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THE CROWD – "You'll Never Walk Alone"
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Band Aid and USA For Africa had established one form of the charity single: a stellar alignment. The biggest names available, coming together on a solemn and unique occasion, performing a specially-composed song that spoke to the magnitude of the sit[…]

Welcome to Popular
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Now I’ve got today’s actual post up I’d like to say hello to any newcomers who’ve arrived via Bob Stanley’s Times article on this project. I see some new faces in the comments boxes already, which is just fantastic &#821[…]

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PAUL HARDCASTLE – "19"
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Before writing this entry, I spent a while researching Paul Hardcastle’s later career as a highly successful figure in the land of Smooth Jazz. I cannot tell you how long this actually took, as time can have no meaning in a world where tracks a[…]

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PHYLLIS NELSON – "Move Closer"
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For all that “Move Closer”‘s intro positions the song as a see-what-you’re-giving-up-boy move, on the surface there’s something surprisingly chaste about this record – maybe it’s Nelson’s high-register […]

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USA FOR AFRICA – "We Are The World"
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A charity record is a bargain struck between the urgency of the situation and the weight of the subject: you want to get something done quickly, but it also has to be serious enough not to seem tasteless. As gesture turned into genre, instigators wou[…]

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PHILIP BAILEY (DUET WITH PHIL COLLINS) – "Easy Lover"
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The two Phils team up to warn a vulnerable pal off a wicked woman, this intervention requiring a jeepful of mid-decade production flim-flam. “Easy Lover” is full of wannabe hooks – a guitar jab here, a keyboard twinkle there –[…]

Good Night Sweet Plinth*
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*thankyou Mark.
Mike TD – a comments box regular – was ON THE PLINTH in London’s Trafalgar Square on the 17th. Here’s what happened.[…]

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DEAD OR ALIVE – "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)"
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If “Relax” – as Mark Sinker put it during the subsequent discussion – was a non-DJs idea of a club record, “You Spin Me Round” is a DJ’s idea of a Frankie track. In fact, it sounds like Stock, Aitken and Wate[…]

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ELAINE PAIGE AND BARBARA DICKSON – "I Know Him So Well"
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Beware of what you wish for: Benny and Bjorn had spent much of ABBA’s imperial phase wanting to write a musical. They even put together a little taster, with their “Girl With The Golden Hair” trilogy at the back end of ABBA: The Alb[…]

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FOREIGNER – "I Want To Know What Love Is"
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Jim Diamond be advised: this is what a power ballad sounds like. Even lined up next to the moral weight of Band Aid it’s like someone’s gone and parked a Hummer in the British charts’ car park – something unbelievably enormou[…]

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Latest comments on Popular

  1. Considering it's mentioned in the review, I was taking that as the joke-in-passing. Though I'll object to one thing in…

  2. 'If you told me it was a knowing parody of Ringo Starr’s minimalist approach on (eg) “Free as a Bird”,…

  3. It feels instructive to compare "Lyla" with "Dakota" — both songs are in the same stadium rock tradition, both essentially…

  4. "Bulletproof" was a number one hit so Tom will be discussing it in the future! (I wouldn't blame anyone for…

  5. At the time I was stuck with a Nokia 3410, which didn't have decent ringtones outside of the manual composer…

  6. RIP Roy Thomas Baker - producer of this song and five of Queen's albums in the 70s. Queen were a…

  7. This song is fairly harmless, as long as you don't have to hear it too many times, I suppose. As…

  8. Nipping in late to say I think the Like Toy Soldiers comparison is interesting in that it foreshadows a bunny…