I remembered this in the bath this morning for some reason, and then have been reminded again by mention below.
When JK had a pop column in The Sun during the 80s – tipping among others Carter USM for greatness – he once devoted an entire piece to fulminating about the 70s. The stars in the 70s, he decided, were cynics and frauds who secretly hated and envied pop because they had been rubbish in the 60s, which was when the real talent had flourished. They became stars in the 70s only because all the good bands had retired. His evidence:
– Marc Bolan and Tyrannosaurus Rex – laughed at in the 60s, stars in the 70s
– Bowie – mod rubbish nobody bought, then folky rubbish nobody bought, then kaboom!
– that was about it, oh, maybe Alvin Stardust and Gary Glitter too
King made his own interest in this plain, stating very early on that HE had of course succeeded in the cut-throat world of 60s-dom with “Everyone’s Gone To The Moon”.
I don’t know if he had a point, not about the relative qualities of T Rex and the Piglets, but about the way some pop stars have been knocking around for a while before fame calls. Is there anything different about their output?