RECORD MIRROR singles reviews, 15th October 1976

THE GARBAGE:

Eric Clapton - Hello Old Friend
(We're only two months on from his notorious "Keep Britain White" rant, and basically he can just fuck off. Oh, the music? Pfffft.)

Sutherland Brothers & Quiver - Secrets
(NOBODY IS MAKING AN EFFORT. It makes me quite angry actually. Save us Johnny Rotten, etc.)

R & J Stone - Thrown It All Away
(In which the "We Do It" hit-makers did just that. Equal parts saccharin and syrup, which is never a healthy blend.)

The Hollies - Wiggle That Wotsit
(FFS, even Mud did a better opportunistic jump into disco with "Shake It Down". Still, big in New Zealand, we can't take that away from them.)

Rock Island Line - Ice Cream
(Rockabilly-tinged update of a 1956 Chris Barber trad jazz cut. Annoyingly whimsical.)

Paul Davis - Super Star
(No one retrospectively fat-shames Ronstadt on my watch.)

The Chanter Sisters - Just Your Fool
(My problem at the time with Rock Follies was that the band's music didn't sound anything like contemporary pop/rock. I was wrong. It sounded like The Chanter Sisters.)

Mike Lesley - My Mama Said
(He's no Gary Benson.)

Dennis Waterman - I Will Glide
(Really boring cover of Phillip Goodhand-Tait's almost-as-boring album track from earlier in the year.)

Survival - Sweet Music
(Their only single, a messy calypso/afrobeat/soca hodge-podge that's a UK cover of a vastly better Trinidadian original by Lord Shorty. It doesn't sound as if the band have any natural feel for what they're playing.)

Engelbert Humperdinck - After The Lovin'
(Still big in English-speaking nations outside the UK! When the pop-pickers of New Zealand weren't too busy wiggling their wotsits, they were a-smoochin' and a-canoodlin' to this astonishingly big hit, whose parent album of the same name was nominated for a Grammy. Who knew?)

Vernon Oxford - Redneck!
(I... just... can't.)

Anyhow, I voted Aswad, but it was the tightest shortlist yet.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Would have sworn I voted. Consider “Love’s a Prima Donna” tied with “Wiggle that Wotsit.”

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/dave-spade-and-eric-clapton-during-the-concert-for-new-york-city-at-picture-id109530344?s=612x612

Claptooooon.....more like CRAPtooooon.....

That is... not the result I was expecting. Thought Steve Miller would win tbh.

Dennis Waterman was robbed.. oh wait

I didn't get to the playlist in time to vote. Catching up now and have been surprised at how it's nearly as bad as I thought – I actually found it more listenable on average than the 1966 one – until I just got to Sutherland Brothers & Quiver. Garbage indeed. Might skip the rest of this Sweet track too.

How it's not nearly as bad, that should read!

christ almighty

I'm going to have to listen to this Dennis Waterman thing amn't I?

Rock Island Line is reminding me of the shame of having 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon' as the No.1 of my birth. Is there a worse decade revival that the 70s one of the 50s?

Nice juxtaposition with Radioactivity coming next on the playlist. What a contrast.

Yeah, I originally thought this playlist would be almost unmitigated hell, but the balance of decent stuff vs duds turned out to be not so bad after all.

I'm going to have to listen to this Dennis Waterman thing amn't I?

― Starmer: "Let the children boogie, let all the children boogie." (Tom D.), Monday, 11 October 2021 11:28 (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I thought you would have bought it when it came out.

RECORD MIRROR singles reviews, 17th October 1981