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In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain
A Telegraph Book of the Year
A Guardian Book of the Year
A Shindig Book of the Year
A Virgin Radio Book of the Year
'A colourful picture of the entire '70s in Great Britain.' - SUZI QUATRO
In 1970, pop was in trouble. The Beatles were no more. Pink Floyd devoted themselves to progressive epics. 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, during 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 unrelenting 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 a smash hit.
In Perfect Harmony takes the reader on a journey through the most colour-saturated era 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.
A Guardian Book of the Year
A Shindig Book of the Year
A Virgin Radio Book of the Year
'A colourful picture of the entire '70s in Great Britain.' - SUZI QUATRO
In 1970, pop was in trouble. The Beatles were no more. Pink Floyd devoted themselves to progressive epics. 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, during 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 unrelenting 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 a smash hit.
In Perfect Harmony takes the reader on a journey through the most colour-saturated era 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.
549 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2022
About the author
Will Hodgkinson
8 books25 followersHodgkinson is a journalist and author from London. He has written for The Guardian,The Independent and Vogue.Hodgkinson presents the Sky Arts TV show Songbook, in which he interviews contemporary songwriters.
Written in 2014, The House Is Full Of Yogis is his memoir.
Abridged from Wikipedia.
Written in 2014, The House Is Full Of Yogis is his memoir.
Abridged from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
January 11, 2026
This is a history of 1970s pop music which avoids the usual suspects, the cool and the credible, in favour of the critically reviled and terminally unhip. Under the catch-all term ‘singalong pop’ Will Hodgkinson explores a wide variety of artists who sold millions of records without ever being even vaguely trendy: kiddie pop, teenybop and mums and dads favourites. It’s not so much a walk on the wild side as a stroll down the middle of the road. Hodgkinson isn’t the first pop historian to praise the ‘brickie glam’ of Slade and Sweet, but he ventures deeper into wildly unfashionable and critically uncharted territory: Europop and cockney knees-ups, balladeers ‘in ruffled Regency shirts and mod bouffants’, adolescent heartthrobs David Cassidy, Donny Osmond and the Bay City Rollers, the James Last Orchestra, novelty pop from the Wombles and the Muppets, the ‘suburban disco’ of Tina Charles and Leo Sayer. He must be the first critic to compare Clive Dunn’s 1971 nostalgic confection Grandad, which the flat-capped Dunn performed on Top of the Pops from a rocking chair, to early Pink Floyd, or to examine the success of Sylvia Vrethammar’s maddeningly catchy 1974 rendition of Y Viva Espana within the context of Britain’s evolving cultural and political relationship with Europe.
The prime movers in this strand of ‘70s pop were professional songwriters, producers and session musicians, with groups playing a subsidiary role. In fact the groups were often non-existent. Songwriters and producers like Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, Tony Macaulay, Jonathan King and John Carter churned out countless hits by a plethora of bands none of whom existed as anything more than a name on a record label. The session singer Tony Burrows is said to have appeared several times on a 1970 edition of Top of the Pops ’jumping from one made-up band to another’. Sometimes the groups weren’t even human but puppets or cartoon characters.
This cheerful and melodic music provided escapism in a Britain of lengthening dole queues and spiralling inflation, industrial conflict and terrorist bombs. But, as Hodgkinson shows, it also reflected the times and was capable of social commentary. Blue Mink’s Melting Pot was a somewhat clumsy yet well-intentioned attack on racism (in the ironic light of posterity some of the lyrics now seem a tad racist themselves) released shortly after the notorious Rivers of Blood speech by right-wing demagogue Enoch Powell, while I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony) by the New Seekers offered a utopian vision of universal togetherness, albeit one that involved the consumption of sugary drinks. United We Stand by Brotherhood of Man, a later incarnation of which won the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest, became a gay liberation anthem (and subsequently a Manchester United football chant). Even the Wombles, those pointy-nosed furry creatures who cleared up and recycled the litter on Wimbledon Common, reflected emerging environmental concerns.
