In Perfect Harmony

audiobook (Unabridged) Singalong Pop in '70s Britain

By Will Hodgkinson

cover image of In Perfect Harmony
Audiobook icon Visual indication that the title is an audiobook

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today
Libby_app_icon.svg

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

app-store-button-en.svg play-store-badge-en.svg
LibbyDevices.png

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Loading...
In 1970, pop was in trouble. The Beatles were no more. Pink Floyd gave up on singles altogether. Led Zeppelin dismissed anything beyond their 'musical statements' as childish frippery. Thankfully, help was on its way.
This comprehensive chronicle by music historian Will Hodgkinson explores how an unlikely mix of backroom songwriters, revitalised rockers, actors, producers, teen stars and children turned pop into the dominant sound and vision of the 1970s.
While bands such as the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac were ruling the albums chart, the singles chart was swinging along to the tune of million-selling blockbusters by the likes of Brotherhood of Man, the Sweet and the Wombles. These were the songs you heard on Radio 1, on Saturday-night TV, at youth clubs, down the pub and even emanating from your parents' record player...
It was never cool, but it was the real soundtrack of the decade.
Against a rainy, smog-filled backdrop of three-day weeks, national strikes, IRA bombings and the Winter of Discontent, this unending stream of novelty songs, sentimental ballads, glam-rock stomps and blatant rip-offs offered escape, uplift, romance and the promise of eternal childhood - all released with one goal in mind: a smash hit.
In Perfect Harmony takes the reader on a journey through the most colour-saturated decade in music, examining the core themes and camp spectacle of '70s singalong pop, as well as its reverberations through British culture since. This is the pioneering social history of a musical revolution.
In Perfect Harmony