971. ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’, by Sam & Mark

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Where a Pop Idol winner is, the runners-up can’t be far behind. Two weeks behind, to be precise…

With a Little Help From My Friends, by Sam & Mark (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, 15th – 22nd February 2004

Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes had finished second and third respectively behind Michelle McManus, and had wasted no time in deciding that they were stronger together. Simon Fuller signed them, and they quickly cobbled together this pointless cover of the Beatles classic.

Pointless, because it’s hard to outdo the Beatles when you’re talented, much less when you’re Sam or Mark. And pointless because ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ has been at number one twice already, through Joe Cocker’s definitive cover, and Wet Wet Wet’s peppy charity version. But the sinister minds behind reality TV puppets rarely show much imagination, so here we are.

This record is certainly pointless, but is it bad? Well, yes, and no. It’s bad, because it’s cheesy, and cheap, and unnecessary. It has lots of Beatles-y touches, as if you’d asked AI to play a Beatles song but to make it sound like it came from a Pop Idol act in 2004. Except in 2004 we were blissfully AI free, and so someone must have actually sat down at a mixing desk and created this trash. At the same time though, there’s still a decent pop song buried in there. It’s catchy, and perky, and appealing if you’re eleven years old and completely unaware of this song’s history.

‘With a Little Help From My Friends’, and the very literal video in which Sam and Mark move into a house together, with a little help from their friends, was the first example of what would become a popular X-Factor trope: the cheeky chappy. Despite the gay subtext of the video, Sam and Mark weren’t a couple; they were two jack-the-lads, here for a good time not a long time, as long as all the fun was PG-rated. These cheeky chaps often came in duos – off the top of my head I’m thinking Journey South and, um, Jedward – but not exclusively. X Factor’s ultimate lad star was, of course, Olly Murs. None of this is original, X Factor never was, and you could argue that Simon Cowell’s Robson & Jerome were the prototype of this dynamic, while Robbie Williams made ‘loveable lad’ his own personal brand in his early solo years. But reality TV really went with it, as it was a character type that appealed both to the teenage girls watching, and their mums (and probably even their grannies).

Looking at them now, Sam and Mark feel quite familiar, but also very foreign. Reality TV, despite creating ‘famous’ people by the truckload, was the start of the end for old-school celebrity. Social media accelerated the cull, and now everyone seems to want their celebs to be normal, and relatable, and just like them. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’d much prefer my famous people to have pet chimps and at least five marital partners. At the same time, and without wanting to get personal, Sam and Mark still appear ordinary. Social media has made ordinary people famous, but they don’t look ordinary nowadays. In 2026, Sam and Mark would both have six packs, and fades, and Turkey teeth, and probably a protein drink brand. In 2004, they genuinely look like people you’d meet down the pub. (Actually, writing this post has caused me to dredge up long-supressed memories of finding chubby-cheeked Sam quite cute back in the day…)

Moving swiftly on. As with Michelle McManus, Sam and Mark’s voices are begging a question… How did they end up almost winning a singing competition? Maybe it’s the banal material, but neither of them sound like particularly good vocalists. And to be fair, their singing careers didn’t last long. For one more single, to be precise. They moved into TV and radio, both as a duo and alone, and managed to stay in national-level work well into the 2010s. Mark’s most recent Wikipedia entry has him as a DJ on BBC West Midlands, while Sam was last seen as Buttons in ‘Cinderella’ at the Theatre Royal Wakefield.

One final piece of housekeeping: many sources list this as a double-A side with something called ‘Measure of a Man’. Thankfully the Official Charts Company do not, and so I haven’t had to listen to it, and can clock off early today.

The audio quality in the above video is a bit off, so to hear Sam & Mark in the 4k quality a song like this deserves click below:

970. ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, by LMC Vs U2

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In previous posts on dance #1s, I had noticed a trend in the genre as we moved towards the middle of the 2000s. Gone were subtle house and disco revival beats, replaced by thumpingly unoriginal remixes of old non-dance hits, jazzed up with trance-light beats and cheap rent-a-singer vocals…

Take Me to the Clouds Above, by LMC (their 1st and only #1) Vs U2 (their 5th of seven #1s)

2 weeks, 1st – 15th February 2004

Well, our next number one is the perfect way to illustrate this slump, as it is a cheap dance mashup of not one, but two eighties classics, complete with a very of its time ‘Vs’ in the title. The bassline is a sample from U2’s ‘With or Without You’, while the chorus is an interpolation from Whitney Houston’s ‘How Will I Know’. And for anyone still not sure of the distinction, the sample is the reason why U2 get a featuring credit, while the interpolation is basically a re-recording (though the composers of ‘How Will I Know’ did get writing credits).

