Friday Links (30/03/12)

• Jocky Wilson said and other rock myths.
• Star Wars themed guitars? What?
• Lost George Harrison guitar solo for "Here comes the Sun" ..er.. found. Should be enough for a new Beatles boxset.
• Model Village will release an album at the end of next month collecting songs released from various singles and compilations.

Veronica Falls - my heart beats

The Best Of Top Of The Pops "69" (Hallmark CD)

From the late 60s to the early 80s budget minded music fans could get cheap compilation albums of current hits as performed by session musicians. Today this may sound a bit strange but we must remember that available media to get music was much less before the "internet age" and it was the only way to listen to hit songs if you couldn't afford the original records and didn't want Tony Blackburn dribbling all over it on the radio (you couldn't very easily record off the radio either back then of course). As well as regular editions with recent hits, released every few months, every year a "best of" was released. This is a CD re-issue of the 1969 best of. One thing to notice is that every album had an attractive young lady on the cover, for this compilation we also get a collage of girls too!

So what are these cover versions like? Some of them are pretty good like "Bad moon rising" and "In the year 2525" though sometimes the cover is laughably poor, "Honky tonk woman" sounds more like the Struggling Drones than the Rolling Stones. Sometimes the cover doesn't really sound much at all like the original but is still a good track, "In the ghetto" doesn't sound much like Elvis but isn't a bad song in its own right. In most cases it probably helps if you arn't that familiar with the original so you can't compare it too closely.

Best track on here is "Sugar sugar", whoever these musicians were (and its written that Elton John and Tina Charles once worked on these albums before they were famous) they did a good job! Taken as a whole it makes for a pretty decent 60s party sound track.

MV : "Just for fun" by Alpaca Sports

Great video for a great single.

Top Of The Pops (17/03/1977)

Tony Blackburn is here to grin his way through the hottest pop sounds again.

Suzi Quatro - tear me apart
We are here to rock again with the blessed Suzi Q. For some reason we get funky psychedelic SFX which kind of jars with this straight forward rock and roll song. I wonder if she wasn't quite so cute my opinion of this song would be less favourable than it is. I suspect it would. Its OK but not much more.

Berni Flint - i don't want to put a hold on you
Talent show winner Berni makes his debut with this country-folk-pop song. It reminds me a bit of Glen Campbell which is no bad thing.

ABBA - knowing me, knowing you
AHA!!!! The video in the snow, emotional looks, story behind those eyes.

Cliff Richard - my kinda life
Cliff is here with some bluesy rock-boogie, or his attempt at it anyway. Not the worst Cliff song but no "Devil woman". Man those trousers are tight.

Elvis Presley's "moody blue" is this week's tune as interpreted by Legs & Co, they come out dressed in pink! No not really, skimpy blue dresses of course and vaguely shake to the tune.

Barclay James Harvest - rock and roll star
Wow its prog rock! Barclay James Harvest are all long hair, rock guitar chord journeys and psychedelic harmonies. Brilliant stuff in a way, especially for this show. The song is cut off early, the other 38 minutes remaining on the cutting room floor.

Maxine Nightengale - love hit me
How to emote the hell out a song. Not a bad performance though the song is a bit so-so.

Showaddywaddy - under the moon of love
Dire, especially the multi-coloured 50s suits. The stuff nightmares are made of, unfortunately they were true.

Billy Ocean - red light
Purple suited Billy is always good value. The song isn't bad though i got distracted by Billy's cuffs which seem to have been borrowed from a Concorde.

Manhattan Transfer - Chanson d'amour
Its still at number 1 and we get the same video as last week, i like the smattering of polite applause as the song starts. You wouldn't get that if they were playing in the TOTP studio!

MV : "I sea the see from here" by Sea Dweller

Pre-order of new album available now!