Listening to Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie’s brilliant weekend breakfast show on BBC 6 Music this morning – the show is called Radcliffe and Maconie, in case you want to listen on BBC Sounds a little later on – I heard a song that perhaps the very young me shouldn’t have liked, Georgy Girl by The Seekers. For street cred purposes, I kept my love of The Seekers strictly to myself until, much later in life, my partner would gently sing our children to sleep with their song Morningtown Ride. Hell, at an improbable age I even knew the names of the band, the wonderful singer Judith Durham, Bruce Woodley, Keith Potger and Athol Guy, who I assumed was christened by a parent with a terrible lisp. In the era of the Beatles and the Stones, I am not sure that the playground would have reacted positively to my choices. It then got me thinking: there are lots of songs that I liked which weren’t, as one might describe it, hip, but I loved them anyway.
Bopping along to T. Rex, as well as a whole bunch of American rock bands, I would only be right to acknowledge that the first album I ever bought with my own money, in 1970, was Neil Diamond’s Tap Root Manuscript, an incredible experimental record fusing rock music and African sounds and instruments. I trusted only a few people with the story and covered my tracks by going to friends’ houses nodding along appreciatively to bands like The Edgar Broughton Band, Santana, Nazareth and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. But I really wanted to listen to Soolaimón, I Am The Lion and Madrigál. But if you think that’s a bit on the embarrassing side for the teenager to be listening to, how about The Osmonds?
In 1970, I knew nothing about the Mormon brothers from Utah until they released a song called One Bad Apple, a blatant rip off off the Jackson 5, but the war worm entered my brain, never to disappear. One of the brothers, Donny, went on to become a superstar in his own right, with a series of ghastly, sugary hits like Puppy Love. Naturally, all the girls loved Donny and swooned whenever his songs appeared on the radio. I genuinely hated his solo music so I didn’t have to just pretend I hated it and all went well until the brothers released a single called Crazy Horses, a banging rock song about air pollution, almost perfect apart from the use of a brass section. I could no longer pretend I hated the Osmonds. Indeed, I invited ridicule by proclaiming the song’s greatness. Apart from a few remarks like, “Are you serious?” I may have been in a minority among my peers but a few people did whisper that actually Crazy Horses, “Wasn’t too bad”. Not too bad? It was brilliant.
In 1982, possibly my favourite record I shouldn’t really have liked was released. By now, I was deep into Steely Dan, Little Feat, the Doobie Brothers, Boston and God knows how many more American bands but what grabbed my attention was … Buck’s Fizz.
Buck’s Fizz were put together for the purposes of performing in the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest which they won with the unforgettable Making Your Mind Up, the highlight of which for this testosterone fuelled young man was the sight of the two male members of the band removing the skirts of the females. I fell in love with Jay Aston, even though I couldn’t stand the music. Until the following year.
Land Of Make Believe was co-written by Pete Sinfield, a member of legendary prog rockers King Crimson, and, it turned out later, was a virulent attack on the prime minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher. Despite my political leanings, all I could think about was Jay Aston, gloriously under-dressed on Top Of The Pops. I was so fond of her, I even forgave her for later associating with Nigel Farage’s far right Brexit party. The most important thing though was that Land Of Make Believe was a truly great pop song. Only stubborn pride stopped me buying it. Now that street cred is not important to my sense of self-worth, I now own a copy of the record.
The list of records I loved, but kept quiet about, is actually very long. At an absurdly young age, my mum would take me to visit her friend Auntie Gladys, who wasn’t really my auntie, where I would listen to Sidesaddle by Bristol’s own Russ Conway over and over again.
Later, it was MMMBop by Hanson, a fantastic song and, yes, ear worm, clearly not made with a middle aged man in mind, Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, the same but in 2008 I found myself obsessed not with a new song by R.E.M. or Radiohead but by Girls Aloud, the modestly talented girl band of the time.
Until then, their work had somewhat passed me by, essentially generic, manufactured pop. Nothing special, until The Promise.
According to Wikipedia, so it must be true, ‘”The Promise” is an upbeat love song about falling in love uncontrollably after promising to never fall in love again.‘ That’s as maybe – the words sounded like pure gobbledegook to me – but the whole record from the singing, the musicianship right through to the driving tempo was perfect. I confess that, for reasons I can’t begin to understand, the song moves me in a joyous if a little tearful way, as if I was listening to an all time classic like God Only Knows. Of course, I am not comparing The Promise with God Only Knows – that would be just stupid – but music has the unique ability to turn life on its head.
I love the fact that among my diverse collection I find the likes of Neil Diamond, Buck’s Fizz and Girls Aloud alongside the Allman Brothers Band, High Llamas and Asian Dub Foundation. The young me would cringe at the thought admitting to liking the Osmond Brothers but the old me just couldn’t care less.
The more I think about it, there is a lot more music I suppose I shouldn’t really have liked, including Howards’ Way (theme from BBC series Howards’ Way) by Simon May, Fool On The Hill by Sérgio Mendes and Brasil ‘66 and Son Of My Father by Chicory Tip, but as an old friend always says, “There’s no such thing as bad music, except Queen.” He’s right. Give me Girls Aloud any day of the week.
