Pop 2025

Robert Thomas Velline, known professionally as Bobby Vee, was an American singer who was a teen idol in the early 1960s and also appeared in films. According to Billboard magazine, he had thirty-eight Hot 100 chart hits, ten of which reached the Top 20. He had six gold singles in his career.

On a New Street might be the ne plus ultra of the group's post-1960s achievements. A "lost" album from the sweetest period of Thom Bell's storied career, the Bell side captures producer and vocalists at the peak of their powers. Gourdine's recognizably pinched vocal tones contrast with those of, say, Philippe Wynne of The Spinners or Russell Thompkins, Jr. of The Stylistics, but Bell instinctively knew how to surround that voice with a soft cushion of soulful accompaniment provided by MFSB. Throughout the five songs on "The Thom Bell Side" of On a New Street, Gourdine has ample chance to fly solo, with The Imperials contributing their impeccable harmonies at just the right moments.

Changing images to a second-rate Bryan Ferry on the cover was one thing (Numan himself later admitted it just made him look like "the man who lost it all at Monte Carlo"), but rather better was the musical change away from the overblown nonsense of Berserker.

If there was ever a point where the sometimes too-insular-for-his-own-good Numan couldn't have been more out of sight, out of mind – even to his central fanbase – the often-bizarre Machine + Soul is it. It makes his striking return to form on Sacrifice and his wider acceptance and influence in the following years all the more remarkable.

With her signature breathy vocals, romantically nostalgic songs, and melancholy lyrics she often penned herself, Françoise Hardy was a pop music and fashion icon celebrated as a French national treasure. She was one of the earliest and most definitive French participants in the yé-yé movement and her first single, 1962's "Tous Les Garçons et les Filles," sold over two million copies and made her a European star overnight. As the yé-yé sound faded, Hardy shifted to a more introspective, folky, and dramatic sound that helped her move from a pop sensation to an artist.

The band was formed from pieces of other Michigan bands in 2001, including a group known as TenFive, which consisted of Kakaty, guitarists Tom Grasman and Jason Reed, bassist James Schaap, and drummer Dylan Allison. As TenFive, Kakaty and Reed recorded a debut album, Severn, and another EP, Dam Electro, on their own independent label. Shortly thereafter, TenFive broke up and Kakaty founded Pop Evil with Allison.

The band was formed from pieces of other Michigan bands in 2001, including a group known as TenFive, which consisted of Kakaty, guitarists Tom Grasman and Jason Reed, bassist James Schaap, and drummer Dylan Allison.

There has always been a broad picture in general of the scope of music that has come out of the Bristol and Bath areas at the west/south west end of the M4 and M5. The boys (and girls) from the region have always made a right old variety of noise! It hasn’t always been accompanied by mainstream acceptance with the resulting sales. It may surprise observers that some of that heady creativity included the more commercial end of straight up pop music and the ‘take’ that could be put on it, with the hope that acclaim and more could follow. The ‘take’ could also take the genre into new dimensions. Did it lead anywhere, or have any merit? Were they, the acts, any good? Did they get any exposure and recognition? If not, why not?

NOW Music proudly presents 60 more essential singles from the magical year of Pop that was 1989.