So I guess the fact that this is two borrowings in one, and manages to make two songs that you wouldn’t have necessarily imagined going together go together – merging Whitney’s girlish lyrics and U2’s melancholy bassline – makes this record slightly more original than, say, DJ Sammy’s ‘Heaven’. But it is still far less than the sum of its parts.

The dance dressings are all cheap swishes and swooshes, loops and echoes. It’s pretty tacky. The vocals were recorded by established dance diva Rachel McFarlane, who had been around since the early nineties and had worked with Loveland and N-Trance. She does lend a retro feel, a hark back to the days of Black Box or Livin’ Joy, though I wish she had been allowed to exercise her lungs a little more.

LMC meanwhile were a trio of English producers who had worked with all the greats of tacky dance – my new name for this genre – such as Lasgo, Flip & Fill, and Scooter. This was their only hit under their own steam, until they teamed up with McFarlane again two years later.

Going back to ‘tacky dance’, and hot on the heels of Scottish sweetheart Michelle McManus at number one, I think Scotland holds more than its fair share of blame for the success of songs like ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’. I read an article once that detailed how dance tracks were bought in higher quantities the further north you went in the UK, and from my experience if you went to the one remaining nightclub in my provincial hometown in 2026 you’d get short odds on hearing this track (or DJ Sammy’s ‘Heaven’, or anything by Ultrabeat). I can’t remember the article, but I have found an interesting Reddit forum discussing the phenomenon…

Also worth noting again is the fact that U2 got a credit, and scored their fifth number one, without lifting a finger. Compared to some of the stars that have contributed a lot more to recent number ones with no recognition – Jay Z, Justin Timberlake and Faith Evans – it does seem a tad generous. And in the end this is the one U2 chart-topper that spent more than a solitary week on top, for which Bono and co. can presumably thank the record buying public of small town Scotland…

969. ‘All This Time’, by Michelle

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Into 2004 we leap! Into what is officially the mid-2000s! And, as with 2003, the year’s first new #1 is the previous year’s TV singing contest winner…

All This Time, by Michelle (her 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, 11th January – 1st February 2004

Michelle McManus, a ‘larger than life’ travel agent from Glasgow, was the winner of the second series of Pop Idol. Her win caused quite the stir, with judge Pete Waterman storming off the set. Her size was both credited as the only reason she won, and blamed as a sign of Britain’s moral degeneracy. But, of course, she still had enough goodwill to spend three weeks at number one with her winner’s single (although with barely 10% of the first week sales that her predecessor Will Young had managed).

Listening to ‘All This Time’, I am immediately put in two minds. The first is telling me that this record is, inevitably, shit. But the other is telling me that it is perfect in its shittiness. We’ll hear many more number one in this style, on this theme; but none will top ‘All This Time’, the ultimate tossed-out in thirty minutes winner’s single.

The stupidly dragged out, faux-grandiose intro. The cheesy reverb. The gospel-lite backing singers. The OTT opening line: This time yesterday, I thought I was gonna die… and the actually quite uplifting chorus: All this time, We’ve come a long, long way, I’ve waited a lifetime for today… And, of course, the key change. I think every winner post-McManus should have been made to record their own version of ‘All This Time’. It should have become the national anthem of TV ‘talent’ show champions. The best thing about it isn’t even musical though… It’s the fact that it was released under a single-name – Michelle – as if she was already fit to take her place alongside Cher, Madonna or Beyonce.

While the criticism around her weight was undoubtedly ugly, it is hard to hear anything in this recording to suggest why Michelle McManus had just won a nationwide singing contest. Her voice isn’t bad, but I’m pretty sure you could hear similar at any karaoke night along Sauchiehall Street. It’s reedy, and a bit strained on the middle-eight, though perhaps a full-throated ballad like this wasn’t in her comfort zone.

And yet, unlike 90% of TV talent show winners, Michelle still has a career. I was back in Scotland over Christmas, and on Hogmanay there she was, twenty-two years later, singing her lungs out on the BBC. She may only have had two hit singles, but she has hung in there largely by agreeing to appear on whatever platform will have her. She has been a pop singer, an actress, a radio presenter, a TV presenter, a talent contest judge, a choir master, and a columnist for the Glasgow Evening Times. She has performed with Rod Stewart, Lulu, and Robbie Williams, and has sung for the Pope. Her TV credits range from ‘You Are What You Eat’, to ‘Loose Women’, to ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’.