In Perfect Harmony is a fascinating exploration of a lost musical universe spawned from cabaret, working men’s clubs, advertising jingles, children’s TV and Saturday night variety shows. It’s meticulously researched and written with an affectionate wit and refreshing lack of snobbery. It also serves as a useful reminder that the public is often ahead of the critics. ABBA, the Bee Gees and the Carpenters, all now universally recognised as classic pop, were critically lambasted at the time despite being immensely popular. In this regard it was gratifying to see the Godlike genius Lally Stott, composer of the immortal Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, getting some long-overdue respect (this, of course, has nothing to with the fact that Lally was my mum’s cousin). Hodgkinson is a perceptive writer who understands that inspiration and commercial calculation, far from being mutually antagonistic, are the essential twin motors of all truly great pop, and recognises the inventiveness, originality, and often downright weirdness, in records usually dismissed as musical garbage. He also achieves the not inconsiderable feat of arguing the social significance of the likes of the Wombles and the St Winifred’s School Choir without ever sounding remotely pretentious or, indeed, unhinged.
The prime movers in this strand of ‘70s pop were professional songwriters, producers and session musicians, with groups playing a subsidiary role. In fact the groups were often non-existent. Songwriters and producers like Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, Tony Macaulay, Jonathan King and John Carter churned out countless hits by a plethora of bands none of whom existed as anything more than a name on a record label. The session singer Tony Burrows is said to have appeared several times on a 1970 edition of Top of the Pops ’jumping from one made-up band to another’. Sometimes the groups weren’t even human but puppets or cartoon characters.
This cheerful and melodic music provided escapism in a Britain of lengthening dole queues and spiralling inflation, industrial conflict and terrorist bombs. But, as Hodgkinson shows, it also reflected the times and was capable of social commentary. Blue Mink’s Melting Pot was a somewhat clumsy yet well-intentioned attack on racism (in the ironic light of posterity some of the lyrics now seem a tad racist themselves) released shortly after the notorious Rivers of Blood speech by right-wing demagogue Enoch Powell, while I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony) by the New Seekers offered a utopian vision of universal togetherness, albeit one that involved the consumption of sugary drinks. United We Stand by Brotherhood of Man, a later incarnation of which won the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest, became a gay liberation anthem (and subsequently a Manchester United football chant). Even the Wombles, those pointy-nosed furry creatures who cleared up and recycled the litter on Wimbledon Common, reflected emerging environmental concerns.
In Perfect Harmony is a fascinating exploration of a lost musical universe spawned from cabaret, working men’s clubs, advertising jingles, children’s TV and Saturday night variety shows. It’s meticulously researched and written with an affectionate wit and refreshing lack of snobbery. It also serves as a useful reminder that the public is often ahead of the critics. ABBA, the Bee Gees and the Carpenters, all now universally recognised as classic pop, were critically lambasted at the time despite being immensely popular. In this regard it was gratifying to see the Godlike genius Lally Stott, composer of the immortal Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, getting some long-overdue respect (this, of course, has nothing to with the fact that Lally was my mum’s cousin). Hodgkinson is a perceptive writer who understands that inspiration and commercial calculation, far from being mutually antagonistic, are the essential twin motors of all truly great pop, and recognises the inventiveness, originality, and often downright weirdness, in records usually dismissed as musical garbage. He also achieves the not inconsiderable feat of arguing the social significance of the likes of the Wombles and the St Winifred’s School Choir without ever sounding remotely pretentious or, indeed, unhinged.
July 23, 2026
This is a book about unserious music: bubblegum, teen idols, fake bands, advertising jingles, children’s television characters, glam, disco, adult contemporary. It’s also a very enjoyable book. Hodgkinson is a good storyteller, and I think he gets the tone right, reveling a bit in the silliness of it all, while acknowledging that this music says something about its time and place and, occasionally, achieves a sort of bizarre glory.
