Olivia Newton John - Xanadu

We begin Guilty Pleasures week with this splendid track.

Olivia Newton John was raised on some sexy Australian helium and then produced this with the Electric Light Orchestra. A million thanks will be yours if you can explain to me exactly what this psychedelic roller disco at a Grattan catalogue fashion shoot means.

Hairbrush rating - 5 out of 5. If you can't get into this you must be tragic or sober.

The Dirty Mac - Yer Blues

The supergroup of supergroups. Worth watching to see Mick Jagger make a thorough tit of himself in the first two minutes. Yer Blues indeed.

Badfinger - Come And Get It

"Come And Get It" was part of the soundtrack to the Magic Christian, one of my favourite films. A cheat since Paul McCartney both wrote and produced the record, but Badfinger are wierd beatle puppets on this record, which was of course, a big hit and one of those records you wish the Beatles had actually recorded themselves. You wonder what it might have been if McCartney had become a producer after he left the Beatles.

Note that Jimmy Saville is ageless, looking like an excited gonk in a kaftan. What was he injesting in the late 1960s?



The Magic Christian is also worth a watch, for the sheer excess.

Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger

Oasis like to think of themselves as the bearer of all things Beatle. Keeper of the Brit rock flame.

Their pilfering of Beatles stylings is slavish, not least Liam Gallagher's snarl is naked aping the throaty growl of Lennon on "Money".

Attitude is part of rock n roll's appeal, and Oasis capture that brilliantly. This is the only indie song I've ever heard townies sing after eight pints of lager. For mass appeal, Oasis may have briefly rivalled the Beatles in playing to Knebworth, and when they played this, the atomsphere was electric.

I've since heard that they've split up, owing to the fact they hate each other. Frankly I'm amazed that both Gallagher brothers are still alive, but it might be an opportunity for Noel to pair up with Frank Gallagher of Shameless fame. That might almost be as good as this tune, which features another personal television fave Patrick Macnee from the Avengers.

Electric Light Orchestra - Mr Blue Sky

One style of the Beatles seems almost uncopyable, which is the full on, perculiar pyschedelic stylings of "I Am Walrus".

The Electric Light Orchestra made a career out of copying that production style, of chugging strings and light vocals, with bombastic lyrics and vigorous attitude to overdubbing that might even caused George Martin to change his tie. You couldn't eat a whole ELO album but one song occasionally will do.

While John Lennon declared them once to being the closest thing to how his music sounded in his head (gad!), he wasn't to know how the ELO would come to influence their mentors, thirty years later with Jeff Lynne producing the Anthology project rather than Martin.



Still, they could have got Phil Spector in again, so be grateful.

The Monkees - Last Train To Clarksville

Beatleshills wouldn't be complete with the Monkees, the original, pre designed copyists. Plastic Beatles. Scream your corporate screams now, kids!

The Monkees became their own strange brew in time, even if they weren't exactly musical innovators at the start, and their movie "Head" proves that they were no slouches. If the Beatles hooked up with the Goons and Monty Python, then the Monkees hung out with the beacon of oddness that is Frank Zappa. That, and the LSD, plainly had an effect.

Here they are being cute, doing their best rip of "Ticket to Ride".

Elliott Smith - Somebody That I Used to Know

A sad one this.

I have a lot of Elliott Smith records, and his elegant guitar and charming voice made for a good weekend. His light voice and McCartneyesque stylings on the guitar were a treat. That this sounds a little like later period Lennon and McCartney at the same time is delightful.

If you like this, you'll enjoy his album "Figure Eight", which is as Beatlesque as he ever was.

Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

Cheap Trick live up to their name pretty well. This has its fair chunk of Beatles stylings. But they've often admitted it, and they are so good at taking the piss that they are forgiven.

The Raspberries - Let's Pretend

The Beatles are remembered as being musical revolutionaries. Really, their initial offerings were probably mushier and lovelier than later.

In the early 1970s, America produced a series of power pop bands which aped Beatles music so heavily that it was hard to tell the difference in production.
The Raspberries took this McCartney style mushiness and ran with it.

Anyway, this is a nice, slightly mushy song from men with beards and tight t shirts. Enjoy.

