Patterns on the Window: The British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1974 – An antidote to Top of the Pops limpness

Any teenager alive in 1974 with an ear for pop-music oddballs would have cringed with despair at the musical vacuity of that year’s singles charts. The likes of Seasons in the Sun (Terry Jacks), Y Viva España (Sylvia), Love Me for a Reason (The Osmonds), Wombling Song (The Wombles) and Billy, Don’t Be a Hero (Paper Lace) might now be classified as easy-listening guilty pleasures, but to Lord and Lady Misfit they were as limp as overcooked noodles.

Across 66 songs (on three CDs), Patterns on the Window goes all out to explain that for every simpering pop song your parents liked, an art-pop song was waiting in a nearby laneway, ready to mug them.

The writing had been on the wall from 1972, when David Bowie and Roxy Music arrived in their retro-futuristic spaceships. Add the glam-pop of Cockney Rebel (Judy Teen), Be-Bop Deluxe (Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus), Sparks (Hasta Manana Monsieur), the rough but persuasive folksiness of pre-Hollywood Rod Stewart (Farewell) and the here-comes-punk strut of Kilburn & the High Roads (Rough Kids) and Dr Feelgood (Roxette) and you have a healthy enough antidote to the habitually anodyne nature of what featured on Top of the Pops every Thursday.

As usual with Cherry Red/Grapefruit compilations, a well-researched, well-written booklet contains enlightening details about each track.