Comedy hits come in many varieties. Some are parodies, many rely on the incongruity of a comedian singing a well-known song, others are simply desperate reels of catchphrases slapped over any track the producers had lying around. “Ernie” […]

Probably my least favourite Slade single, simply because Jim Lea’s electric violin does my head in. (And reminds me of the Wonder Stuff!) Personal demons aside, the violin does add a nasty edge to the song, making the band’s menace even m[…]

“Maggie May” doesn’t have a chorus. That isn’t necessarily the first thing you notice about it – you’re more likely to pick up on a ringing phrase, or a particular blaze or choke in Rod’s voice, or on the thu[…]

Methinks the Tam doth protest too much: stay away, don’t bother me, stay away, don’t bother me, oh alright then. After all, getting your heart broken by a girl isn’t as bad as being the only guy in town whose heart she doesn’t[…]

Doomed childhood sweethearts are a perennial pop topic, somewhat unfortunately since it’s hard to write a song about them that isn’t cloying. In fact, it’s hard to write a song about them that doesn’t make the singer sound lik[…]

“Get It On” has become Bolan’s signature tune, and no wonder – it’s as witchy as “Hot Love” but more unabashedly sexed-up: surging, peaking, panting and grinding but still enticingly glittery. There’s m[…]

One of the great, endlessly rediscovered truths of pop is that there are rhythms so addictive they make content irrelevant. “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”, a song about an abandoned bird performed terrace-chant style by a choir of buzz-voice[…]

Cursory research on this led me to surprise and disappointment. Surprise – mild surprise – that Tony Orlando was American, as this seems to fit right in with same-era UK pop like “Yellow River” and “Love Grows”. An[…]

Like many of the immigrants who brought the music over from Jamaica, reggae found Britain a land of indignities as well as opportunities. The marketing savvy of Trojan Records pushed the sounds to the commercial peak that “Double Barrel” […]

I long ago read a piece by Jonathan King, an attack on 70s pop as opposed to the 60s version. King’s argument was that the big stars who emerged in the early seventies – Bolan, Bowie, Elton – were all failed sixties wannabes who had[…]