glam rock

And B-Sides… T. Rex

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For our latest B-Sides feature, let us return to the glory days of glam. Of platform shoes. Of sequins. Of Noddy Holder’s sideburns and Ziggy Stardust. And most gloriously of all: T-rextasy.

Marc Bolan and co. enjoyed four all-time classic chart-toppers in 1971 and ’72 (okay, three all-timers, and one which is still pretty great). They were also very generous with their B-sides, giving fans two extra songs per number one.

I’ll restrict myself to choosing one B-side from each single, and linking to the other. Starting with…

‘Woodland Rock’, B-side to ‘Hot Love’

If there was a track to sum up the band in the moment of their transition from Tyrannosaurus Rex to plain old T. Rex, from ethereal hippyness and lyrics about magical moons to crunching glam guitars, it might be ‘Woodland Rock’. It’s based around a derivative rock ‘n’ roll riff (borrowing liberally from ‘Jailhouse Rock’), but with snatches and loops played in reverse, and an opening verse about a man dancing like a gypsy – so he must be where its at – and houses up trees.

‘Hot Love’s other B-side was ‘The King of the Mountain Cometh’, and that’s even more old-school Tyrannosaurus Rex, if that’s your thing.

‘Raw Ramp’, B-side to ‘Get It On’

Lady you think you’re a champ, But girl you’re nothing but a raw ramp… Me neither, but I don’t think it’s meant to be complimentary. Bolan really was the King of nonsense lyrics that somehow, in some not too distant dimension, work. And then a second later he’s singing Oooh I’m crazy about your breasts. I love the way this track grows from the standard Tyrannosaurus Rex hippy drumbeat, to a full on glam rock out by the end. In fact, the last minute and a half of ‘Raw Ramp’ are a jam known as ‘Electric Boogie’, which sounds like an outtake from the ‘Get It On’ sessions.

The other B-side here was a one-minute long, wistful ballad called ‘There Was a Time’, which is over before it’s even started.

‘Baby Strange’, B-side to ‘Telegram Sam’

The one B-side that is better than the single? Not that ‘Telegram Sam’ isn’t fun, but it isn’t in the same league as T. Rex’s three other #1s. Interestingly, this is a variant on the same riff from TS, and the chorus is soaring. And who can resist a song that comes in with a One and a two and a bibbety, bobbity boo boo yeah...? Not I. ‘Baby Strange’ featured on ‘The Slider’ album, which is T. Rex’s masterpiece, and the one to listen to if you want an introduction to the group at the height of their powers.

The other B-side was the stomping ‘Cadilac’, in which Bolan indulges in one of his main tropes: comparing women to cars.

‘Thunderwing’, B-side to ‘Metal Guru’

If ‘The Slider’ LP was peak T. Rex, then the album’s second single was the apotheosis of the T. Rex glam sound. ‘Metal Guru’ is a two-minute long, glorious moment. And one of my Very Best Number Ones. I’ve heard it described as one long chorus, but I’d say it’s more one long bridge, a tune that soars towards a chorus that never arrives. But it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, enough of the A-side. That’s not what we’re here for. One of the B-sides was ‘Thunderwing’, in which Bolan again gets horny for his car. My little baby she’s a tippy-toed vamp rider, She moves like the sun in the dawn… It’s another glam stomper, with a great groove to it, if a little repetitive. The other B-side was ‘Lady’, a gentler, trippier nod to the Tyrannosaurus Rex days.

T. Rex’s star shone oh so brightly, but fairly briefly. By 1974 they were struggling for hits, and by 1976 Bolan was struggling with addiction. By 1977, he had cleaned up, was recording again and had just been given his own TOTP-style music show, when he and his girlfriend, soul singer Gloria Jones, crashed their car in south London. Bolan died instantly. Jones was seriously injured. I also did a T. Rex Top 10 countdown of their best non-charttoppers, so head on over there if you want more T-rextasy in your life. And we all should, I think.