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - Ford Mustang

I was out the other night with a chum who described driving a new Ford Mustang in the United States as slow and lumpy. He managed to get a speeding ticket nevertheless, but only with effort.

By contrast Ford Mustang of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin is a brilliant entente cordiale on wheels.

Serge Gainsbourg may have been valuable not only for his services to music and harassing Whitney Houston on television, but also to all men who resemble a badly groomed badger on the hunt for sex. How he ever secured the affections of Birkin is a mystery, but he was, even when alcohol had rendered him foul to the rest of the world, a quite brilliant musician.

Yvonne Elliman - Love Pains

A sleeper record, which wasn't a hit at the time.

Nevertheless, a great favourite of mine with a lovely bit of synth break. Agonised disco is in a class of its own.

Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip - A Letter From God To Man

I don't own this, but I should. It's a cracking record with a good sample. Smug yourself if you know where it came from.

Blur - The Universal

Here's how to tell if your youth is on the way out.

One, check your wardrobe. If you're thinking that looking like an extra from Sesame Street is no longer working for you, you may be getting old. One point.

You decide a lovely jumper is preferable to getting baadered, add another point.

Of course, some of us may always have appreciated a lovely jumper. But there is one test that tells you youth is gone. That test is when a record you treasured as a teenager is then used to advertise a car or financial product at you, fifteen years later.

"The Universal" is one of these. It now hoicks life insurance at me, which is apt. I am now at the stage where I may consider it useful, despite having done all the bad stuff in my twenties.

Peter Wyngarde - Neville Thumbcatch

Yes, its Monday and the sugar lump you placed in the coffee has dissolved. The trees are singing and the birds are swaying. The day seems normal.

Maybe too normal.

Records by actors are rarely any good because of the furious mugging that actors resort to behind a microphone (William Shatner being the leader of credo) but just occasionally this tendency produces something very special.

Such a special creation is Neville Thumbcatch by Peter Wyngarde. The original song is a freakbeat number by the Attack (a great mod band of the 1960s and is well worth listening to), but this cover, with its Stanshallesque voiceover, psychedelic twang, oompah instrumental and forward thinking break beats is definitive. If you thought that Richard Harris left his cake out in the rain in MacArthur Park, then this should flip your wig nicely.



More extreme oddities can be found on Peter's 1970 album, "When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head". For some unaccountable reason it was wildly unsuccessful, but those unafraid of the boundaries of convention might visit. Not probably the best choice for inviting your parents around to tea - though it does go some way to proving that you really can get away with saying almost anything if you sound posh enough.

Screaming Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You

Most of you are more likely acquainted with Nina Simone's version of this track, which is a cover of this highly original song.

I'm betting that all of you would rather Nina Simone put a spell on you than Screaming Jay Hawkins any day of the week after you've listened to this:

Weezer - Buddy Holly

Owned it once, but got unconscious at a party when I was 16 and the prized 7 incher was half inched as I visited the planet mong.

"Buddy Holly" remains THE drink cider and frug badly record in the living room record. If white US geeks must make records, they should all be this good.

The Third Degree - Mercy

Did you ever wonder what "Mercy" by Duffy would sound like if it was a proper Northern Soul record, rather than the anemic squeak that the original was?

No bother then as the Third Degree solved it for you. If you're in better condition than I am this week, shake a tailfeather to this:

Lunapop - Vespa 50 Special

Regular readers of the Pinkhalf will know of my love of all things Vespa. Hopefully we will have a new little one joining the household. You really have to ride one to know the joy that they provoke - and Lunapop have done this nice little track so that everyone can remember the first time they sat on Vespa 50.

Bix Beiderbecke - Sorry

In my current swine flu ridden state, I'm watching the excellent "Beiderbecke Affair", which has me giggling all over again at the kind of middle class cushion throwing that once passed muster for British drama before we all got into the world of forensic police cop serial killer investigation hobby series that goes on for years. I was raised on six tight episodes, pursued lips, and everyone wearing rather tatty clothes.

The Beiderbecke Affair centres around the sale of a series of Bix Beiderbecke records to an errant woodworking teacher, Trevor. So here's a sample of the wonderful Bix himself: