For a boy band looking to gain some artistic credibility there are a few options they can choose. Hook up with the latest trendy producer who can give their sound a hip edge; record an album of moody acoustic ballads to show what deeply poetic souls they really are; cover a Joy Division song in an “ironic” way; or have the lead singer reveal that he has a heroin problem.

But in the pre-punk 1970s there was another option that probably isn’t available these days: the concept album. This was the choice made by The Osmonds who, in an effort to prove that they were more than just toothy pin-ups, released the self-composed and produced “The Plan” in 1973 which was a concept album about their Mormon faith of all things. Hardly the most rock and roll of subjects to choose from but they were at least sticking to something they knew a lot about. The Osmonds were the world’s most famous members of that religion and the only things I knew about it I learned because of them. For instance, Donny Osmond’s favourite drink was 7-Up because Mormons weren’t allowed to drink alcohol or caffeine. I read that in one of my sister’s Jackie or Fab 208 magazines and for some bizarre reason I still remember it.

This was the only Osmonds album my sister bought and she probably got it because it had the big ballad “Let Me In” on it which is a lovely song but in the context of the album it sounds more like they’re singing it to Jesus instead of some young girl. It’s so dreamy I doubt if she noticed or cared though.

Download: Let Me In – The Osmonds (mp3)

Unfortunately for her the rest of the album was nothing like this. Instead the brothers went all out for the grand artistic statement and produced an overblown brew of acid rock, psychedelia, funk, and rootsy soul numbers with some dreadfully earnest and preachy lyrics. It has its moments but songs like “Traffic In My Mind” probably just made my sister wish she’d spent her record token on that David Cassidy album instead. In the lingo of the day, this is heavy, man.

Download: Traffic In My Mind – The Osmonds (mp3)

I’m sure we’ve all been to concerts that have been a little spoiled by overly-enthusiastic and aggressive people jumping around elbows flying like crazed loons knocking into everyone near them. Then there’s those twats who push in front of you right before the band come on, spoiling the nice view of the stage you got there early to secure. I hate those bastards.

This photo reminded me of the time I saw The Clash at The Lyceum in 1980 and I was surrounded by these skinheads who kept shouting “DO WHITE RIOT! DO WHITE RIOT!” and I’m thinking to myself “Please, don’t do ‘White Riot’” because I didn’t fancy being caught in the middle of a group of blokes wearing steel-toed Doc Marten’s all going berserk. I’d gone to that concert with my sister who insisted on standing right at the front centre stage so she could be near Joe Strummer (her latest object of desire at the time) though I told her not to because it would get crazy down front the minute the band kicked off. But you know what sisters are, don’t want to take advice from their younger brothers. Well, two songs in (“Clash City Rockers” and “Safe European Home”), I could see her from my nice spot at the side and she looked like she was drowning in a violent sea of bodies crushing her and knocking her all over the place and had this look on her face that said “Help!” so I had to wade into the heaving throng and pull her out. I didn’t like to say I told her so but I did. She’d been to a Bay City Rollers concert so you think she’d be used to an out of control crowd, those girls could be more aggressive than any punk or skinhead.

I’ve had a few hairy moments at concerts myself (being knocked to the floor and trampled on at a Banshees gig comes to mind) but nothing compared to standing on the terraces at a football match when a goal is scored and the crowd surges forward, literally sweeping you off your feet into a body-crushing mass of people. Though I must admit that could be as thrilling as it was scary.

Anyway, I’m not going to play “White Riot” either, here’s the b-side of “Complete Control” instead.

Download: City of The Dead – The Clash (mp3)

I’m just about old enough to remember a time when The Beatles were still together and making records but while they might have been bigger than Jesus back then they weren’t a major presence in our house when I was growing up. The only record of theirs my Mum had was a 45 of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” which I don’t remember her ever playing (though years later I would discover the lovely “This Boy” on the b-side and play it to death) and to be honest I preferred it that way, I’m glad I grew up thinking Sinatra was God and not John Lennon.

The only other Fab Four-related record in the house was this Wings single my sister bought in 1977 and I would like to congratulate her on her good taste, if she had to buy only one I’m glad it was this. When the day comes that Sir Paul is up in heaven with Lennon and the two of them are sitting on a cloud arguing about who wrote the best post-Beatles song this one should be top of Paul’s list, especially this live version. One listen to this and John would concede defeat.

