A
s one of the 1960s' many one-hit wonders so nearly put it, there was something in the air. Intangible, indefinable, irrepressible, it was like a virus or a meteorological phenomenon, capable of transforming phalanxes of young girls to hysterical jellies and encouraging their male counterparts to believe that all they needed to "get it together" was a Fender Stratocaster. If you ventured into a teenager's bedroom in, say, 1965, you couldn't see the floral-patterned wallpaper for a patchwork of pictures of pop stars cut out from NME or Melody Maker or fanzines. Every week, it seemed, a new singer or group – nobody called them bands in that pre-pretension era – emerged from the boondocks to rocket to the top of the charts, only to slither down them again when one of the behemoths released their latest single.
Please enable cookies in your browser to display the rest of this article.