Shag, anyone?

I wonder if anyone's written a thesis on bubblegum? It wouldn't surprise me. Disposable pop music as an art form. Though maybe not that disposable - much of its canon from the 70s has endured to this day and is still, annoyingly, as catchy as ever nearly half a century later. 

Acclaimed music critic Lester Bangs may have been on to something when he described bubblegum as  'the basic sound of rock and roll, minus the rage, fear and violence.' Which is probably why I still get a kick out of hearing songs like this. (BTW - look at the classic chart countdown in the background while the record's playing.)

Shag - Loop-di-Love (1972)

But if Jonathan King is too much for you to stomach, here's the original version sung, a year earlier, by Juan Bastos. Imagine the Pied Piper being followed through the streets of Amsterdam not by rodents but instead by nubiles in calf length boots and hot pants. Well it was 1971.

Juan Bastos - Loop-di-Love (1971)

Stockport

'UK' Acrylic on canvas

What I know about Stockport can be written on the back of an envelope. Actually, make that a postage stamp. However, I do know that, in the 1970s, 10cc used to work out of Strawberry Studios in Stockport and, in 1974, they recorded the mighty Wall Street Shuffle there. As an impressionable thirteen year old I remember being taken with the line 'Are you waiting for the hour when you can screw me, 'cos you're big enough?'

10cc came along at the right time for me: they straddled the boundary between 'bubblegum' and 'heavy rock' in such a way that kept both Tony Blackburn and Alan Freeman happy at the same time. Not 'arf.

10cc - The Wall Street Shuffle