"I know the voice. Wait a minute...is it Pat Boone? Goodbye Pat Boone."

February 15, 2023 2:27 PM

Ringo Starr reviews the (UK) singles of December 1964 [YouTube]
Song: "Ecstasy" • Artist: Lee Curtis "This is an old number by Ben E. King and it's rubbish compared to the original. I don't think this will sell anything, either. And I don't know who this singer is. And what about that terrible guitar solo? I don't like this at all. Turn it off. I can't stand to listen to it any longer. I don't know who it is and I don't want to know any more about it. It's terrible. Who is it? Oh dear...Lee Curtis. I know him, as well."

Blind Item was a feature that appeared in Melody Maker magazine from the mid-60s through the early 70s in which popular musicians of the time offered their first impressions and critical assessment of the latest UK singles hot off the presses. In this series of videos posted by YouTube channel Yesterday's Papers, the transcripts are narrated by a text-to-speech generator accompanied by snippets of the songs being discussed.

A sampling:

John Lennon (January 1964)
Song: "I'm The One" • Artist: Gerry and the Pacemakers
"This isn't for my record collection. But then, neither is 'She Loves You', really. But 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' is. I liked that."

Christine McVie (October 1969)
Song: "Wonderful World, Beautiful People" • Artist: Jimmy Cliff
"I like a bit of ska. Oh yes, I like this. A nice production and that violin is nice. This is a hit. It's nice and happy. It's very danceable. I could jig to this."

Frank Zappa (October 1968)
Song: "Good News" • Artist: The 5th Dimension
"I'd like the record better if there weren't any singers, because I can't understand a word. If I did know what they were singing, then I'd really be repelled."

Keith Moon (July 1968)
Song: "Soul Thing" • Artist: Toni Newman
"This must be 'The Wibbly Wobbly Way' by The Leaping Duodenals I've heard so much about. I've no idea who it is, but it sounds like the theme music from a bad rebel film. Could you please make it go away?"

Johnny Cash (May 1968)
Song: "The Unknown Soldier" • Artist: The Doors
"I'm quite interested in some of the West Coast groups but I don't think this will be a hit here. It's not the sort of things teenagers want to hear. They don't want to hear military drum beats. In fact, I don't want to hear military marches. God, no. It's all over now, I'm sorry. They're a great group but this record doesn't mean anything."

Paul McCartney (February 1967)
Song: "Darling Be Home Soon" • Artist: The Lovin' Spoonful
"John Lennon? Oh, John Sebastian. Is it from that film? Maybe the film's on the other side then. The thing is, his voice is nice but the backing is very ordinary. The Spoonful are easily good enough musically to have arranged this themselves but it sounds as though they've had pressures from the film company to keep it filmsy. The end was the best bit."

Jimi Hendrix (June 1967)
Song: "Let's Live for Today" • Artist: The Grass Roots
"They sound so artificial. I think I'd like to hear 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' right now. Who are these cats? The Grass Roots? What are they rooted to? It's such a candy sound."

Marc Bolan (April 1971)
Song: "Messin' with the Hook" • Artist: John Lee Hooker
"Lovely guitar style. I love this very much. John Lee Hooker? I can tell by the guitar style. He's dynamite. Incredible guitar, it sounds like a motorbike. This is the sort of thing I will do when I'm 40."

George Harrison (December 1965)
Song: "England Swings" • Artist: Roger Miller
"Oh, it's that Roger Miller bloke. Take it off, it's crap. I don't like it at all. It is Roger Miller, isn't it? I didn't like the first hit he had—'King of the Road'—but at least I could see why it was a hit. But this? Nothing. Might be good for the country and western fans but it's no good for the mass public. Sounds like Roy Rogers at the beginning."

Syd Barrett (July 1967)
Song: "Love You Till Tuesday" • Artist: David Bowie
"Yeah, it's a joke number. Jokes are good. Everybody likes jokes. The Pink Floyd like jokes. It's very casual. If you play it a second time it might be even more of a joke. Jokes are great. I think that was a funny joke. I think people will like the bit about it being Monday when in fact it was Tuesday. Very chirpy but I don't think my toes were tapping at all."

Scott Walker (March 1967)
Song: "Where in the World" • Artist: Matt Monro
"That's beautiful. Gorgeous. I love it. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. You've got the greatest string arrangers in the world in Britain. This is probably too good to be a hit. Matt does everything well and I don't think he sounds like Sinatra at all. Because Britain lacks standards singers, you tend to make comparisons all the time. We have so many standards singers in the States we don't make comparisons. It's a load of crap to say he sounds like Sinatra. Who arranged it? Oh, George Martin. Yes, you've got a million good arrangers."

Brian Jones (March 1965)
Song: "All Summer Long" • Artist: The Beach Boys
"This brings back memories of California. It sounds like the Beach Boys but it could be the Trade Winds. It's probably the Beach Boys. It sounds like a Brian Wilson production. They usually sing better than this. Actually it's terrible. I'm sorry, because Brian Wilson is a pretty good producer. 'I Get Around' was beautiful but this is corny. I wouldn't have been surprised if that was a British group trying to get a surf sound."

