Now this is a CHOON! I’d say it’s a banger but that word was limited to small noisy fireworks back in 1976. And this is bigger and noisier than that. (more…)

I know I shouldn’t but I love this cheesy country music pastiche by Pussycat – perhaps the only country-and-western chart topper by a Dutch group.

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By 1976 I was losing interest in the singles chart, beyond getting my weekly fix of Top of the Pops. So I missed this at the time. (more…)

I love country music, especially old-time roots music with one foot in folk and one foot in the blues, and one hand dangling loosely in the waters of jazz. Now… 

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In the mid-Seventies I didn’t like The Bee Gees. In fact I thought they were awful: a bunch of buck-toothed bouffant-haired bearded brothers with ridiculous clothes and silly high voices singing disco. (more…)

“Get Up And Boogie,” sing the girls of Silver Convention with wide smiles and enthusiastic hand movements. “No thanks, we’re just fine sitting here,” reply the audience. (more…)

What a gloriously uplifting song this is. Except it isn’t. It’s anything but uplifting if you listen to the lyrics. In fact it’s as dark a song as you’ll ever hear. And it’s all autobiographical. (more…)

Full disclosure (as nobody said in the Seventies): I didn’t like disco at the time. But it was an inescapable part of my my late teens. (more…)

There are oldies and then there are oldies – this one is from before I was born. It’s a proper earworm, with some great lyrics, and it’s had almost 50 million views on YouTube, making it surely one of the best known oldies of all time. (more…)

Looking at the singles chart, 1976 was as dire a year as there’s ever been. No wonder punk came along to blow the rubbish away. (more…)