Hodgkinson balances several angles. He paints the backdrop of 1970s Britain, a bleak-sounding time of garbage strikes and inflation, when people turned toward the sunniest pop to escape from their troubles. On top of that, he layers a ton of good stories about the musicians themselves and how they created their songs, many of them from direct interviews he conducted for the book. One of the most fascinating phenomena is the proliferation of fake bands, usually created by studio professionals who needed to put faces to their hits. One man, Tony Burrows, sang on four top ten hits by four different fake bands in the span of a few months (including the great “(Love Grows) Where My Rosemary Goes”). Tony Macaulay, a songwriter in this scene, delivered an amusing rant about why this kept happening:
Hodgkinson also has the ability to write well about music and capture the spirit of the songs. He impressed me by including the Sex Pistols in his book and putting them in the chapter about kids’ music. There are a few points where he really nails the paradox of singalong pop, describing it as “beyond good or bad” and “deeply weird and creative in a way that’s so accessible and appealing, it becomes very easy to dismiss it as empty and meaningless.”
Since this is a book about music, I made a playlist with many of the songs mentioned.
Hodgkinson balances several angles. He paints the backdrop of 1970s Britain, a bleak-sounding time of garbage strikes and inflation, when people turned toward the sunniest pop to escape from their troubles. On top of that, he layers a ton of good stories about the musicians themselves and how they created their songs, many of them from direct interviews he conducted for the book. One of the most fascinating phenomena is the proliferation of fake bands, usually created by studio professionals who needed to put faces to their hits. One man, Tony Burrows, sang on four top ten hits by four different fake bands in the span of a few months (including the great “(Love Grows) Where My Rosemary Goes”). Tony Macaulay, a songwriter in this scene, delivered an amusing rant about why this kept happening:
But in the world of bands you have some guy who is working on a building site one week and doing Top of the Pops the next and none of them have any fucking discipline. They may look good. Sometimes they even sound good. But they have no professional integrity and we all got so sick of them breaking up and fighting all the time and just being so bloody amateurish that a whole bunch of us, subconsciously or not, thought that what we do is driven by the song, so out of sheer frustration we sort of eliminated the act.
Hodgkinson also has the ability to write well about music and capture the spirit of the songs. He impressed me by including the Sex Pistols in his book and putting them in the chapter about kids’ music. There are a few points where he really nails the paradox of singalong pop, describing it as “beyond good or bad” and “deeply weird and creative in a way that’s so accessible and appealing, it becomes very easy to dismiss it as empty and meaningless.”
Since this is a book about music, I made a playlist with many of the songs mentioned.
September 28, 2024
In Perfect Harmony (a title taken from one of the most famous and all-pervading manufactured pop songs of all time), is a not entirely harmonious account of Seventies pop - not Rock (with a capital R), mind you, but the songs that sold singles by the ton and were seemingly everywhere until they were replaced by the next big thing. ‘Singalong pop’ in the words of Will Hodgkinson’s apt subtitle. It’s an admirable undertaking and its 500+ pages are full of fascinating stories and larger than life characters, which make it a page-turning joy to read, particularly for someone like me for whom much of the music described in the book was the soundtrack of my childhood. But it has its faults: the author’s attempts to tie the story of the music into the social history of that drab and disappointing decade don’t really work and I would have liked to know much more about the experience of fandom; but the strangest thing about the book is how predominantly white it is. While some black artists and groups make an appearance (Hot Chocolate, The Equals, Boney M), there’s no room for the countless American groups who always seemed to be on Top of the Pops in the Seventies: no Stylistics, no O’Jays, no Barry White, not even the Jackson Five, and from the UK , no The Real Thing or Billy Ocean. For artists who were such a fundamental part of the Seventies pop scene, it seems like a strange omission.
October 20, 2023
An enjoyable history of pop (definitely not rock) music in Britain in the 1970s, a period bookended by two songs about grandparents that reflect the changes during the decade.