Download: Maybe I’m Amazed – Wings (mp3)
Buy: “Wings Over America” (album)

He was a good-looking bastard that David Essex, with his sparkly eyes and dimply grin, and in the mid-70s there probably wasn’t a girl in England who didn’t want him to be her boyfriend. He flirted shamelessly with that desire on his lovey-dovey ballad “If I Could” which painted a picture of romantic bliss in such humdrum, ordinary-bloke terms — going to the pictures, having tea, picnics in the park, riding the bus — that every “Jackie”-reading teenybopper who heard it was able to imagine what it would be like if David really was her boyfriend in real life. He’d meet her outside the school gates wearing a blazer like the one he had on in “That’ll Be The Day” and make all her mates really jealous, they’d hold hands walking down the street, sit in the back row of the pictures, and maybe go to the Wimpy Bar for a Knickerbocker Glory afterwards. It’s like a “My Guy” photo romance set to music, and for a picture of schoolgirl heaven you couldn’t beat this verse:

Could you picture us
On a Number 9 bus
To Canning Town
We two

I always really liked that bit, back then pop lyrics were all about Jean Genies, Telegram Sams and Crazy Horses and I’d never heard a big pop star singing about something as ordinary as taking a bus — if Ray Davies had been a handsome teen idol he might have written something like it. So while the song is soppy as hell I did find David’s Cockney barrow boy charm very appealing (even if he does lay it on thicker than marmalade sometimes) and could understand how all the girls could go so weak at the knees and moist in the knickers over it — and they really did, I saw him sing it live on the telly back then and when he got to the line “If I were a plumber would you love me?” you could hear the voices of a thousand swooning young ladies scream back “YES DAVID!!!!”

Hell, I think I wanted him to be my boyfriend too.

Download: If I Could – David Essex (mp3)

Like every other girl her age in the early 1970s my sister had a major crush on David Cassidy who was the archetypal 70s teen heartthrob, a slim pretty boy with dimples and soft, feather-cut hair who exuded a fresh, tanned and clean all-American healthiness — plus he was a whole lot better looking than that goofy Donny Osmond kid.

Cassidy initially appeared on our radar as lead singer of The Partridge Family which was the first introduction into pop fandom for both me and my sister. They were the first pop group she ever had on her bedroom wall* (to be precise it was our bedroom wall at the time, we shared a room until I was 10) and the first single I remember owning (not one I bought myself) was their version of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” We both watched the TV show every week and while she was swooning over David I may have had a thing for Susan Dey, though she looked a little too much like my sister for me to be entirely comfortable with that thought now.

Until the Bay City Rollers came along David was bigger than sliced bread and Jesus among the teenybopper set, at one point his fan club had more members than any other in pop history and in 1973 he sold out Wembley Arena six nights in a row which was a record at the time. Unfortunately David-mania got badly out of hand the following year when a fan was killed and hundreds were hospitalized in the hysterical crush at his White City Stadium concert. At the inquest the coroner blamed “trendy, high platform shoes” for so many girls falling over and being trampled — so 1970s fashions weren’t just ugly, they could kill you too (as I can attest to myself after once getting my flares caught in the front wheel of a speeding bike and being hurled head-first over the handlebars.)

I really liked his single “Could It Be Forever” at the time but I was only 10 when it came out and hadn’t yet learned that I was supposed to regard my sister’s taste as a bit naff and girly. With it’s whispery vocal and pillowy mountains of strings it’s as soft and dreamy as David’s smile, and listening to it now I don’t mind saying I think it actually is rather good, beautifully-produced soft pop in the mold of The Carpenters. I still wouldn’t stick a picture of him on my bedroom wall though.

Download: Could It Be Forever – David Cassidy (mp3)
Buy: “Cherish” (album)

*The first pop poster I put on the wall was of The Jackson Five so I like to think I was hipper than my sister even then.

My sister endured merciless piss-taking from my mates and me over her Rollers fandom, calling their TV show “Shag-A-Slag” and other dazzling bon mots. She mostly just ignored it, treating our opinions with the special disdain reserved for younger brothers and their oik-ish, spotty mates. Not that our tastes were that sophisticated either as we thought Slade and ELO were the pinnacles of Western civilization at the time. But in a very mature moment my friend Graham admitted to her he thought that the track “Eagles Fly” was, you know, actually pretty good. She still wouldn’t go out with him though.

So don’t hate me until you’ve heard this record, it’s not bad at all with a laid-back, 70s East Coast acoustic rock vibe. They wrote it themselves too, so they weren’t just pretty faces. Actually, I thought they were a a plain-looking bunch, and bass guitarist Stuart “Woody” Wood was downright ugly. No wonder on the sleeve above it looks like Les McKeown is trying to hold him down and keep him out of the photo.

Download: Eagles Fly – Bay City Rollers (mp3)
Buy (or not): “Wouldn’t You Like It?” (album)