The prostitutes in Naples flash by like lamposts. They stand, skirts hitched, by their bonfires of tyres and road rubbish and from the series of transistors come the sweet notes of the Bee Gees — “To Love Somebody.”

I haven’t recovered from this vision. 1 Cold fucking to Robin and Barry a$4; Maurice. Romantic eh? Whatever, my keen rock mind is melting; the only way I can cope is by cribbing an 'idea from , Charlie Gillett. Here is this month’s big eight.

1. David Bowie: “The Prettiest Star” (on Aladdin Sane) . r

\ I went to see Bowie again last week, a year after he first moved me. Earls Court isn’t Bradford Town Hall. I couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t hear a thing, and no-one was listening anyway. I’ve had the critic’s itch to explain glam-rock — laying bare the rock star ] myth and all that, funny but true. What rock audience has ever been so thoughtf ful? It’s all sex anyway innit? All Bowie §|does is change your aim -7 man, you’ve got enough zones of your own. , Ah, Narcissus, I’ve never before seen such: a collection of ponced-up creeps bums and Australian accountants flashing their cocks at each other/ TV? stopped taking Bowie seriously. No themes on Aladdin Sane, just this great track to preen by. Put the speakers either side of the mirror; turn it up, get it up — wow, you’ve never iknown such self-abuse.

2. T. Rex: “Left Hand Luke” (on Tanx)

Little Marc’s been losing out in the masturbation stakes. Stuck in the middle; his teenies comfy on their Donny pillows, his hairies after Alice’s blood. Tanx is a desperate album, filing on the images, putting on the style. No lyric sheets, no musicians credited, just Marc’s fey voice, sparse guitar and dancing riffs. “Left Hand Luke” puts them in front of an orchestra and chorus,x gives them genuine power. Marc’s boasting — “Ami sexy, yeah!” — has become a plea — “Am I sexy, please?” — and that’s as much*as we’re going to get from the little boppe&ft

3. Danny O’Keefe: “The Road” (on O'Keefe)

Highways and dance halls, a good song takes you far, jf You write about the moon, g you dream about the stars,..

Bowie and Bolan aren’t uniquely self-obsessed. Everyone else is too. Lord* Slade have even got Noddy Holder at it: “So you think my singing’s out of time? Well it makes me money.”; and here’s Gary Glitter limping in: “Did you miss me when I was away? Did you hang my picture on your wall?” The net effect of all these fellows singing about themselves is boredom — when you’ve seen into one star’s mind, you’ve seen into them all. The only I-am-a-singer-ina-rock-and-roll-band song which says anything at all is Danny O’Keefe’s account of two bit success on the Southern circuit:

Gamblers in the neon, , clinging to guitars v . You’re right about the moon, you’re wrong about the stars.

So there. >

4. Hot Chocolate: “Brother Louie”

The main line of retreat from glamrock is straightforwardly backwards — rock'n’roll, love. The pub groups — Brinsley Schwarz, Bees Make Honey, Ducks Deluxe, Kilburn and the High Roads have always amused the critics; they’re picking up their own crowds pretty nippily. But however good, however eclectic, however delicious, these bands are as self-conscious as Bowie. It’s not just the nostalgia, the lounging in our past, this sort, of music can't be about anything except itself. It’s impossible, for example, for anyone in 1973 (even for Dave Edmunds) to write or perform a Spector ballad that’s about anything except Spector. “Brother Louie” is refreshing just because it has a message and a corny, Micky Most message at that. Black boy meets white girl, talk turns to love and marriage. But his parents don’t like nOnkies much and her father (Alexis Korner) certainly isn’t having a spook in his family. Mutual sadness as the chorus pine together —. love, what’s wrong with that? Nothing, if you keep off God and mankind and dream about the girl next door.

5. Grin: All Out

For the last few months Greg Shaw has been proclaiming the great American pop revival — the old values, melody, plot and> production are coming back in a non-nostalgic form. It may be happening there but nqf in England. Our ‘pop revival’ has been ponfined to stomping, to the boogaloo. The gentler American stuff hasn’t made it. I don’t care about the Raspberries or Curt Boetcher (boring,; boring, boring) but nobody bought Albert Hammond’s ‘It Never Rains In California5 or Lobo’s ‘I’d Love You To Want Me’, truly good radio singles, and Big Star hasn’t even been issued — I’ve never heard them. The first Stories and T»rin albums pad out the racks of the reviewer reject shops and I bet their new records get the same treatment. It’s particularly stupid that Nils Lofgren is unappreciated. As Greil Marcus said long ago, he’s a vital contributor to the rocker tradition. He doesn’t need to make-up his star quality; that mixture of innocence

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and intensity, that authority, can’t be faked. Put it this way: self-consciousness in rock is the result of uncertainty — better ham it up just in case. Nils Lofgren’s got no such doubts.

6. Linda Lewis: “Rock A Doodle Doo”

Nor’s Linda. This single (she wrote and produced it) will be a hit and even if it isn’t it makes Linda the discovery of the year. I know she’s been around for years but she never knew what she was doing before — what does an English West Indian kid do? reggae? r‘n’b? singer/songwriter? Linda veered from showing off her remarkable vocal range to being shyly cute. She kept popping up on ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ and everyone thought she was sweet. She is, but she’s also decided to be a pop star. She’s got a grip on her talents and the coyness doesn’t show any more — she’s too confident, too powerful. It’ll be good for Lynsey De Paul to have a feminine rival — there’s been an awful gap in English pop since the strange disappearance of Dusty Springfield.

7. Kevin Ayers: Bananamour

These days American anglophiles know more about English pop than the English do. Linda Lewis’ album got a bigger review in CREEM than it did in Melody Maker and most English people would be amazed if they knew that grotty old groups like Savoy Brown and Foghat were still plugging away. But one category has escaped U. S. attentions — the progressive loon. These loons bury themselves in the most progressive of progressive groups; even ibigeared Greg Shaw only notices their occasional appearances with the Bonzos and their successors (presently Grimms).

Syd Barrett was the original progressive loon, David Bedford and Lol Coxhill are the main session-loons, Daevid Allen’s Gong is the loon group, but Kevin Ayers is the loon master. When he left Soft Machine they stopped doing neat numbers like “We Did It Again” and started on their endless droning. Kevin, meanwhile, made “Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes,” the best single of 1972 — a gripping drug song with the most painful piano solo on record. Kevin’s loving tribute to Syd Barrett could equally be addressed to himself:

You are the most extraordinary person,

You write the most peculiar kinds of tunes,

I met you floating while I was boating,

One afternoon.

And he’s prettier than Bowie.

8.Prince Jazzbo: ‘Mr. Harry Skank’

One of Kevin’s talents is reggae — his present mock calypso single, “Carribbean Moon,” may even be a hit. Reggae was going to be the American craze of 1973 but I doubt it. For most nonJamaicans reggae is a rhythm, something that can be added to any old melody pr style. Most of the reggae the BBC plays, for example, is instant stew, recent hits reggae-style. But ethnic reggae is a sound, a very muddy sound. The beat is built round the bass; nothing else is clear. In most contexts, for most ears, the result really is monotonous and I don’t expect anyone in America except Ed Ward to listen hard enough to decide otherwise. If anyone does break reggae it won’t be the Wailers (who’ve clarified the sound too much) but the more inventive Toots and the Maytals. Meantime I dig Mr. Harry Skank. This is a talk-over; the mood, beat and tension are held by a manic rap. I don’t understand a word. Which is where I started.