Told against the background of the political and societal upheavals of the time with as much emphasis on the listeners as on the musicians and their producers and managers. The book also takes in other elements of pop culture from the time - magazines, TV, films - many of which were vehicles for pop music and/or pop stars at the time. Hodgkinson's extensive research has enabled him to gain first-hand accounts of the time from many key people.
Full of interesting (first-hand) accounts, snippets of trivia, and new bits of information (I never knew about Pete Waterman's role in the start of the Two Tone movement!). More than just a rose-tinted nostalgia fest, Hodgkinson skilfully navigates the appearance of the likes of the vile Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter, Jonathan King, Tam Paxton to create a true picture of the period with all it's glam and grime.
A great read, so much so that I'll even forgive the continual misspelling of the band Smokey [sic].
Told against the background of the political and societal upheavals of the time with as much emphasis on the listeners as on the musicians and their producers and managers. The book also takes in other elements of pop culture from the time - magazines, TV, films - many of which were vehicles for pop music and/or pop stars at the time. Hodgkinson's extensive research has enabled him to gain first-hand accounts of the time from many key people.
Full of interesting (first-hand) accounts, snippets of trivia, and new bits of information (I never knew about Pete Waterman's role in the start of the Two Tone movement!). More than just a rose-tinted nostalgia fest, Hodgkinson skilfully navigates the appearance of the likes of the vile Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter, Jonathan King, Tam Paxton to create a true picture of the period with all it's glam and grime.
A great read, so much so that I'll even forgive the continual misspelling of the band Smokey [sic].
February 13, 2024
Excellent book about Pop music in the seventies and how it interwove with the events of the decade.
January 18, 2023
Glorious romp through 1970's pop . It covers the many Glam Rock and downright shmaltzy hits of the 70's . Good career summaries of the likes of Slade, Sweet, Dollar and many others .Anyone alive at the time will remember these songs . Gives a good insight into the talents of those involved and how thin the divided lines was between those musicians who achieved credibility and those that didn't .Well worth a read . Recomended .
December 15, 2023
A fast moving journey through the music of the 70's. Lots of social history and interesting stories. A huge book... which I ploughed through slowly.. but if you lived through this decade you will love it as it reignites memories
August 26, 2026
Most enjoyable. An overview of the 70s through the prism of pop songs.
June 21, 2025
As someone who grew up listening to 2UW in the 1970s, British pop music was omnispresent. The Sweet, Edison Lighthouse, Middle of the Road, Tony Christie, Tina Charles and a horde of other acts were always on the radio, guesting on ABC TV's 'Countdown' or being lauded by my school mates. I have a rather fuzzy memory of miming along to Suzi Quatro's 'Devil Gate Drive' circa 1974 during some kind of classroom activity, and a few years after this saw her appear as Leather Tuscadero on 'Happy Days'. When it comes to power pop, disco, glam and all manner of other sub-genres it was a golden time in my childhood and for the wider pop culture life of anyone else who was growing up with 'Fox on the Run' and Noosha Fox on high rotation.
So, it goes without saying I was eager to read In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain by Will Hodgkinson. Thankfully the author and his book delivered as hoped, and in some ways actually did more than I expected. This is a bobby dazzler of a tome!
The most engaging, most enjoyable aspect of this book is that Hodgkinson is able to evoke the paradoxes of the numerous musical acts and their work, whilst contextualising the wider pop music movements within the framework of a society that was becoming increasingly fragmented, depressed and even dysfuntional. Whilst kids, teens and young adults were bopping along to anything from 'Puppy Love' by Donny Osmond, 'I Love To Love (But My Baby Just Wants to Dance)', 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' or 'Children of the Revolution' the UK was devolving into a place that eventually sought salvation in arch-Conservative Margaret Thatcher. Melodic pop performed by manufactured and faceless acts might be considered anathema to serious music critics, but Hodgkinson understands and documents not only how valid the songs were of this period, but also how they fitted into the British national identity and culture at the time. With garbage rotting on the streets, with inflation running rampant, with a revolving door at Number 10 between Ted Heath and Harold Wilson, with the troubles in Northern Ireland hitting home and in many cases leading to death in pubs and clubs, it was no surprise (for example) that Slade or David Essex had such an impact, and are so representative of the era. Britain might have had questions raised over its 'Great' status in the 1970s, but jeez there were some fantastic pop songs and acts coming out while things went downhill.
