They've just re-released the twentytwo original Beatles singles, plus Yesterday," which never was a single here before. Three of them are in the top thirty already, "Yesterday" climbing fastest, and the rest are bubbling under. It won't be long methinks, before the Beatles hold every place from one to twenty, and our lives, according to a prophesy I read in 1964, will then be over. A dumb way to. go and I also think, listening to these tracks on the radio, hour after hour, that the Beatles are the most overrated group ever — they're so chirpy and they don't understand the principles of disco dancing at all.

(While I'm on this subject, the second most overrated group is the Who, who just don't write tunes that I can hum, though this isn't the same as being the most boring group [Chicago] or the worst [Jethro Tull] . The most overrated producer ever is Phil Spector [when you've heard one of his efforts, you've heard them all] who is also the second most boring person to interview [after Jimmy Page, who is about the twelfth best guitarist]. The*most boring producer is Richard Perry and the worst is Lou Reed, though I don't know if he's ever produced anything. The most overrated guitarist is Jerry Garcia, the most boring is whoever it is plays it in Status Quo and the worst is Tommy Bolin. The most obnoxious person in rock is probably Paul Rodgers [who is also the best singer] but may be Keith Moon [who is also not the best singer]. The most boring songwriter is a tie between John Denver and Jackson Browne and the best, without compare in fact, is Jonathan Richman, who is a master of metre. The worst songwriter , is Ringo, who's the best drummer. Three songs I've never liked are "Satisfaction," "Love The One You're With" and "Hey Jude," because they're all so smug.)

Getting back with the Beatles, their problem was that THEY COULDN'T BOOGIE! I blame Ringo because he was too British and didn't take things seriously enough. The Beatles, after Ringo joined them, were either a pop group having fun, or they were singer/ songwriters manque haying fights, and Ringo drummed along either way. But they never were the boogie band they might have been and once they became famous they hardly played a serious live gig again. Which is where the Stones came in, because they were very serious, being , blues buffs, and they turned having a good time into something of social and political significance, though it mostly took Americans to realise this.

The point is (and having all their records back in the charts makes *it clear) that the Beatles continue to exercise an extraordinary dominance over British pop taste and that means no boogie, or at least not much. So, we don't like Grand Funk or Bachman Turner Overdrive (or Aerosmith or Kiss, whoever they may be) and we think that you're plumb crazy buying such British bores as Savoy Brown and Foghat. Of the British bands we all like, you break the heavies (Deep Purple, Humble Pie, Black Sabbath) and we break the glittery ones (Bowie, Roxy Music, Queen). We don't like riffs, or plain people or long lank hair, we do like songs and comeliness and a touch of eccentricity. Our most favourite live bands must have a star singer to admire — Daltrey, Plant, Jagger, Rodgers. Peter Frampton's career is typical: as a pretty young man with Herd, a pop group, we bought him and you didn't; as a less pretty older man with Humble Pie, a boogie band, we both did but you did more; and now, as a skinny-riffing guitarist you buy him a lot and we find him a touch tedious. So it goes and he's American now anyway.

I guess the Beatles were our counter to Quaaludes, which never got downed too much over here except at the Roundhouse, a shady London place, on Sunday afternoons, when a succession of Round-house-bands tried to play the right sort of bombed out heavy boogie and duly bombed out, heavily. Some of them became Foghat, most of them couldn't afford the transatlantic crossing and became postmen. The exception, which proves all these rules, are Status Quo, who have longer, lanker, hair than Grand Funk ever did and play less tunes louder. Every eight months they release the same album which duly tops the charts and scurries back to whence it came. They wear blue jeans and I try hard to like them (they're hip'now, for everyone) but secretly I prefer the Beatles and I think that, secretly, most people do. Which is why they're takipg over the charts again. And why there'll be no hope for us when the world does end. And why there's no hope for, say, Kiss, here meanwhile.^