Fall 1972 fell upon the record-buying public like an eccentric aunt distributing candies to her cats, a six-week period during which all the big guns of the glam pack were readying their Christmas broadsides, so the charts were open to the weirdos instead. How else, after all, to explain a Top 20 topped by
Lieutenant Pigeon, a pub novelty band fronted by a very old lady playing piano; how else to explain the rise of both
10cc's "Donna," with its flawless re-creation of 1950s doo wop pop, and the re-released supremacy of
the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack," death and dismemberment 1965-style? Well, they were all great records as well, and history has clasped the first two, at least, to the glam rock breast, to prove that spangles and platforms were only the superficial soul of the movement. Its real pulsebeat was the ability to come up with memorable songs as well, and
Top of the Pops, Vol. 27 is overflowing with the things -- with performances to match. "Mouldy Old Dough" is transformed into a raucous barrelhouse battering, "Donna" shrieks like
the Stylistics on helium, while "Leader of the Pack" sounds so conversational that it could have been taped from real life. And that's just for starters. From a pristine take on former
Marmalade man
Junior Campbell's "Hallelujah Freedom" to the convincingly reggae-fied take on
Johnny Nash's "There Are More Questions Than Answers," the album may not be creaking with undisputed classics, but it's an intriguing listen all the same.
Python Lee Jackson's majestic "In a Broken Dream" -- in reality, a three-year-old demo with a guide vocal by
Rod Stewart -- is granted the sort of treatment it might have received had its originators actually given it the attention it deserved. OK, so the vocals suffer from
Top of the Pops' traditional inability to capture the
Stewart stridency, and the guitar lines aren't quite as desperate as the real thing. But the drumming sounds like
Keith Moon, and the actual arrangement could not be more full-bodied.
Gilbert O'Sullivan's mortifyingly cloying "Clair" is so expertly orchestrated that it actually succeeds in leaving the original in the shade, while Jonathan King's "Loop Di Love," a hit under the childishly provocative name of Shag, emerges an evocative collision of psychotic violin and hairy
Muppet innuendo. Would that more great pop sounded like that! ~ Dave Thompson