You could view this as symptomatic of celebrity in the 21st century, the sheer graft required just to stay relevant at all costs; but I prefer to see it as testament to McManus’s personality. She seems like a nice person, someone you’d happily share a bottle of wine with. I do have a slightly personal connection to this song, too, as it was number one on my eighteenth birthday. It’s simultaneously a terrible, and yet somehow almost fitting, song to come of age to.

968. ‘Mad World’, by Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules

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The Battle for Christmas Number One in 2003 was an epic for the ages, and one of the closest ever fought. And God was I annoyed about the way it went at the time…

Mad World, by Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, 21st December 2003 – 11th January 2004

The Darkness, the year’s cock-rocking breakthrough band (another example of how 2003 was a deeply strange musical year…) had already had several Top 10 hits and a huge-selling album, and looked primed to take the festive top-spot, with a throwback to the classic glam hits of seventies. ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)’ sounded like Slade crossed with Queen crossed with Sparks. It was great, it was bookies’ favourite, and it was bought by me…

Then along came this two-year-old cover of Tears for Fears’ breakthrough hit, the musical opposite of the Darkness, understated, minimalist… dull… and outsold them by just five thousand copies. I thought it was a travesty!

But, now I’ve had time to calm down, twenty-three (!) years later, I can admit that this is an intriguing number one. It is miserable; but it is also starkly haunting. Lines like Dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had… and Children waiting for the day they feel good, Happy birthday, Happy birthday… do not your typical festive hit make. But it spoke to people (and if folks in 2003 think they are living in a mad world, then boy do I have news for them…) Plus, the muffled piano line makes me think of snow softly falling, so it is somewhat Christmassy, at a stretch.

I do wish they hadn’t used the echoey vocal effects, and had kept it even more spartan. It’s like they were worried that people might find it too boring, and so dressed it up unnecessarily. There is a tradition of minimalist festive hits – think the Housemartins, or the Flying Pickets – and this can just about sit alongside them. I do prefer the perkier original, with its natty synth riffs, and I do still wish the Darkness had made #1. This record would presumably have climbed to number one after Christmas, so both records could have had their moments on top.

Michael Andrews was a producer and writer of film scores, and Gary Jules (whose voice sounds to me remarkably like Michael Stipe) a singer-songwriter. Both had worked together previously and collaborated on this cover for the soundtrack to ‘Donnie Darko’, an indie movie released in 2001 and which, over two years later, had built up quite a cult following.

This leads to probably the real reason why I didn’t like ‘Mad World’ at the time. I was seventeen, had just finished my first semester at university, and this song, along with ‘Donnie Darko’, represented the cool kids. The edgelords. The Oh my God you haven’t seen ‘Fargo’…? crowd. I was not a cool kid, but deep down I did want to be. I just never seemed to like the things that the cool kids liked. I couldn’t help be drawn to the brash mainstream-ness of the Darkness.

Ironically, the minute this became a number one single, the cool kids would have had to ditch it for something much less well-known. But it had its moment, and was quite the story at the time. Neither Andrews nor Jules has appeared on the charts at any other time, and both remain gold-star one-hit wonders.

Apologies for the poor quality video…

967. ‘Changes’, by Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne

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Another of 2003’s slightly out of kilter number ones: Tatu, Room 5, R Kelly, Evanescence, Blu Cantrell… Now this.

Changes, by Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, 14th – 21st December 2003

Although as we are nearing Christmas, traditionally a time of love, joy, and slightly out of kilter songs, perhaps this one isn’t as surprising. It’s a cover of the old Black Sabbath ballad, featuring Sabbath’s lead singer Ozzy Osbourne, and his daughter Kelly, plus a few lyrical tweaks to change this from a song about a romantic relationship to one about a father-daughter relationship.

So, ‘woman’ is now ‘baby’, the ‘I’ is now ‘we’, while the I love you daddy… line really makes me flinch. Is it serious? Is it a novelty? Is it a pointless indulgence by a fabulously rich, celebrity family? (Christmas cards with family portraits are bad enough, but here we have a freaking family duet just in time for the holidays…) Or is it just a cynical cash-in, with the Osbournes at the height of their MTV series fame? Apparently Kelly had demanded her dad write a song about her – he’d previously written songs for his other two children – which feels quite in keeping with her bratty persona from the show.

I don’t think the style of the song suits either of their voices. Ozzy sounds strained, compared to the original – decades of ingesting every narcotic known to humankind taking their toll – while if there is a style that suits Kelly’s voice, this isn’t it (though I’ll admit, I did like her cover of ‘Papa Don’t Preach’). Add in an orchestra and a choir, and you lose the original’s simplicity in a schmaltzy swamp.

For The Prince of Darkness’s only chart-topper I do wish it rocked a bit more. Or, indeed, at all. But the original was also an outlier in the band’s discography, featuring neither guitars nor drums. It had been inspired by Sabbath drummer Bill Ward’s separation from his wife, but wasn’t released as a single until Ozzy recorded a live version in the early nineties. Another notable version of the song is a much more soulful cover by Charles Bradley, made famous as the theme to Netflix’s ‘Big Mouth’.

Despite clearly being released with the Christmas market in mind, ‘Changes’ was never really in contention for the Xmas #1, thanks to an epic chart battle that we’ll get to in our next post. This was Ozzy’s sole UK Top 10 as a ‘lead’ artist, though he had featured once with Black Sabbath (‘Paranoid’, in 1970) and alongside Kim Basinger, on Was (Not Was)’s 1993 hit ‘Shake Your Head’. Kelly outdid her dad in this regard, by three to one. And this is only the second, and so far final, father-daughter #1, after Frank and Nancy.

Ozzy, fifty-five at time of release, becomes the third man in their sixth decade to top the charts in 2003, after Elton John and Oliver Cheatham. The year of the late-middle-aged man! He sadly died a few months ago, meaning that this record takes on an even more bittersweet tone listening to it now (although I still think it’s fairly crap…)

This video quality isn’t great, so here’s one with better audio…

On This Day… 20th March

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Time for another look back at some famous moments in music history, and the chart-topping hits that go along with them…

Starting with a birth and a death. March 20th 2020 saw the passing of country icon Kenny Rogers, who had managed two UK number ones in the late seventies and early eighties. Both songs were slightly out-of-kilter for the disco, punk and new-wave sounds of the time, but if listening to every single number one single has taught me anything, it’s that country and western (and reggae) are immune to popular tastes, and keep popping up time and again.

Here’s his first chart-topper, ‘Lucille’ (original post here), about a man who meets a downtrodden woman drowning her sorrows. I am a fan of a good opening line, and there have been few finer than In a bar in Toledo, Across from the depot, On a barstool she took off her ring…

Over a century before, March 20th 1917 saw the birth of Vera Lynn. A legendary name in British popular music, she began performing aged seven, released her first single in 1935 (aged eighteen), and scored her final Top 10 album in 2017 (aged one-hundred), giving her a career spanning ninety-six years! Despite this astounding longevity, Lynn only managed one UK #1: ‘My Son, My Son’ (original post here).

I won’t claim to particularly enjoy this very old-fashioned record, but Dame Vera doesn’t half sing the life out of it. And you can really make out what she’s singing, something my dear departed Gran was very particular about. Plus, I think it prominently features a clarinet, something not many other #1s have. I also did a Remembering post on Lynn, when she died in 2020.

Meanwhile, on this day in 1991, Michael Jackson signed what was the biggest record contract in history, with Sony. Both the advance, and his share of future record profits, were beyond anything seen before. You can see why the execs went out their way to keep hold of Jackson, given that his previous LPs, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’, had been two of the highest sellers of all time. But you can also argue that this was the start of Jackson’s slow slide into creative inertia and over-indulgence, as little of his nineties output can rival that of his eighties hits. Still, here’s ‘Black and White’ the first single from the first album to be released under the new contract, ‘Dangerous’ (original post here).

March 20th 1969 was also the day on which John Lennon married Yoko Ono at the British Consulate in Gibraltar (near Spain), before heading to the Amsterdam Hilton and talking in their beds for a week… Of course, these are not my own words, and so why don’t we let ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’ tell the full story. This seemed for a long, long time to have been the Beatles’ final number one (though it famously only features John and Paul), until ‘Now and Then’ in 2023 (original post here).

Lastly, on this day in 1977, T. Rex played their final British concert at the Locarno in Portsmouth. Their final ever live appearance would come a couple of months later in Stockholm, and three months after that Marc Bolan would die in a car crash. Neatly bookmarking T. Rex’s career, though, is the fact that ‘Hot Love’ was two weeks into a six-week residence on top of the charts on this day in 1971 (see original post here). Whether or not it was indeed the first glam rock #1 is up for debate. What is not up for debate is the song’s audacity (half of it is just nanananas), or its brilliance.