Cover Versions of #1s – Billy Idol and Sweet

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‘Mony Mony’, by Billy Idol

Two different cover versions today, starting with a remake that made #1 in the States but only got to #7 in the UK. Similarly, the original ‘Mony Mony’ had been Tommy James & the Shondells’ only British hit, despite the band racking several more in the USA. Billy Idol first recorded ‘Mony Mony’ for his debut solo EP after leaving Generation X, in 1981. It didn’t chart, and is a bit more poppy than the live version, recorded in 1985 but not released until two years later. That is much more indebted to hair metal acts like Bon Jovi and Motley Crue, who were ubiquitous at the time. It’s fun, but then I have a soft spot for the days when rock stars looked more poodle than human, and probably kickstarted gobal warming with the amount of hairspray they released on the world. Interestingly, Idol’s cover of ‘Mony Mony’ was replaced at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 by Tiffany’s ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’, which was originally recorded by… Tommy James & The Shondells.

Here’s the ‘original’, studio version…

‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, by Sweet

I love Dead or Alive’s ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, so much so that I named it as one of my twenty-six ‘Best’ chart-toppers. One of the reasons I like it is that the synths are so clanking and tinny, and the pace so relentless, that it could easily work as a hard rock song. Enter glam legends the Sweet, who recorded it for a 2012 album of cover versions. Sweet weren’t the first rock act to take the song on, as this nu-metal version by Dope attests (think Limp Bizkit on poppers), but I’m featuring them as they were cruelly deprived of chart-toppers back in the ’70s (five #2s alongside their only #1, ‘Block Buster!’)

What I want to hear now is a whole album of SAW covers by rock and metal acts… Black Sabbath doing Kylie, Mel & Kim’s ‘Respectable’ reimagined by Pearl Jam… It would be a best-seller, surely.

Another two covers tomorrow!

Never Had a #1… Bon Jovi

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And so here we are. The final episode in our ‘Never Had a #1…’ week, and it’s the band with the biggest disparity between Top 10 hits and number ones: 18 to 0.

Bon Jovi – 18 Top 10 hits between 1986 and 2006

Interestingly, three of this week’s four acts have had remarkably similar chart careers. Depeche Mode, Janet Jackson and Bon Jovi’s Top 10s all stretch from the early-mid ’80s through to the early-mid ’00s. Why did artists from that era prove so durable? In Bon Jovi’s case it’s probably down to the fact that, of all the poodle-permed hair metal acts of the late eighties, they cut their hair just in time and recast themselves as everyman rockers. Here are their three biggest hits…

‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ – reached #4 in 1986

Once upon a time, Not so long ago… ‘Mr Brightside’, ‘Sweet Caroline’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’… All songs I have to some extent enjoyed, once upon a time, only for them to pale, then bore, then sour from over-familiarity. ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ is possibly the ultimate overplayed anthem. It might have been good. It might still be good, for all I know. I never will know, though, for I’d rather lose a pinkie finger than ever hear it again.

‘It’s My Life’ – reached #3 in 2000

Bon Jovi’s Bon-Joviest song. Power chords and cloyingly earnest lyrics about it being ‘now or never’ and how we ‘ain’t gonna live forever’, while Jon bounces around like an excited labrador. I want to hate it, but dammit that chorus just clicks. What I notice from listening to it now is how many little nu-metal touches there are – the piano line is lifted straight from Linkin Park, for example – and how dumb the video is. Bearing in mind Bon Jovi were all pushing forty when this came out, why exactly is a teenage boy jumping off bridges and dodging oil tankers to see the old fogies rocking out in a tunnel?

