How 10cc Turned a Cheeky Joke into Pop Royalty
Picture the scene: it is late 1974, and inside Strawberry Studios in Stockport, four eccentric musical perfectionists are messing about. 10cc, known for their...
How The Sweet Dethroned David Bowie in 1973
Picture the scene in January 1973. Millions of British families sat huddled around their boxy colour telly sets, clutching a warm mug of tea,...
How Slade Turned a Joke Track Into a Christmas Number One
Picture the scene back in December 1973. British living rooms were glowing with the warm, flickering light of a boxy telly, families were arguing...
How Wings Paul McCartney Survived a Brutal Lagos Mugging
Picture the scene: Lagos, Nigeria, in the humid autumn of 1973. Fresh off the massive success of his post-Beatles career, Paul McCartney fancied recording...
How Paul McCartney Woke Up With History’s Most Famous Melody
Picture the scene: London in the spring of 1965. The Beatles had already conquered the telly, sent thousands of fans into a frenzy at...
Marc Bolan: How T. Rex Invented Glam Rock Magic
Picture the scene in early 1971. Families across Britain gathered around their boxy colour telly sets, sipping tea and bracing themselves for the weekly...
The Troggs Hated Their Greatest Smash Hit
Picture the scene back in 1966. The British Invasion was in full swing, and every lad with a fringe and a Fender was trying...
The Spencer Davis Group: How a Schoolboy Rocked Britain
Picture the scene across British living rooms in the mid-sixties. Families would huddle around the glowing telly on a Thursday evening, waiting for Top...
How Herman’s Hermits Dethroned The Beatles in America
Picture the scene in the spring of 1965. The British Invasion was in full swing, and four cheeky lads from Liverpool seemed completely unstoppable...
Gerry and the Pacemakers: The Story Behind Liverpool’s Anthem
Picture the scene down by the Pier Head on a grey, drizzly Mersey afternoon, where the fog rolls in thick enough to swallow the...
The Shadows: How One Twang Changed British Guitar Music Forever
Picture the scene across Britain in 1960. Families would gather round the glowing telly in the front room, or huddle close to a crackling...
Small Faces: How East End Skiving Created Psychedelic Magic
Picture the scene across London in the swinging sixties, where a bunch of cheeky lads from the East End decided that formal education was...
The Moody Blues: How Rejection Built a Late-Night British Anthem
Picture the scene: it is late 1967, and you are sitting in your living room, the flickering telly glowing softly as the rain lashes...
The Animals: How One Single Take Created a Rock Legend
Picture the scene in a cramped London studio back in May 1964. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, the amplifiers hummed with raw...
When Graham Nash Left The Hollies And Britain Behind
Picture the scene: London, 1967. The telly is flickering with bright technicolour, the Swinging Sixties are in full bloom, and The Hollies are churning...
The Jam: How Town Called Malice Made 1982 UK Chart History
It was the winter of 1982, and the nation was shivering under the icy grip of a recession that felt like it might never...
Duran Duran and the Explosive Bond Theme That Nearly Never Was
It was the mid-eighties, a time when the British charts were painted in the vibrant neon colours of the New Romantic movement. Among the...
Boy George and Culture Club: The Chameleon That Stole British Telly
It was 1983, and British households were huddled around their telly sets, nursing a lukewarm cuppa, expecting the usual fare on Top of the...
The Wham! Christmas Tragedy: How Last Christmas Lost the Number One
It is the sound of the season, a melody so woven into the British fabric of December that it feels like it has always...
Status Quo and the Boogie Anthem That Nearly Never Happened
If you grew up in the seventies, your Saturday nights were likely soundtracked by the relentless, driving energy of Status Quo. They were the...
