There's plenty going on with this one to catch my
eye, and not just the obvious. There's that title for one - 'England's Top 12
Hits'. Ignoring the fact that there is no 'England Only' popular music chart and
that the top 40 is based around sales in the UK as a whole, it's still awfully
definitive isn't it? These are the top 12 hits in England are they? Well they're
not, not by any measure. Not even close. The twelve songs on this in fact all
hail from the first quarter of 1974, but only three of them ('Billy Don't Be A
Hero', 'Devil Gate Drive' and 'Jealous Mind') were actually 'top' (i.e. number
one) hits. Unless of course that 'Top 12' refers to the chart placing, in which
case it should really be 'England's Top 12 Hits', though as the wording on the
spine and label confirms, it isn't.* All
very confusing.
Then there's that cover photo - another by now
almost obligatory shot of a topless blonde showing as much bare breast as taste
and law allows in a setting that you might see in England for a couple of hours
at some point in mid July. It's hardly representative of 'England' is it? Not in
March anyway. Maybe someone thought it was just the tonic for a late
winter/early spring release to whet the appetite for the summer to come, but to
modern eyes it's just gratuitous. The third point
of interest is the distinct lack of any information whatsoever on the cover as
to who is behind or performing this stuff or whether they are vocal, copycat
versions, instrumentals (perhaps another Hammond organ extravaganza). With the
back cover almost a carbon copy of the front, the only way to find out is to get
it home and play aural Russian roulette by listening to it.
And now having played it I can clear up one of the
mysteries straightway - these are all full band/vocal versions of the songs that
have pretensions of being close copies of the genuine articles. My usual form
with albums like this has been to consider the line-up broadly in terms of
whether they're good, bad or ugly, but my job is made slightly easier this time
round by that fact that they're all bad. All of them. Firstly, the sound is bad.
I don't know if it's the pressing or the production as a whole, but all the
music on this disc has a distant, over compressed feel to it; it's as if the
sound has buried itself deep in the grooves and doesn't want to come out. It
reminds me of those mono recordings, so beloved by Reader's Digest in the
seventies, that had been 'electronically reprocessed for stereo'. There's no
evidence that's the case here (and in 1974 no reason why they should have been
so treated), but evenso, they sound horrid.
Secondly, the versions themselves are bad. Assuming
that the aim was to produce accurate copies of the original songs, I can say that whilst each performance goes
some way to that end, they expend the absolute bare minimum of effort
in doing so. The musicians behind do just enough to pull the tunes together and
carry them for three minutes or so that the song requires while the vocals
scrabble around over the top for any defining tics or mannerisms they can latch
on to to try and pass themselves off as the real thing. Hence, we have the same
unknown vocalist trying hard to channel his inner Noddy Holder, Gary Glitter,
Alvin Stardust, Paul McCartney and Elton John.
Tackling such distinctive voices would be a big ask
for anyone, but without the familiarity of the actual song to lean on, I can
honestly say if they swapped the songs and singers around (so that, for
example, 'Elton' was singing 'Everyday') then I would have no idea who they were
supposed to be. The only person who emerges with
any credit is the fiery unknown who 'does' Suzi Quatro with a fair degree of
abandon, but she then kind of spoils the effect two songs later by 'doing' Karen
Carpenter (on 'Jambalaya') with the same screechy, faux American vocal, albeit
now turned down just a notch or two instead of the ten required. If just owning versions of these songs was your be all and end
all, you set your expectations bat suitably low this retailed at a low enough
price, then I suppose you'd be fine. For me, I'd rather have just taped the
originals off the radio for free and left this rather depressing record on the
shelf.
* I did consider briefly of the
'Top Hits' was some kind of oblique reference or pun on the cover and a play on
'Top Tits', but I've since found out that there's a whole series of these
albums, 31 in all from 1969 on. This was actually the last one in the series and
the only one to feature a topless woman. So a sign of desperation maybe?
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