‘Always’ – reached #2 in 1994

It’s a widely held fact that the moment Kurt Cobain first played the opening riff to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, all the hair metal acts dissolved to dust like the Nazis in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. Except for one… Bon Jovi laughed in the face of the glam apocalypse, shook the debris from their hair, and scored their biggest ever hit with this monstrous power-ballad. I can’t argue with it. Nobody can argue with music this pompous and sincere. A giant with a sledgehammer would be more subtle than Jon Bon Jovi howling his way through ‘Always’. I will say, though, that if you’ve ever sat through someone other than JBJ trying to howl their way through this song – at your local karaoke evening, perhaps – then hell will hold no fears for you.

I’ve been a bit down on Bon Jovi, I worry. I like some of their stuff. ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ is fun, while ‘Bad Medicine’ might be the ultimate hair metal anthem. Sadly, their three biggest UK hits are all songs I would jump off bridges and dodge oil tankers to avoid…

Thanks for reading and enjoying this detour into the biggest non chart-topping acts of all time. We’ll be resuming the regular countdown in a few days time!

610. ‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’, by The Timelords

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My first reaction upon seeing the title of our next #1 was: “Oh God, not another song based on a popular sci-fi series!” The scars from having to write about ‘Star Trekkin’’ still cut deep…

Doctorin’ the Tardis, by The Timelords (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 12th – 19th June 1988

But wait… Is that glam classic ‘Block Buster!’ mixed with the ‘Dr. Who’ theme? And is that a refrain based on ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Part II’? Plus lots of obnoxious punk chanting? Is this not actually quite great? Stupidly brilliant? Brilliantly stupid?

It takes two very separate strands of music – the sample-heavy house scene that has already given us a classic #1 (‘Theme from S’Express’) and a couple of others (‘Pump Up the Volume’ and ‘Jack Your Body’) and the glam scene of fifteen years previous – while throwing a TV theme into the mix. It shouldn’t work, they shouldn’t be able to meld, but it does. In fact, it sounds incredibly like Muse. Genuinely – and I say this as someone who loves Muse – as if Matt Bellamy has based his band’s entire recent output around this novelty song.

The Daleks are a bit much, mind (I say that as someone with next to no interest in ‘Dr. Who’) but I suppose they’re the most identifiable thing from the programme, and so we need an Exterminate! or two. Oh, and we haven’t mentioned the fact that the You what? chant is from Harry Enfield’s ‘Loadsamoney’ character, and so we have an added undercurrent of Thatcher-era social commentary thrown in too: Loadsamoney presumably being as cheap and as vacuous as this song is meant to be. (Enfield had also taken a single based on the Loadsamoney character to #4 just a few weeks before ‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’ made #1. ‘Enjoy’ that here…)

And then… ho boy, this is a real cluster bomb of a record… Gary Glitter jumped on the bandwagon and helped record a new version, called ‘Gary in the Tardis’ with chants from his big glam hits: He’s the leader, Of the gang… Do you want to touch me…? and so on. That version featured on some of the various 12” mixes, but he wasn’t officially credited. He performed it live though, I’m guessing on TOTP. (And I’ve just realised the twisted irony in Gary Glitter deposing a record that had been raising money for Childline…)

This has so many strands running through it that we haven’t yet mentioned the Timelords themselves. This was their first and only hit under that name, but we’ll meet Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty again shortly, as The KLF. They had released a few underground sample-heavy hits before, as The JAMs, but this was the big time. The song’s title was presumably a nod to Coldcut’s recent sample-tastic hit ‘Doctorin’ the House’. Drummond called their first big hit ‘nauseating’, and then released a book based on making the song called ‘The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way’.

