoken bit’ can be all bad, though Pat Boone does his best to test my resolve with a lifeless, dreary epistolary ballad, good in 1956 for a grope and a smooch perhaps, but good in 2003 for not[…]