Hodgkinson offers the reader a long, deep and at times eclectic narrative as he navigates through the multitude of songs and acts that became notorious for their melodic pop in 1970s Britain, and in the process he turns up some real nuggets of popular culture. Early in In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain he examines the counterpoint success of Marc Bolan and Clive Dunn in 1971, and in the process reveals that the latter (a star of the sitcom 'Dad's Army') flirted with fascism in the 1930s before becoming post-war a part of the whole British mythos of resistance to Nazism during WW2. In his discussion of the career of the New Seekers Hodgkinson cites member Marty Kristian thus: "It ('I'd Like to Teach The World') was Richard Nixon's favourite song...Apparently he liked to listen to it when he was bombing Cambodia.". Again and again Hodgkinson positions the music of 1970s Britain as a reflection of and response to wider events and issues, and in the process draws out some fascinating histories and pearls of trivial knowledge.
One speciifc section in In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain where I was rather impressed with Hodgkinson's work was his exploration of what must be one of the most bizarre yet fascinating conjunctions of music and film to emerge out of the last 80 years, i.e. 'All This and World War Two'. A movie that relies on the incongruity of matching newsreel footage from WW2 battles and excerpts from films of the era with covers of Beatles songs performed by the likes of Leo Sayer, David Essex etc, it is one of the most egregious misadventures ever to hit cinema screens. Hodgkinson documents its making and reception with appropriate dismay, and allows Sayer a chance to speak to what his role was in its making. There is a subtle hint of grandeur going utterly awry in what the movie did , which is perhaps a reflection of the broader social and political issues of the time. However, the music can and does stand out as something worthy and appreciated, even if it comes from a somewhat derivative place.
Hodgkinson is remarkably successful in drawing together so many broad strands of British popular history under the flag of pop music in the 1970s, and in the process he evokes a sincere nostalgia for those who will recall the period. If there is one reason why I would recommend In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain to anyone it is as one reads the book you will be transported back in time through his writing plus encouraged to listen to the music as your soundtrack. He is unafraid of speaking to some of the more problematic aspects of the time, such as the (then hidden) sex crimes of the likes of Jimmy Saville and Gary Glitter, or the manner in which acts were manipulated, exploited and even destroyed by managers or other shady business people. So this isn't a story where it's all sunshine and lollipops; drugs, sex, booze, overnight success, long term failure etc all feature. The glam rockers, the disco queens, the Eurovision acts, the teenage heart throbs, the proto-punks and novelty acts are both a motley mob and remarkably heterogeneous. The author shows them all as both a symptom and a reflection of the broader world they performed in. And at the end one comes away from Hodgkinson's book feeling like songs such as 'Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes' were far more meaningful and far more important than perhaps more orthodox history and criticism would suggest.
The bottom line is, if you want to understand what was going on when we were listening to Brotherhood of Man in 1973, and why the pop music of the time lives on, you have to read In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain .
So, it goes without saying I was eager to read In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain by Will Hodgkinson. Thankfully the author and his book delivered as hoped, and in some ways actually did more than I expected. This is a bobby dazzler of a tome!
The most engaging, most enjoyable aspect of this book is that Hodgkinson is able to evoke the paradoxes of the numerous musical acts and their work, whilst contextualising the wider pop music movements within the framework of a society that was becoming increasingly fragmented, depressed and even dysfuntional. Whilst kids, teens and young adults were bopping along to anything from 'Puppy Love' by Donny Osmond, 'I Love To Love (But My Baby Just Wants to Dance)', 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' or 'Children of the Revolution' the UK was devolving into a place that eventually sought salvation in arch-Conservative Margaret Thatcher. Melodic pop performed by manufactured and faceless acts might be considered anathema to serious music critics, but Hodgkinson understands and documents not only how valid the songs were of this period, but also how they fitted into the British national identity and culture at the time. With garbage rotting on the streets, with inflation running rampant, with a revolving door at Number 10 between Ted Heath and Harold Wilson, with the troubles in Northern Ireland hitting home and in many cases leading to death in pubs and clubs, it was no surprise (for example) that Slade or David Essex had such an impact, and are so representative of the era. Britain might have had questions raised over its 'Great' status in the 1970s, but jeez there were some fantastic pop songs and acts coming out while things went downhill.
