Saturday 4 February 2023

The Hit Parade The Sound Of The Hit Parade



Get It At Discogs

The last album by the Hit Parade, by this time officially a duo of singer/songwriter Julian Henry and programmer/producer Raymond Watts, with various guests including their Sarah Records labelmate Harvey Williams on guitar and legendary ligger Cath Carroll on vocals, is fairly relentlessly bleak. The occasional mopery of the duo's earlier records is a fully-fledged worldview on The Sound of the Hit Parade. The song titles tell the whole story: "As I Lay Dying," "Farewell My Lido," "She Won't Come Back," "Crying." Henry even makes the move of Sarah Records' home office from Bristol to London in "House of Sarah" sound like an ominous portent. (The again, the label did close less than two years later...). The temptation to tell Henry to have a drink and pull himself together is a little overwhelming at times, but Watts' clean and sparkly, but not antiseptic, production makes this the Hit Parade's best-sounding record ever, and it's melodically richer than before.This is the Hit Parade at their best.




5 comments:

Unknown said...

ouch, the link says The Lilac Time, can you fix please and thanks

Michael Baldwin said...

Not sure if you're aware but the download is actually the first Lilac Time album.

Mike S said...

Thanks for the album, but he link leads to The Lilac Times album.

Aid00 said...

Hello Unknown/Micheal Baldwin/Mike S Link Fixed & Ready To Go

Michael Baldwin said...

Thank you!

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