Mick Jagger (February 1966)
Song: "So Much In Love" • Artist: Charles Dickens
"I wrote this song with Keith. I don't know whether it will be a hit but I hope so because he's a nice, gentlemanly young man. There's an unbelievably corny bit coming. There it is. We wrote it about three years ago. Andrew Oldham produced this. Yeah, I hope it's a hit for everybody's sake."

posted by Atom Eyes (17 comments total)

For anyone who thinks TWoP invented the snarky review…
posted by hwyengr at 2:52 PM on February 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Andrew Oldham's recent one is fun. He hates everything ... except one he realizes he owns the publishing on.
posted by philip-random at 3:14 PM on February 15, 2023

I liked the mini-documentary on Andrew Oldham's British Answer to Pet Sounds (by Del Shannon of all people). I've been meaning to get round to listening to it, but haven't quite managed it.

(As the Del Shannon record didn't successfully answer Pet Sounds, Oldham tried again with Billy Nichols. Yes, Sgt Pepper, I know, but that Andrew Loog Oldham wasn't the kind of person to take Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for a an answer.)
posted by Grangousier at 3:24 PM on February 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you'd like to read these as originally presented, World Radio History has quite a lot of Melody Maker.
posted by offog at 5:28 PM on February 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Downbeat magazine used to do a Blindfold Test column as well and it was always impressive to read what a pro can (and sometimes can't) pick up by ear. It was always my favorite part of the issue. (For all I know they still do it, it's been decades since I read.) But yeah, it was a little more technical in focus and there was certainly no speculation on whether each jazz recording would be a hit.

You drew me into this thread by leading with the Ringo review. I love the fact that he is the crankiest Beatle.
posted by anhedonic at 5:37 PM on February 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

downbeat still does that
posted by pyramid termite at 7:25 PM on February 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is the sort of thing I will do when I'm 40

gah
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:27 PM on February 15, 2023 [5 favorites]

downbeat still does that

(The) Wire also does something similar with their Invisible Jukebox. Though their selections are seemingly tailored to the interviewee in question (friends, collaborators, potential influences/influenced, etc.). Signal to Noise had a similar feature, though I don't remember when their version started (I want to say halfway through their run, but I'm not positive) or if they continued it all the way to their end in 2013.
posted by gtrwolf at 10:22 PM on February 15, 2023

If you like these, youmay also enjoy the Juke Box Jury clips on YouTube. It's a 1960s BBC panel show doing exactly the same thing. The early episodes are amusingly archaic. Sometimes they did specials, such as an episode with all four Beatles. The show was revived in the late seventies with outspoken punks John Lydon and Jimmy Pursey on the juries.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:19 PM on February 15, 2023

These are fun. But they seem like exact transcriptions of what these people are saying off the cuff. Would have been better to have a little more curation and light editing in the interviews, asking for additional detail, etc. But thanks.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:01 AM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

The casual, conversational quality is what I enjoy about them. Feels like you're right in the room with these almost mythic personalities. You can practically hear their voices in your head as you (or the voiceover robot) read along.
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:36 AM on February 16, 2023

I've been watching these for a while now. I find their effect cumulative. Like one random snapshot from almost sixty years ago is interesting, but a whole bunch of them start to really build a world, tell a story. Which in the case of London, mid-60s onward, would concern the cool, wild centre of the universe (western culturally speaking) ... revealed (to me anyway) as somehow less euphoric than I would have imagined, more real. In a good way. Because in building a world based entirely on what was trending on the pop (and beyond) charts of Britain, you don't just get the music (and the critique), you also get inevitable dimensions of yearning, dreaming, scamming, bitching, drugging, expanding, contracting ... swinging.
posted by philip-random at 8:45 AM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is wonderful. I love that virtually every single one - whether he likes it or doesn't - "won't sell." I can't wait to work through the rest of the links.
posted by AgentRocket at 9:17 AM on February 16, 2023

There used to be a similar show on BBC Radio One on Friday evenings called Roundtable - a presenter, a dj and a couple of popular artists.
One time (and I can find no trace of this online, so you'll have to trust my memory) they played Supertramp's It's Raining Again and one of the guests was John Peel - he eviscerated that song at great length (and it is a terrible song -"Come on, you little fighter/No need to get up-tighter" - fuck you Supertramp).
Then they did a thing they sometimes did - switched over to a band member who had been listening to what the panel had been saying on the phone.
As I remember, Roger Hodgson, when the presenter asked him how he was doing, laconically replied, "I'm in LA. On my yacht."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:30 PM on February 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Ginger Baker is more generous than I would have expected.

I wish we had audio recording of the interviews, but I'll have to settle for Wakko Warner TTS.
posted by credulous at 6:41 PM on February 16, 2023

And as expected Paul is pretty bullish on all the singles. He does keep projecting his own fears of musical stagnation onto the artists.
posted by credulous at 6:50 PM on February 16, 2023

Keith Moon: "He sounds like he's singing to a photograph of his missus, pipe, and slippers." lol
posted by credulous at 7:00 PM on February 16, 2023