Wednesday, 19 April 2017

12 Tops: Various Artists - Stereo Gold Award 1974

Here's another of those cheap and cheerful seventies complialtions of cover versions I said I was going to be staying away from. This one caught my eye for the both the things you can see, and the things you can't. For the former, I don't think I've seen a tackier looking sleeve on my travels so far. I mean, come on -  a woman crudely added to a foul orange background by whatever the 1974 equivalent of cut and paste was, a jarring yellow colour clash with thick black lines seemingly the only thing stopping them mixing to make green and a title that's about as perfunctory as it could be without saying 'Some Songs, Buy Them'.

The back cover note isn't much better, barking out (with CAPS LOCK on) a series of instructions in the clipped tones of a drill sergeant: "TOP OF THE POP SOUNDS OF TODAY'S TOP HITS WHILE THEY ARE HOT ON THE CHARTS. THE SOUNDS YOU HEAR EVERYDAY ON YOUR RADIO AND TELEVISION. LOOK FOR AN EXCITING NEW ALBUM OF HITS EVERY MONTH. BUILD THE MOST EXCITING COLLECTION OF POP TUNES IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD". You can't say you don't know where you are with this.

For the things you can't see, well this cover is pressed up on the cheapest, paper based product that I think I've ever come across. The Pickwick 'Top Of The Pops' albums had thick card sleeves with a nice, wipe down glossy finish that gave them at least the appearance of quality, but this is about as flimsy as cardboard can get without actually being paper. You could almost wipe your nose on it. I know these are meant to be budget compilations, but I get the impression that the company behind this would have sold it in a brown paper bag with a pair of women's tits drawn on in biro if they thought they could have got away with it.

Anyway, what we have here are twelve tracks that were greater or lesser hits in the UK during November 1974. And in drawing from a single month, as you'd expect, it's a mixed bag that produces mixed results, not least because of the fact that the players here do their best to replicate the originals rather than simply 'covering' the songs in their own style. And as far as that goes, then in the category marked 'good', we have versions of 'Pepper Box' and 'No Honestly' that would stand comparison with the originals in any arena. The proto-electronica of the former is emulated particularly well, while the anonymous female on the latter does a very credible Lynsey de Paul. Had either come on the radio unannounced then I don't think I would have thought anything was amiss and I guess that's all you can ask for in this context. Same with 'Juke Box Jive' and 'Magic' really; neither song had much of an identity in and of itself and any competent session band could have rustled up a version that would have passed muster. And both of these versions do just that.

For the 'bad', well whilst I'm happy to give kudos to the de Paul wannabe, the turns 'doing' Barry White and Suzi Quatro are less rather successful, with the former mistaking asthmatic for soul while the latter shifts Quatro's holler south of Detroit to somewhere around Texas. Y'all. They're not awful, but they're no match or surrogate for the originals either - there's no mistaking these for the real thing. And to take my grading reference to its logical conclusion, the 'ugly' here would be the dreadful take on 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' that turns Bachman Turner Overdrive's power chord, drive time perennial into something that clatters like bones in a biscuit tin, and the version of  'Oh Yes You're Beautiful' drains the swamp of Gary Glitter's ballsy Fifties pastiche until it's just a greasy honk. As above, it's all a mixed bag, albeit a yellow and orange one, though as with anything in this life you get what you pay for.

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