Alvin Stardust looked like a superannuated Teddy Boy who got trapped in time during the Elvis 1968 Comeback Special.

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I don’t think I’d ever heard The Stooges before but back In 1973 at school there was a copy of Raw Power floating around. (more…)

David Bowie wrote this song when he was just 23 as a follow-up to his first hit Space Oddity, with Marc Bolan on guitar. (more…)

In November 1973 The Carpenters had another hit with Top Of The World. I didn’t like it at the time. But two decades later it spawned a rather wonderful Japanese cover version. (more…)

Caroline is so simple a song that you might think it could have been written on a paper napkin. And it was. (more…)

Philly soul’s signature sound was its sweetness but there was a bitter pill inside the sugar-coated harmonies of Ghetto Child by The Detroit Spinners. (more…)

Bryan Ferry took a break from Roxy Music to pay tribute to the pre-Beatles era of pop with his solo album These Foolish Things. This was the first single. (more…)

Just weeks after he famously “retired” Ziggy Stardust at a live show, David Bowie bounced back with a saxophone singing Sorrow, the first track from the covers album Pinups. (more…)

Is this Elton’s best single? It’s certainly one of them, a sepia-tinted elegy for the lost innocence of childhood. (more…)

I had loved Mott The Hoople’s Bowie-assisted makeover with All The Young Dudes in 1972 and I loved their next album Mott, the best by a reinvigorated band. (more…)