Hodgkinson offers the reader a long, deep and at times eclectic narrative as he navigates through the multitude of songs and acts that became notorious for their melodic pop in 1970s Britain, and in the process he turns up some real nuggets of popular culture. Early in In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain he examines the counterpoint success of Marc Bolan and Clive Dunn in 1971, and in the process reveals that the latter (a star of the sitcom 'Dad's Army') flirted with fascism in the 1930s before becoming post-war a part of the whole British mythos of resistance to Nazism during WW2. In his discussion of the career of the New Seekers Hodgkinson cites member Marty Kristian thus: "It ('I'd Like to Teach The World') was Richard Nixon's favourite song...Apparently he liked to listen to it when he was bombing Cambodia.". Again and again Hodgkinson positions the music of 1970s Britain as a reflection of and response to wider events and issues, and in the process draws out some fascinating histories and pearls of trivial knowledge.
One speciifc section in In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain where I was rather impressed with Hodgkinson's work was his exploration of what must be one of the most bizarre yet fascinating conjunctions of music and film to emerge out of the last 80 years, i.e. 'All This and World War Two'. A movie that relies on the incongruity of matching newsreel footage from WW2 battles and excerpts from films of the era with covers of Beatles songs performed by the likes of Leo Sayer, David Essex etc, it is one of the most egregious misadventures ever to hit cinema screens. Hodgkinson documents its making and reception with appropriate dismay, and allows Sayer a chance to speak to what his role was in its making. There is a subtle hint of grandeur going utterly awry in what the movie did , which is perhaps a reflection of the broader social and political issues of the time. However, the music can and does stand out as something worthy and appreciated, even if it comes from a somewhat derivative place.
Hodgkinson is remarkably successful in drawing together so many broad strands of British popular history under the flag of pop music in the 1970s, and in the process he evokes a sincere nostalgia for those who will recall the period. If there is one reason why I would recommend In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain to anyone it is as one reads the book you will be transported back in time through his writing plus encouraged to listen to the music as your soundtrack. He is unafraid of speaking to some of the more problematic aspects of the time, such as the (then hidden) sex crimes of the likes of Jimmy Saville and Gary Glitter, or the manner in which acts were manipulated, exploited and even destroyed by managers or other shady business people. So this isn't a story where it's all sunshine and lollipops; drugs, sex, booze, overnight success, long term failure etc all feature. The glam rockers, the disco queens, the Eurovision acts, the teenage heart throbs, the proto-punks and novelty acts are both a motley mob and remarkably heterogeneous. The author shows them all as both a symptom and a reflection of the broader world they performed in. And at the end one comes away from Hodgkinson's book feeling like songs such as 'Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes' were far more meaningful and far more important than perhaps more orthodox history and criticism would suggest.
The bottom line is, if you want to understand what was going on when we were listening to Brotherhood of Man in 1973, and why the pop music of the time lives on, you have to read In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain .
May 3, 2024
I knew I was going to love In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain (2022) by Will Hodgkinson. I grew up in the 1970s. I turned eight in 1970 by which time I was already music obsessed. This meant being glued to wunnerful Radio One and never missing an episode of Top Of The Pops. Will Hodgkinson’s focus is the mainstream, the charts, the bubblegum hits of the era. From Clive Dunn’s Grandad in 1970 to the St Winifred’s School Choir’s There’s No One Quite Like Grandma in 1980. Obviously both those songs are rubbish, but how about Mouldy Old Dough, Sugar Me, Teenage Rampage, I Love To Love, Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes), and Merry Xmas Everybody?
