Mug Of Kintyre
January is a rotten month. Music that sounded quite jolly over Christmas emerges, shamefaced, from behind its tinsel and turns out pathetic, like drunken dreams the morning after. No one’s got any money left and so no one releases a record or even goes on tour.
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
Mug Of Kintyre
by Simon Frith
January is a rotten month. Music that sounded quite jolly over Christmas emerges, shamefaced, from behind its tinsel and turns out pathetic, like drunken dreams the morning after. No one’s got any money left and so no one releases a record or even goes on tour. The music papers have made their star predictions but, in reality, the new year’s tone is set by the worst of last year’s hits.
ror a while it sounded like that was going to be Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band’s “Floral Dance,” chirpy grandad music for anti-punks of all ages. Bing Crosby was dead, always a bad sign, and UA, ever hip to the eccentricities of British teenage taste, released the soundtrack of Casablanca. The message was plain: back to the oldest wave the moguls could find.