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Digger
reviews Mike Kelly's new book '50 Years Of Pop'
This article is the intellectual property of www.retrosellers.com and cannot be reproduced without express
permission.
50 Years Of Pop
An International A-Z of Hitmakers from 1952 to 2002
Publisher's notes:
How do the success of Westlife's hits compare with those of the Beatles? Or the Spice
Girls with the Supremes? How many hits did Richard Wayne Penniman or Barry Pincus have?
What was Lolly's real name? Which was the biggest Rolling Stones hit?
Mike Kelly's total recall of the top 5000 entries in pop chart history makes this book an
indispensable reference for every aspiring pop guru, DJ, rock band, pub quiz author, bus
queue bore, academic, teenager, hip forty somethinger and rocking granny.
Wot Pop: 50 Years of Hits covers the Hit Parade from 14th November 1952, with such artists
as Vera Lynn and Bing Crosby, to 1st June 2002, with Pink and Shaggy. The book includes an
A-Z section about more than 2000 artists: the information is comprehensive, easy to access
and each entry comes richly annotated with useful additional insights and cross
references. Other sections cover the top 5000 singles (based on chart performance and not
just on record sales); the top 500 artists and the top 10 singles and top 30 artists in
each decade since the 1950s.
Digger's view:
There are stats and there are stats. Or as someone once said "Lies, damned lies and
statistics." This was reinforced in my view by the recent 'Top 100 singles' on TV
which, fortunately for me, I taped and so was able to fast forward through most of it.
What a disappointment - it seemed that the majority of the best-selling singles of all
time were freakish one-hit wonders or gimmicky forgettable nonsense, such as Barbie Girl,
Sugar Sugar, Mr Blobby, Bob The Builder and the unforgettable Tears by Ken Dodd. Were my
eyes and ears deceiving me? Was I really living in a country that celebrates musical
mediocrity and madness? I decided to find out!.................
Mike Kelly's book, 50 Years Of Hits, looks at chart staying-power and the acts that have
been most successful. This means that, for the most part, we are spared looking at a list
of nonentities and fads and can get a good perspective on our musical tastes by decade and
the people that shaped them.
This is a great book for those of us who like to delve a bit deeper into the origins of
the bands - there is trivia relating to every one of them. I am amazed, impressed and
grateful that Mike has been able to provide information on every act because some of us,
me included, NEED this sort of information to make us complete and he has scored here over
'more well-known musical encyclopedias!' There are enough stats and lists to satisfy a
statistician's convention in national facts and figures week.
I am eagerly looking forward to Mike's next offering - I don't know what it is but I can
be sure he is working on it already and it will be as detailed and well produced as this
one. Well, 98% sure anyway.
Publication Date: October 2002
Southgate Publishers
Price: £17.99 plus £1.95 p&p.
To place an order just E-mail info@wotpop.com
www.wotpop.com
This article is the intellectual property of www.retrosellers.com and cannot be
reproduced without express permission.
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