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 &[…]

(Appearing on the front page for a limited run!)
I give each song on Popular a mark out of 10. In this poll, you should pick any YOU would have given 6 or more to from the 1973 number ones. As many as you like!

Which of these Number One[…]

I had thought I might have to write about it in that tiny sliver of summer we had this year, but turns out I come to it at the end of September – a proper September, as Robin Carmody put it on his blog: crispness in the air, conkers on the ground a[…]

Glitter halves the pace for what by his standards is a ballad. Surprisingly it’s still effective, less rabble-rousing but more anthemic – assuming you can turn off your hindsight detectors long enough to get past “So here we are a[…]