"Reading This Book Could Cost You a Lot of Money"

"In the early days of recording, trained opera singers (sopranos especially) often broke the tubes of radio transmitters. Among the early adopters of the latest kit was Bing Crosby, who, as well as working out that the tape-recorder would let him put out 'live' radio shows while he was on the golf course, also realised that not having to belt out a tune to the back row of the gods meant he could sing more intimately. So influential was his one-to-one sound that a few years later Mercury's Mitch Miller had Vic Damone singing in a lavatory cubicle, the better to make his out-of-this-world baritone a bit more down-to-earth."

Christopher Bray at The Critic reviews Bob Stanley's Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop.

"We Were Lucky to Have Him, and He Knew It"

"Of course, Richard Penniman's sonic impact was only part of his outrageous long-term cultural impact. An erotic wild man, a drag queen, with a pencil moustache and pancake makeup, he had no predecessors; no one was about to confuse him with Dickie Valentine. Think how far beyond description Prince and Bowie seemed at their point of breakthrough, then think how Richard Penniman was doing much the same–and with greater extravagance–two to three decades earlier."

Upon Little Richard's death, Bob Stanley writes an appreciation at The Guardian.

Join Our Club

"It's interesting you say that. I used to read interviews with Julian Cope [of the Teardrop Explodes] or Nick Heyward of [Haircut 100] and they would talk about their influences really openly, and it was like opening a door: if you like what I do, here's where it all comes from. We probably overdid that, and it looked like we were showing off."

Michael Hann at The Guardian interviews Bob Stanley about the twenty-fifth anniversary of Saint Etienne's Foxbase Alpha.

"The Fulcrum of the Decade"

"When TV shows run through Christmas No 1s of years past, Tom Jones's 'Green, Green Grass of Home' always sticks out like a sore thumb, a blear country song about a man returning to his childhood home that was No 1 for seven weeks over the 1966 Christmas period and well into January 1967. How did this happen?
"A fortnight before it came out, more than 100 children had died in the Aberfan mining disaster; the country was in deep shock. In the pre-Band Aid era, before charity records were the norm, 'Green, Green Grass of Home' was bought as an act of remembrance, somehow blending 'How Green Was My Valley' and a funeral dirge. In Jones's hands, the song sounded more Welsh than Appalachian–it had 'a death-haunted lyric that offered some surcease within a nation still coming to terms' with Aberfan, 'reminding everyone of lives cut short and the impossibility of going back'.
"I've never heard anyone make the connection before. This is not only fine pop writing, but social history of a high order."

Bob Stanley in The Guardian reviews Jon Savage's 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded.

"Like an English Lindsey Buckingham"

"Even at this stage, Tarney was clearly interested in adult pop–I'm Your Man Rock'n'Roll didn't sound much like rock'n'roll to me, not as Led Zeppelin, Gene Vincent or even the Rubettes would have known it, but on Top of the Pops Tony Blackburn pointed out that Tarney had played all of the instruments bar the drums on their sleek single. That marked him out as different. With an ATV Music publishing deal, he had apparently spent the session musicians' money on extra studio time, and becoming an adept guitarist and keyboard player as well as learning his way around a mixing desk. Alan Tarney was a studio-bound pop fan, one who went for smoothness and warmth over angularity and shock. The introduction of synthesisers into the equation would be the making of him."

Bob Stanley in The Guardian calls Alan Tarney "the greatest British pop producer you've never heard of."

"Lysergically Enhanced Parlour Music"

"Its heyday ran from the tail end of psychedelia to the birth of punk and it made great use of string quartets, woodwinds, and summer-into-autumn melancholy. While it never grabbed the pop world as a chart-conquering genre, its velvety touch was never that far away. This was a sound informed by Paul McCartney's contributions to The White Album, the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, Scott Walker's weighty chamber pop, and a dash of Crosby, Stills & Nash harmony. Just add a harpsichord, a pot of tea, a ginger cat on the windowsill, and you've got the picture."


In a 2007 Guardian article, Bob Stanley praises 1960s baroque pop.

Aphrodite's Child

"With its stark red, black and white cover it looked more like an Angry Brigade communique than a Genesis album. The band had hinted at apocalypse before on their 1969 single End of the World, with a quiet/loud structure that anticipated the Pixies and Nirvana, but their pastoral moments were nowhere to be found on the dense 666. Vangelis's production was tough but spacious, at its most head-spinning on The Four Horsemen, a chunky funk groove, with a guitar wig-out and Beach Boys-esque backing vocals. 666 was rediscovered in the 1990s, and has since been sampled by everyone from Air to Euro pranksters Scooter (it was also, apparently, the Verve's main inspiration for Urban Hymns)."


Bob Stanley in The Guardian writes a tribute to Greek singer Demis Roussos.

Unchained Melodies

"Como summed up the new sound; he was all about security, soda, and a short back and sides. A poll once claimed Como was America's ideal husband, but he was nobody's ideal lover."

Bob Stanley on The Guardian's music blog looks back to the pop music of the pre-rock 'n' roll era.

Bombs Away

"Which leads you to wonder what the hell happened in 1983. It was almost as if the country was tired of mavericks, had heard enough about unemployment figures and ghost towns and nuclear threat. They wanted glamour, in a Seaside Special way. Duran Duran had their first No 1 in 1983. Paul Young, Wham! and Howard Jones - considerably more pliable and predictable than OMD or ABC - were the year's new stars. Waiting around the corner, jacket sleeves already rolled up, was Nik Kershaw.
"According to Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners, the music industry had started to become 'incredibly conservative. I was dealing with people who were much more careerist. At Mercury, by 1985, there were loads of public-school people - millions of them.'"

Bob Stanley in The Guardian identifies the 1980s as a heyday for musicians committing commerical suicide.