But hey, never has a cynical grab for chart glory sounded so catchy. Glam is back! For one week only, Britain’s pop past and future – glam, punk and house – mix in a riotous mess of a chart-topper. And I love it! If nothing else, it’s flushed the last remnants of ‘Star Trekkin’’ out of my system…

580. ‘The Final Countdown’, by Europe

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I take back what I said about our last #1, Berlin’s ‘Take My Breath Away’, having the ultimate ‘80s riff. For I had forgotten about this baby…

The Final Countdown, by Europe (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 30th November – 14th December 1986

Da-da-daadaa… A handful of synth notes that have entered our collective consciousness, in a way that few songs manage. I’d say there aren’t very many people who wouldn’t Dada-da-da-da… back at you if you abruptly Da-da-dada’d in their face (there’s a sentence I never imagined writing…)

Is this as close as we’ll come to that most eighties of genres – hair metal – having its moment at #1? I had previously suggested Doctor & The Medics, or Survivor, but this trumps them hands down. It isn’t particularly metal, save for the shredding guitar solo, but boy do they have hair to spare. In the video, lead singer Joey Tempest (pause to relish the name…) bounds onto the stage in a leather jacket and trousers, doing things to his mic stand that make you hope he bought it dinner first. His hair is glorious, though the amount of hairspray used was probably a major factor in our current climate crisis, while his face is prettier than most boyband idols.

I love rock music – proper rock music, by men with beards – and songs like ‘The Final Countdown’, by preening, prancing, clean-shaven hair metal bands like Europe, really get the rock snobs’ goats up. But I have a secret love for ‘80s hair metal that I file under ‘guilty pleasures’, because in some ways it is the purest form of rock and roll. It exists solely for pleasure: no introspection, no shoe-gazing, very little thought at all; just rocking out in ridiculous clothes, and getting laid.

Speaking of getting laid… Is ‘The Final Countdown’ about going to space, with lyrics inspired by David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, as the band claim…? Or is it a five-minute extended metaphor for sex? Since release, it’s moved into the sporting arena, and is regularly used as a hype song before matches. It also gets an airing every New Year’s Eve, around the globe, and charted again in 1999 ahead of the millennium celebrations. The band weren’t very impressed by that remix (their drummer claimed he ‘wouldn’t have pissed on it if it were on fire’…) In fact, certain band members weren’t impressed with the original, thinking it a poppy betrayal of their metal roots.

There haven’t been too many light-hearted chart-toppers as we’ve plodded through the mid-eighties, so I will welcome Europe with open arms. They didn’t hang around long – this was their only Top 10 hit – but they reformed in the 2000s and are touring and recording to this day, remaining very successful across, well, Europe – especially in their native Sweden. Adding to the ‘peak-eighties’ feel of this record is the fact that we’ve now had two successive number ones by acts named after geographical locations. Berlin, Europe… Not to mention Japan, and Asia. Write an iconic synth riff, do a line of coke, and name your band after a continent. The 1980s in all its glory…

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571. ‘Spirit in the Sky’, by Doctor & The Medics

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Given the way the charts have been going over the past few months, I’m ready to write this next #1 off as another gimmicky novelty…

Spirit in the Sky, by Doctor & The Medics (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 1st June – 22nd June 1986

From Cliff and the Young Ones, past Falco and The Chicken Song, to this: a mid-eighties take on Norman Greenbaum’s classic 1970 number one (obligatory link to my original post here…) The beefy guitars that open on that famous riff are very welcome – it’s been a good long while since we’ve had proper guitars at #1.

It’s a faithful cover, all the notes are there in the right order. Even the trippy effects between the lines and the riffs are recreated. It’s fine. It’s a great song, and if you stick to the script you’ll end up with a reasonably good cover. But as the song develops, and after repeated listens, you start to wonder why they bothered…

It plods along with the feel of a knock-off karaoke version, especially when the tacky, synthy organ comes in. You can hear it in the background from around midway through, sounding like the one used in the ‘Chuckle Brothers’ theme (sorry, very niche reference for non-British readers…) It’s the version of ‘Spirit in the Sky’ that you’d use in a TV series if you couldn’t afford to pay for the original. Meanwhile, in my post on the original I remember questioning whether Greenbaum was singing this as a religious song. Here, the lyrics pass you by. They’re sung so unremarkably that you don’t really notice them.