If you love reading about music and you were around at the time then you will adore this book. An amazing exploration of the era and full of fascinating information, much of which was new to me.
5/5
A Telegraph Book of the Year
A Guardian Book of the Year
A Shindig Book of the Year
A Virgin Radio Book of the Year
'A colourful picture of the entire '70s in Great Britain.' - SUZI QUATRO
In 1970, pop was in trouble. The Beatles were no more. Pink Floyd devoted themselves to progressive epics. 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, during 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 unrelenting 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 a smash hit.
In Perfect Harmony takes the reader on a journey through the most colour-saturated era 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.
If you love reading about music and you were around at the time then you will adore this book. An amazing exploration of the era and full of fascinating information, much of which was new to me.
5/5
A Telegraph Book of the Year
A Guardian Book of the Year
A Shindig Book of the Year
A Virgin Radio Book of the Year
'A colourful picture of the entire '70s in Great Britain.' - SUZI QUATRO
In 1970, pop was in trouble. The Beatles were no more. Pink Floyd devoted themselves to progressive epics. 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, during 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 unrelenting 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 a smash hit.
In Perfect Harmony takes the reader on a journey through the most colour-saturated era 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.
May 16, 2026
An exhaustive, and slightly exhausting, history of seventies pop. Social, cultural and political events are also brought into the mix. I’m not sure the concept of singalong pop being peculiarly representative of this decade is sufficiently robust to sustain a volume of 550 pages. Don’t a lot of records aimed at the charts, of whatever era, aspire to the sort of memorable hooks and riffs and choruses that will get listeners singing along? Under this title, the author gets to talk about the music of the seventies he wants to talk about, and that’s fine; meanwhile, the singalongability aspects are sometimes slightly moot. In this account, serious rock is out and fun pop is in; as songwriter Mike Chapman, composer of big sellers for Mud, Suzi Quatro and Sweet, remarks, ‘The press always had to be on the side of Jethro Tull but it was important that kids in the ’70s had their own world’.
Hodgkinson likes loading – and overloading – his sentences with digressive detail, as in this discussion of There’s No One Quite Like Grandma:
The culprit for this geographical break-up was the demographic of which the parents of the St Winifreds’ kids were a part, the baby boomers who used a free university education as their ticket to get as far away from the family unit as possible, or who felt the gravitational pull of the big cities and their cultural and economic riches, or who crammed their young offspring in patched flares and hand-knitted hand-me-downs into the back seat of an overloaded 2CV with ‘Nuclear Power? No Thanks!’ smiling sun on the windscreen and rumbled towards the Welsh hills or the Cornish coastline in search of rural utopia, or who fled the crumbling urban disaster zones to build dream homes in the hygienic environs of the new towns.
Phew! There’s a thin line, it seems to me, between affectionate reminiscence of period detail and retrospective snarkiness, and I was occasionally uncertain where Hodgkinson’s tone was placing him. For the most part, however, I enjoyed this book, although the length is a little self-defeating. Somewhere between three and four stars.
Hodgkinson likes loading – and overloading – his sentences with digressive detail, as in this discussion of There’s No One Quite Like Grandma:
The culprit for this geographical break-up was the demographic of which the parents of the St Winifreds’ kids were a part, the baby boomers who used a free university education as their ticket to get as far away from the family unit as possible, or who felt the gravitational pull of the big cities and their cultural and economic riches, or who crammed their young offspring in patched flares and hand-knitted hand-me-downs into the back seat of an overloaded 2CV with ‘Nuclear Power? No Thanks!’ smiling sun on the windscreen and rumbled towards the Welsh hills or the Cornish coastline in search of rural utopia, or who fled the crumbling urban disaster zones to build dream homes in the hygienic environs of the new towns.
