Poppermost - Hits To Spare
Brian Shea's TLAK BandCamp Deep Dive discovers The Poppermost's debut 'Hits To Spare'
I adore 60s beat music - alongside 50s rock 'n' roll, it's my first musical love. I even did the history of Liverpool music from 1959 to 1966 as a project for my history O-level exam before being expelled from school for being... well, being myself. I spend hours losing myself in the nostalgia of obscure 60s black and white British films, marveling at the marvelous soundtracks filled with magical British beat gems. There's an innocence matched only by the raw power and youthful exuberance that was briefly recaptured by the first wave of seventies punk bands.
This is why I love The Poppermost's Hits To Spare album. It manages to capture the spirit and adventure of true 60s beat music. It's not merely a homage to the genre - it IS 60s beat music, just recorded in the 2020s. I love Billy Childish and his many bands, but his 60s beat comes with the influence of the first wave of punk. Hits To Spare has none of that - it's pure 60s beat and captures the magic from before music started to be considered serious art. I can imagine any of the fourteen tracks on this album appearing in the Gonks Go Beat movie - yes, it's actually that good.
The Poppermost have managed to capture the magic of sixties beat pop. The songs have the melody, humor, and magic of the era. You could slip any of these songs into a playlist of 60s beat music, and you wouldn't be able to guess which wasn't recorded in the 60s. I love how the music is influenced by somewhat critically (and wrongly) derided 60s beat bands like Freddie And The Dreamers, The Fourmost, and the quite wonderful Applejacks, as well as The Beatles and other 60s greats. "Cry For Another," by the way, is up to mid-sixties Beatles standard - perfect guitar pop - and the title track "Hits To Spare" could well be the theme tune to any of those marvelous 60s pop beat exploitation films.
The lead guitar on "Can't Take That Away From Me" has the perfect 60s guitar tone and sounds like it just stepped from a Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas hit. It's all such bloody joyful, perfect pop. I even love the album sleeve - it screams Do you remember The Graham Gouldman Thing? - his great debut album full of his versions of the classic hits he wrote. Hits To Spare has the same magic, the same appeal: an album jammed with classic 60s beat pop.
The Poppermost