That one goes out to all those who are faster than most and who live on the coast… Regular posting resumes in a few days!

966. ‘Leave Right Now’, by Will Young

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Will Young and Gareth Gates’ final chart-toppers (of four each), neatly sum up their post Popstars careers.

Leave Right Now, by Will Young (his 4th and final #1)

2 weeks, 30th November – 14th December 2003

Gareth’s final #1 was a cheesy, charity affair for Comic Relief. He then went on to release more cheese, before going into musical theatre and reality TV. He’s made the most of limited resources, and is just about still active in the industry. Will Young’s final #1, meanwhile, was a much bolder statement of intent.

It starts off with a folksy, acoustic backing, allowing his voice to do all the work. Yes, it’s light, a little reedy. But the lyrics require vulnerability, and vulnerability is what Will Young’s voice brings. The song then grows, with strings and a backing band of real instruments, to a subtly orchestral climax, before ending on Young’s wavering voice once again, singing the title line. I think I better leave right now…

It’s grown-up, and real, compared to the hits from his first album. The themes are mature too, about unrequited love, and about knowing when you have to follow your head over your heart. One contemporary review made me chuckle, claiming it to be one of the most English songs ever, a ‘Brief Encounter’ for the 21st century, complete with Young’s posh vowels and quivering restraint. (Years later, Young revealed that he had re-recorded his vocals multiple times because record executives thought he sounded too ‘gay’.)

That restraint goes, briefly, in the middle eight, when he even allows himself a throaty rasp on the I wouldn’t know how to say, How good it feels seeing you today… line. But that is overshadowed by the catchy simplicity of the chorus, which I remember going viral by the standards of 2003. This was the first moment when it really became clear to the general public that a TV talent show contestant could have some musical chops, and some hopes at longevity.

Though it should also be said that ‘Leave Right Now’ wasn’t written by Young, and was still released under Simon Cowell’s supervision. In fact, he released five albums in total under his original contract, only leaving in 2012. Beyond his four #1s, he’s scored seven further UK Top 10s, and has never had any of his nine studio albums chart outside the Top 5. Will Young probably isn’t the best solo artist unearthed by a reality TV singing show, and he’s definitely not my favourite, but he was the first to show that there was life beyond the usual bland covers and the cheese.

965. ‘Mandy’, by Westlife

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Blame me. I mentioned them in passing in my last post and, like a vengeful demon, that is all it takes to summon Westlife…

Mandy, by Westlife (their 12th of fourteen #1s)

1 week, 23rd – 30th November 2003

You might be wondering why I made a fuss about the end of ‘the golden age of boybands’, when Busted are the biggest pop group in the land, and Westlife are still cranking out the number ones. Well, I’ve explained why Busted weren’t actually a boyband, and in this post I’ll explain why Westlife were no longer one either.

Actually, the this cover of Barry Manilow’s 1974 UK #11 (and US #1) hit does the explaining for me. Westlife have renounced the boyband mantle, and any attempts to woo the traditional teenage girl market, and become full-on granny baiters. (Westlife, for all their many musical crimes, were not initially very cover-version heavy. This was only their fourth non-original #1 from twelve.)

And the fact that they are now mining a rich seam of proudly cheesy, easy-listening hits means that this is actually one of their more enjoyable chart-toppers. After the dirges that were ‘Unbreakable’, and ‘Queen of My Heart’, a cover of a Manilow classic is a pleasant surprise. Plus, they’ve added a strangely interesting sitar riff. And a key change, naturally.

Giving up any pretence at being relevant was probably a sensible career move for Westlife, and the run of MOR covers that started with ‘Mandy’ probably extended their chart careers for a good few years (and set them up nicely for a post-chart career touring Asia, where people’s love of a soppy ballad knows no bounds). This was the second single from their fourth studio album, ‘Turnaround’. The lead single – the slightly more contemporary and actually quite upbeat ‘Hey Whatever’ – had done the unthinkable and stalled at #4 in September. Which proves my point about this being the right move for a boyband almost five years into their careers, as back to #1 they went.

A couple of interesting things about ‘Mandy’ before we finish. It was originally written as ‘Brandy’, and had reached #12 in the UK in 1971 for Scott English. Manilow changed the name to avoid confusion with Looking Glass’s big hit ‘Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)’. And Westlife’s version technically has the biggest climb to #1 in chart history, after a handful of copies were made available a day early by mistake. It had charted at #200 the week before, then rocketed to #1 when properly released. The OCC only acknowledge the Top 100, however, and so it is officially a new entry at number one.

