7/7/2023 0 Comments Gary glitter 2020‘I Love You Love Me Love’ was the 6 th best-selling single for the entirety of 1973, despite only being released in early November… But you won’t be hearing it on a radio anytime soon. He has one more chart-topper to come in the new year, before we can move past this slightly awkward elephant in the room. We might want to forget he ever existed but we have to note how big he was in this moment. It means Glitter joins Elvis, Cliff, The Beatles and Slade. This record entered the charts at number one and, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know how rare an occurrence that was back then. You can bet that boys and girls around the country were sidling up to one another in school gyms around the nation at the Christmas dances of 1973, for a shuffle and a snog to this disc. You stare at it, trying to work out what it means, where the comma should be, but you go around in circles… ‘I Love You, You Love Me… Love?’ ‘I Love You Love Me Love’… I mean… It’s like a magic eye picture. I love you love, You me love me too love, I love you love me love… Adding to the hypnotic effects is that chorus, that title. In fact, I think we can pinpoint here the exact moment that glam rock started edging from Bowie and Bolan to Mud and Showaddywaddy’s fifties pastiches. The distorted saxophones and the over-dubbed guitars give me hints of Wizzard but, if they were going for what Wizzard achieved with ‘ Angel Fingers’, they’ve fallen well short. By the end, it’s basically smothered you into submission. I’m not sure I like it all that much, but it’s kind of mesmerising. It’s glam rock, but stuck in quicksand, or on strong, strong Quaaludes. Gary’s girl’s parents don’t like him much… We’re still together after all that we’ve been through, They tried to tell you I was not the boy for you, They didn’t like my hair, The clothes I love to wear… Or maybe they were just good judges of character, Gary? Once again, it’s proving difficult for me to judge the man’s music without remembering what he was deep down… They lumber, they plod, they drag you down into the treacle. (Do electronic saxes exist? If they do, then that’s what leading us on this romantic mystery.) The trademark Glitter drums are there, but slowed right down. While that mental image takes its time to fade… We settle into a woozy, oozy, slightly boozy, electronic sax riff. I Love You Love Me Love, by Gary Glitter (his 2 nd of three #1s)Ĥ weeks, from 11 th November – 9 th December 1973
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