Phew! There’s a thin line, it seems to me, between affectionate reminiscence of period detail and retrospective snarkiness, and I was occasionally uncertain where Hodgkinson’s tone was placing him. For the most part, however, I enjoyed this book, although the length is a little self-defeating. Somewhere between three and four stars.
September 11, 2022
I loved this. I've always found worthy rock critic books a little innaccessible. This takes pop music seriously and treats the stuff we fall in love to and do stupid dances to as important - just as it was for me when I was growing up, but it sets bubblegum pop against the intense 1970s.
Of course there are chilling echoes of today in the national strife, with its social history of a complicated decade, but at least we don't have Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep to deal with.
The opening chapter following Marc Bolan as he gives up credibility for teenybopper superstardom sets the tone - sometimes short, perfectly written pop songs say more about who we are than a five volume sociological history. Hopefully there's a spotify playlist to go along with it... although, then again, I'm not sure I quite believe Grandad by Clive Dunn has as much in common with Pink Floyd as the author does. Joyous and analytical, which almost never go together as successfully as the author has managed.
Of course there are chilling echoes of today in the national strife, with its social history of a complicated decade, but at least we don't have Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep to deal with.
The opening chapter following Marc Bolan as he gives up credibility for teenybopper superstardom sets the tone - sometimes short, perfectly written pop songs say more about who we are than a five volume sociological history. Hopefully there's a spotify playlist to go along with it... although, then again, I'm not sure I quite believe Grandad by Clive Dunn has as much in common with Pink Floyd as the author does. Joyous and analytical, which almost never go together as successfully as the author has managed.
December 29, 2022
'The past is a different country', and, for me, the recent past (the 1970s) of the UK is almost like a different planet. But what a triumph this book is: it explains the monumental socio-economic developments in the UK (mostly England though) through the evolution of throw-away, and now almost forgotten, pop music from 1970 to 1979. A highly readable, often very funny, sometimes disturbing, trip to a very different country indeed.
July 3, 2026
3½ to be fair. The mix of (generally rather awful) pop musicology and history sometimes fails to gel convincingly (virtually everything he writes about the Bee Gees for example is nonsense - not strictly incorrect, but actually nonsensical, and mostly unenlightening). It does sometimes feel like an unrelenting stream of barely-related anecdotes. And the music, as mentioned, is on the whole quite regrettable, unworthy of serious reappraisal. But the book was an entertaining read for all that.
December 7, 2023
An excellent read covering the musical spectrum of the 1970’s from MOR music at the start of the 70’s through Glam Rock, Disco and ending in Punk Rock. The different musical era’s were interlocked with the political unrest during that period.
I learnt a lot about the different artists during that period and would highly recommend this book
I learnt a lot about the different artists during that period and would highly recommend this book
August 3, 2024
A smart idea for a book: social history of all ages (teen, tween, twentysomething, old folk) told through Top of the Pops. Very good on so-called session musician pop, and the importance of TV and its three channels as a medium. Objective too, as the author keeps himself out of it (he was under 10 at the time).
September 8, 2022
very hard to read, filled with uninteresting stories of a gazillion uninteresting people... even the historic bit about life in Britain in 1970s is somehow excruciatingly boring... oh man...
September 17, 2022
Such a delight; a marvellous illumination on the most fascinating decade.
September 26, 2022
Perfect for anyone interested in 1970s music & some good social history too - highly recommend this
December 6, 2023
Some wild facts about the 70s. Certainly brought back many memories.
June 30, 2024
An enjoyable evocation of a lost era of music, full of interesting anecdotes. It would get 4 stars were it not for the frequent typos and mis-namings that marr its authority.
August 17, 2024
A comprehensive reference guide to the World of manufactured pop of the seventies
September 15, 2024
Informative and entertaining romp through the lighter side of the 1970's UK pop charts, featuring a lot of musicians normally considered too lowbrow to merit serious consideration
March 2, 2026
Incredible book. So much detail about 70s pop music as well as the political and cultural events, but written with great style and wit, without dodging the unsavoury characters of the time.
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