Do you recall the most popular album at your school? It changed a bit, obviously, but I judged it by the frequency with which people (lads usually) brought a record in to play over the hall speakers at lunchtime. Remember, I was part of a coterie of kids who supervised such things; the ‘Rock Lads’. We’d inspect, approve or disapprove, every submission in our earnest, snooty sort of way for about nearly 3 years. We took it very seriously, seeing ourselves as an unconventional committee controlling taste and awareness of music. So we were in a good position to judge the popularity of bands. Typically girls brought in singles, which some scoffed at, but I played a lot of good stuff like Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies and Focus’s Sylvia. And on one memorable occasion an import copy of the Allman Brothers Black-hearted Woman. That girl got a lot of our attention, I can tell you.
Who do you think was consistently the most popular 1974-77? Zeppelin, perhaps or Purple, maybe. No. The record we played more than any other, and we played a hell of a lot of records, frequently suffering the wrath of the Deputy Head for playing King Crimson, which he thought was unbearable noise and equally frequently geeking out over ELP’s Welcome Back My Friends… live album and what are now obscure records but weren’t at the time by Druid, Wally and Snafu.
The most popular band was, in fact, Uriah Heep, specifically the Demons And Wizards record. That was brought in more than anything else. Partly, I think people had it because they liked the cover art. Our go-to tracks were always Rainbow Demon or The Wizard, the first tracks on each side. A little behind that was their Magician's Birthday album, which we took great delight in torturing people by playing the title track. Interestingly, they both came out in 1972. What a year.
Return to Fantasy was popular too, but didn’t quite have the magic of those other two records. The third most played was a tie between Deep Purple Made In Europe and Argus by Wishbone Ash, both favourites of mine. To say I know every note of each is no exaggeration, even down to the stage banter.
But you know me well enough by now to know, if you brought in something really obscure and I got to it first, it’d get on, often to the disapproval of my contemporaries who didn’t share my love of jazz rock (don’t know why it was so unpopular). So I’d sneak on If’s first album, Softs by Soft Machine, Jeff Beck’s Wired, and if I was feeling daring, Weather Report’s I Sing The Body Electric, which was really widely disliked.
Being the record guys was a position of some influence. We were genuinely seen as the experts in our field, and to get your record on was little short of confirmation of your credibility. And we knew this and played up to it furiously. I bet your school had similar vinyl creatures who ruled the deck. When I got to the 6th form, the record guys from surrounding schools were all thrown together. The point scoring was fierce, let me tell you. Ultimately, we had to accept defeat to a tall lad, can’t remember his name now, who, somehow, got an advance copy of Van Halen’s debut. We initially thought it was a punk record, but soon learned to love its revolutionary sound. All us rock lads had to bow down to the master. Our reign was over. He seemed to always have promo and advanced copies.
Even so, we still had a heavy input to the music played in the student lounge in the two 6th form years. Me by putting on Dazed And Confused for half an hour from Song Remains The Same. I still know every bit of that and was thrilled when Joe Bonamassa used to play a section from it. I thought it was only me who geeked out about it.
The profile of records played changed a bit. Records by Patti Smith and Tom Petty found their way in. Most popular, as I remember, was Pink Floyd’s Animals. But I must say, I was distracted by a vigorous social life which saw me out drinking 4 nights per week and enjoying physical pleasures. The glory days of being a tastemaker passed into history. Someone started playing the Sex Pistols single Holidays in the Sun and refused to play my PFM Chocolate Kings. Well, can you imagine? I was insulted and stepped back from the turntable. In truth, I had outgrown it anyway. Life offered many more distractions. But I look back on those days fondly when I’d drop the needle on The Wizard one more time. It was my whole world, but I never imagined it was shaping my whole cultural life and continues to do so 50 years later.
What was the most popular album at school?