964. ‘Crashed the Wedding’, by Busted

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Busted’s first chart-topper, ‘You Said No’, burst a nostalgic bubble for me by being fairly lightweight, and pretty irritating.

Crashed the Wedding, by Busted (their 2nd of four #1s)

1 week, 16th – 23rd November 2003

But here’s the lead-single from their second album, and this is a little more like the Busted that I remember. Silly, peppy, catchy. Not as snotty or whiny as their earlier #1, perhaps because here they get the girl in the end. True love lasts forever, And now we’re back together, You might as well forget her, And walk away… She’s glad I crashed the wedding.

It’s still lightweight – I’ll accept that Busted were generally quite lightweight – but it zips along, has a brilliantly jarring final chord, and some funny lines (I like the idea that the girl sacks off the nuptials because she didn’t want a silly second name). It does also have some clunkier lines, and rhymes that are forced together with all the willingness of opposing magnets: He’s always hated me, Because I never got a J.O.B…

But that, presumably intentional, dumbness was part of Busted’s teenage charm. The utter chaos of the video is an even greater glimpse into why Busted were, for a year or so, Britain’s biggest boyband. It’s based on the wedding scene from ‘The Graduate’, and features food-fights, spanking, and plenty of drag. Gone are Westlife’s stools, and Blue’s tight dance routines. Even when more traditional boybands returned in the early 2010s, a lot of what Busted brought to the party remained. You could easily see One Direction starring in a (slightly more kid friendly) version of this video.

Having said that, I’m still not enjoying Busted as much as I did back in 2003. This may well be down to now being miserably middle-aged, but it might also be down to the fact that McFly were on their way to overtake Busted as Britain’s bigger (and musically more accomplished) pop-punkers. Foreshadowing this is the fact that McFly’s Tom Fletcher co-wrote ‘Crashed the Wedding’, and Harry Judd played drums in the video.

And B-sides… Manics, Boomtown Rats & Wizzard

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Time for another peek at what was on the flip-side of some classic number ones. Usually my ‘And B-sides…’ posts have been themed around a particular artist, but I’ve decided to every so often throw in some different flip-sides, from acts whose chart-topping careers are too short to fill a whole post.

First of all, a little something to blow the cobwebs away…

‘Rock and Roll Music’, by Manic Street Preachers – B-side to ‘The Masses Against the Classes’

This Chuck Berry standard has been covered by the great and the good, from the Beatles, to the Beach Boys, from Tom Jones to Showaddywaddy, and any decent garage band in-between. But I doubt it has ever lived up to its title more then when in the hands of the Manics. Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music… they demand, then deliver three minutes of blistering, gonzo, balls-to-the-wall rock and, yes, roll music.

‘It’s All the Rage’, by Boomtown Rats – B-side to ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’

Another spiky track, inspired apparently by a fight that Bob Geldof got into with another band. Out in the street, They’re usin’ their feet… This is a proper B-side: a very different track to the A-side, not a remix or a retread, a song that could easily have been the single, and a glance back to the Rats’ punky origins. The glorious middle-eight meanwhile, ripped straight from an sixties doo-wop track, shows their musical range. (Thanks to regular reader/commenter John Van der Kiste for suggesting this one!)

‘You Got the Jump on Me’, by Wizzard – B-side to ‘Angel Fingers’

Completing this trio of hard rocking flip-sides, ‘You Got the Jump on Me’ is another song that sounds nothing like the sixties-inspired, glam rock track that made #1. This is potentially as close as Led Zeppelin came to a chart-topper… Written by bassist Rick Price, it has the feel of an extended jam session, especially when the driving riff gives way to a boogie-woogie piano for the last minute or so of its six and a half minute run-time.

Again, most of this information comes from John Van der Kiste, who knows more about Wizzard than I could ever hope to learn. Like many of his peers, Roy Wood was a genuine Led Zep fan. He, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan (drummer for ELO and the Move) attended John Bonham’s funeral, which Bevan said afterwards was one of the most miserable, depressing funerals he had ever been to. There was an affinity between them as Bonham and Robert Plant were also from the Black Country. When The Move were being formed late 1965 Bonham, as one of the most renowned drummers in the area and possibly up for grabs, was suggested by someone as a suitable member, but Carl Wayne, who was the eldest of them all, had heard things about him and said no. How different things might have turned out…

Thanks again, John! If any other readers have suggestions for B-sides I can feature in future posts, then do let me know in the comments!