It is, as you may have gathered from the preceding paragraphs, not a patch on the proto-glam, acid-fried original. And, yet again, this record backs up my bias against eighties production: it just sounds so much better when ‘real’ instruments are used… By this point my 1980s fixation is very much ‘old man shouts at cloud’ territory, but I can’t help it.

One of the main reasons why I approached this record as a novelty is because the band singing it are called Doctor & The Medics. It just screams ‘aren’t we zany!’ They had been around since 1981, formed in London by The Doctor (AKA Clive Jackson). From the look of the band – big hair and Kiss-style make-up – I want to like them. This is possibly the closest we’ll get to an ‘80s glam rock chart-topper (a genre that’s a definite guilty pleasure of mine). The video also has a goth-glam feel to it, with pale women in floaty white dresses popping their heads out of windows.

The Medics were primarily a covers band, but sadly their subsequent versions of ‘Waterloo’ (featuring Roy Wood) and ‘Burning Love’ didn’t set the charts alight. They remain on the verge of being one-hit wonders, and continue to perform with only The Doctor as an original member. Their sole Top 20 hit isn’t a novelty, then, I can confirm. But neither is it anything more than okay… Meanwhile, ‘Spirit in the Sky’ has one more appearance at #1 to come. And if you thought I was down on this version, well…

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Cover Versions of #1s – Joan Jett & Oasis

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For my last two covers of the week, I’m going back to the age of glam. I do miss the days when every second chart-topper was a glam-rock stomper…

‘I Love You Love Me Love’, by Joan Jett – originally a #1 in 1973 for you-know-who.

The only problem with ‘the age of glam’ is that one of its biggest stars turned out to be a prolific sex-offender. Despite trying not to, I did enjoy the first two of Gary Glitter’s three #1s. How to listen to them these days, though, without feeling a bit icky? Luckily, Americans have no idea who Glitter is/was, and are happy to use his music at sporting events and in the soundtracks to major Hollywood movies. Joan Jett made a habit of covering old 60s and 70s tunes and giving them a power-rock feel in the eighties. (Yes, I know, he probably still gets royalties. I didn’t say it was a perfect plan…)

‘Cum on Feel the Noize’, by Oasis – originally a #1 in 1973, for Slade

I have complicated feelings towards Oasis. They were once my favourite band (if you were a teenage boy, growing up in suburban Scotland, in the late 90s, you had to love Oasis, it was as good as law). But I don’t listen to them much these days. Liam and Noel are as moronic as they are funny, and they attract a certain type of ‘fan’… And yet, watching this performance at Maine Road, at the height of their popularity, you can see why they were so huge, and it proves anyone who thinks Liam couldn’t sing very wrong. Obnoxious lines like: So you think my singing’s out of time, Well it makes me money… might well have been custom-written for him. Oasis are famously mocked for copying the Beatles, but I’ve also heard them described as ‘Status Slade’. I think whoever said that meant to be bitchy, but I can’t think of a more fun sounding hybrid band. Anyway, I’ll have plenty of time to reassess Oasis when I cover their eight #1s – ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ was a ‘B’-side to their second (and best…?) chart-topper, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’.

Next week it’s back to the usual countdown, starting with chart-topper number 501.

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486. ‘Prince Charming’, by Adam & The Ants

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A very happy new year to all who read this! In the real world it’s just turned 2022, but in Number Ones World it’s the autumn of 1981…

Keeping up the ‘too much sugar before bedtime’ vibe of ‘Stand and Deliver!’, Adam & The Ants second chart-topper comes in with a similarly hyperactive intro. Aaah-haah, heeyyy-haaah! the Ants yodel and chant, like a band who’ve been stranded in the jungle for years, staying alive only by feeding off the flesh of their weakest member…

Prince Charming, by Adam & The Ants (their 2nd and final #1)

4 weeks, 13th September – 11th October 1981

I have the feeling that, back in his youth, Stuart Goddard AKA Adam Ant was the bane of his teachers’ lives (I’m a teacher myself, so can spot them a mile off – the ones you describe as ‘spirited’ and ‘energetic’ in report cards.) Though, to be fair, most pop stars probably were little nightmares in the classroom.

And I think the school analogy can be extended, even after the shouts have faded and the song has slipped into a thumping, clumping rhythm. Don’t you ever, Don’t you ever, Stop being dandy, Showin’ me you’re handsome… It sounds like a playground chant. Prince Charming, Prince Charming, Ridicule is nothing to be afraid of… Or is it a mantra, something that Goddard had to say to himself each morning, before he slipped back into the mascara and lip-gloss required of Adam Ant?

I’m waiting for this song to break out of its plod and really kick. But it never does. There’s a bit more chanting, and a lot of repetition. ‘Stand and Deliver!’ was much more fun. Though, ‘Prince Charming’ is a smash-hit so far removed from the usual structures of a pop song (apparently Goddard chose such a slow pace deliberately, so that it wouldn’t be played in discos) it’s quite impressive how well it did. A sign of just how red-hot The Ants were in 1981.

Like ‘Stand and Deliver!’, ‘Prince Charming’ has another bizarrely entertaining video. Adam plays a male Cinderella, put upon by two dragged-up ugly sisters. Diana Dors, in one of her final screen roles, plays his Fairy Godmother. He goes to the ball, dressed in what is now the iconic Adam Ant look, and the other party-goers gag. At the end, he smashes a mirror, and appears as Clint Eastwood, Alice Cooper, Lawrence of Arabia (?) and, finally, as the Dandy Highwayman from his previous #1. As a video it’s great fun, and as a message it’s actually quite powerful: boys can look rugged as Clint Eastwood and boys can cake themselves in make-up and look like Adam Ant. Ridicule is nothing to be scared of!

I just wish I liked the actual song as much as I do the video. But I’m still finding it a bit of a plod, and isn’t really growing on me. And before you know it, that’s all from Adam & The Ants. They would have just one more hit, the uncharacteristically laid-back (only kidding) ‘Ant Rap’, before splitting up in early 1982. Adam’s solo career will follow on very soon from that, he was very much the driving force behind the band, and we’ll be hearing from him one last time atop the charts very soon.

479. ‘Stand and Deliver!’, by Adam & The Ants

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I’ve just realised something… The eighties have finally begun. 1980 was full of stars – Blondie, Bowie, ABBA and ELO – but they were stars from the seventies. Our recent number ones have introduced us to some brand new stars, huge names of the early ‘80s: Shakin’ Stevens, Bucks Fizz and now, biggest of all, Adam Ant.

Stand and Deliver, by Adam & The Ants (their 1st of two #1s)

5 weeks, 3rd May – 7th June 1981

Punk, New-Wave and something else collide here. What that something is I couldn’t say… but it is very new and very thrilling. And very eighties. It’s frantic – there are horns, sound effects, nonsense chanting, and a band dressed as eighteenth century highwaymen… As I said in my last post, glam is back, baby!

I’m the dandy highwayman, That you’re too scared to mention, I spend my cash on looking flash, And grabbing your attention… It’s a statement of intent, this record: a war-cry to kids across the land to ditch old-folks’ fashions, to slap chunky blocks of make-up on their faces, and join the insect nation… It’s the sort of song your nan would have screwed her face to during TOTP, wondering just what was wrong with young folk these days.

There’s a bit of everything here. We go from the verses, in which Adam Ant sounds like Ray Davies trying his hand at rapping, to a Shadows-esque surf-rock solo with monkish chanting for backing. And the main hook is a killer: Stand and deliver, Your money or your life… And I mean literally a killer – it’s what Dick Turpin would have shouted back in his heyday. Meanwhile, the music video – we need more and more often to start referencing the videos for #1 singles now – sees Adam and his band holding up carriages full of uncool types clutching their lame records. Rather than robbing them, he shows how terrible they look in his foppish, handheld mirror.

It’s certainly a breath of fresh air, and there’s a feeling of a new musical order starting to assert itself. And there’s a great pop song here, underneath all the frippery (that’s a nice way to sum up the entire 1980s, to be honest). Adam and the Ants hadn’t appeared out of nowhere, though – they had been around since 1977, and had been scoring Top 10 hits for a year or so before this smash.

And a ‘smash’ it was. ‘Stand and Deliver’ entered at #1, which means the band were at the same level of popularity as The Jam and The Police. Plus its five-week run at the top is the longest of the decade so far. They were a band that burned brightly, but briefly, and they and their charismatic leader will be back with a couple more equally manic chart-toppers in pretty soon.

397. ‘Under the Moon of Love’, by Showaddywaddy

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In my last post, I wrote about how Chicago had forced me to take soft-rock seriously, to appreciate the subtlety, and the craft. ‘If You Leave Me Now’ was such a lovely, well-made song that it was beginning to work…

Under the Moon of Love, by Showaddywaddy (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 28th November – 19th December 1976

But here come Showaddywaddy to undo all their good efforts. There goes subtlety, flying out the window. In comes thumping, rollicking, primary-coloured rock ‘n’ roll. The 1950s, reimagined by a toddler on a sugar high. Without seeing a picture of the band, you can instantly imagine the comedy quiffs, and the colourful teddy-boy suits.

Let’s go for a little walk…! Under the moon of love…! I offer you these lyrics as lead singer Dave Bartram delivers them, with an emphatic exclamation mark after each line, after each word even: Let’s! Sit! Down and talk! Under the moon of love…! He’s having a great time with this song, which means the listener – as long as they’re willing to leave their musical snobbishness at the door – enjoys themselves by the same measure.

I hate the concept of ‘guilty pleasures’. But, yes. ‘Under the Moon of Love’ is prime guilty pleasures material. ‘If You Leave Me Now’ is an objectively better piece of music, but I am enjoying this record ten times more. It’s fun, dammit! What I wouldn’t give for Showaddywaddy to invade the po-faced charts of 2021!

You were lookin’ so lovely… (Uh-huh-huh)… Because nothing says late-fifties doo-wop-slash-rock-n-roll like a well-placed ‘uh-huh-huh’… Under the moon of love! If you were being unkind, you could claim this as the final nail in glam rock’s coffin, the final fart of the corpse. The sound that can be dated right to the very start of this decade, in ‘Spirit in the Sky’ and ‘I Hear You Knocking’s fried guitar, through the huge-hitters like T Rex, Slade, Wizzard and The Sweet, down through Mud’s dancing, Gary Glitter’s prancing and The Rubettes’ falsettos. To this silly slice of rock ‘n’ roll revival.

Though to be fair, Showaddywaddy had been around since glam’s heyday, when their debut ‘Hey Rock and Roll’ peaked at #2. Since then they had revived Buddy Holly’s ‘Heartbeat’, and Eddie Cochran’s ‘Three Steps to Heaven’, while this, their only #1, kicked off a run of seven straight Top 5 hits lasting well into 1978, long after most of the big glam acts had fallen from the charts. They are still a-rocking to the this day, after a few line-up changes, on the oldies circuit.

As well as Eddie Cochran, they brought back the Kalin Twins’ ‘When’, and ‘Blue Moon’. But perhaps ‘Under the Moon of Love’ was the one that went all the way to the top simply because it wasn’t a big hit first time around. It was originally recorded by Curtis Lee in 1961, making #46 on the Billboard 100. It’s slightly better, in the way that originals usually are, while it was produced by an up and coming chap called Phil Spector.

Finally, Showaddywaddy’s turn at the top means we’ve now had a seven-piece (Pussycat), and two eight-pieces (Chicago and Showaddywaddy) atop the charts. Late ’76 seeing a reinvention of the term ‘big band’. But that run is about to come to an end, for the year’s final chart-topper is by a solo act. And I know it’s April, but we’re about to get a little festive…