Best Of Top Of The Pops 1976 (Hallmark)

1976, i knew it well. Actually no i didn't as i was only 5 however the BBC's repeats of Top Of The Pops began with shows from 1976 so i have become familiar with the pop hits of the year. This Top Of The Pops album is an album of covers and as earlier reviews of this series have shown the covers can be a bit of a mixed bag.

Nothing changes with this edition, the songs here are a mix of the great, the inspired (if maybe sometimes unintentionally) and the... well nothing is that terrible, just that some songs are a bit "meh". "Bohemian Rhapsody" has to fall into the inspired category. The session musicians did a really good job at trying to reproduce this varied song, a few strange sound effects are thrown in though for some reason, the first time you listen to the song you wonder if the world is under alien attack or if the stereo is broken. The only part of the song that fails a bit is the final rock attack phase but it would be hard to get close to the original.

"Mississippi" is a decent cover, its a bit murkier than the original but has plenty of country twang. "Under the Moon of love" is also remarkably good, a description i never thought i would write for a Showaddywaddy song but it just works. The Top Of The Pops session musicians did tend to struggle with ABBA though and there are a couple of attempts on here which probably should best have remained hidden in a vault.