plays some clangtastic power-chords on the air guitar

looks up

Oh.

Sorry.

leaves, dragging air-guitar behind him

https://youtu.be/t_e_45Szprk

My definition of a near-perfect pop song.

Not bad. Here's mine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIM579H-f7Y

The La's there she goes is my go-to song to illustrate pop perfection just because it is so simple.

Pop Music was 1979, surprisingly - thought it was a few years later than that.

I grew up in the 70s on The Beatles, Motown, Abba and my older cousin, Margaret’s, snap judgements on whatever was on Top of the Pops: anything black and American was great nearly everything else was ‘shit’.

Started reading the NME in 1983 and liked lots of those 80s NME type artists and their 60s/70s idols. But a Single of the Week review by Julie Burchill, of all people, of a Duran Duran* hit stopped me turning into a complete indie/classic rock bore.

If she hadn’t done that I’d probably, like most of my friends, have turned my nose up at anything in the top ten and missed out on Prince and Michael Jackson, Scritti Polliti and Madonna, Run DMC or the Pet Shop Boys.

Their loss, imo.

So cousin Margaret from Bromsgrove and Julie from Bristol set me on the right path and saved me from a wasted decade of earnest listening to The Cure, Jesus & Mary Chain or whatever else the NME was flogging that week. Although I did a fair bit of that too.

*she was winding up her readership for attention and notoriety long before she ever started at The Guardian.

Julie Burchill was a staff writer on the NME, ISTR. Her and Tony Parsons.

I had another cousin, Australian, who wrote for NME in the late-70s and shared office space with her and Parsons. Don’t know if he knew her personally but he expressed horror and incredulity that she was a fairly big name in mainstream journalism when I met him at a wedding in 2001, long after he’d left London and returned to Oz.

I like the summer sound of Echo Beach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNy8ePVkPVk

https://youtu.be/N2XAvwbld7U

Here's Martha with a another band latter on in her carrier.

The somewhat overlooked Man From Delmonte made some great pop songs in their short career:

https://youtu.be/B-iReDnGqZg

#10 love that. Had no idea that Martha of the Muffins was with the Associates for a while (turns out it was the *other* Martha). Not sure wtf she's doing with that violin though.

But a Single of the Week review by Julie Burchill, of all people, of a Duran Duran* hit stopped me turning into a complete indie/classic rock bore.

which single? I assume an early one. I prefer the later stuff. Wild Boys and The Reflex are great tracks. They actually really grew as a band - as opposed Spandau Ballet who had some brilliant early stuff but turned to shite.

Probably was The Reflex.

The early 80s synth pop/ new romantic scene was quite phenomenal was the sheer pace that some bands went from being art school weirdoes to smash hits darlings and I don't think anyone went quicker than Duran Duran.

I quite like the elegiac Ordinary World of late Duran Duran, the rest of it hasn't aged as well, amusing though it was at the time.

The Cure have aged very well compared to the Jesus and Mary Chain I think...

Essence of 1980

https://youtu.be/W8r-tXRLazs

I used to love Echo Beach but I played it to death I think.

Some of those 2tone things were great pop singles.

I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better by The Byrds is two and a half minutes of glorious, joyous popism.

Mind you, it's very much guitar pop.

So it's rock?

head explodes