Top 6 - Cliff Richard

Radio 2 recently repeated a Top 20 Cliff chart, voted for by 20 thousand listeners, and although it inevitably included some items one would be grateful to do without, it could have been worse but certainly provided the motivation to put the record straight.

This isn't a New Year's prank. It's almost so fashionable to dismiss Cliff with expressions of horror and distaste that it is surely by now naff to do so. For me, the definition of 'uncool' is to be found in the bombast of U2 and their singer with a Messiah complex, in the dreary ramblings of Coldplay, the unremitting bleak of Radiohead or the over-rated posturing of The Doors, most of whose adherents presumably don't reckon much to Cliff. But I doubt if it bothers him too much, fifty years into his career while the casualties of pop music lie strewn across its history. All Cliff has to do is keep thinking of reasons to pack out the Albert Hall each year, whether it's the last ever (definitely) reunion with The Shadows or his seventieth birthday.

It has to be admitted that the last decade or two haven't added much to the Cliff oeuvre but, there again, The Rolling Stones haven't done much new of note in that time either.

Two of Cliff's best records were completely overlooked by the public vote. Don't Talk to Him and Constantly are masterpieces of songwriting, production and performance from the golden age of the early sixties. The first is a cheerful expression of paranoia and the second roughly chiming with the sentiment of Shakespeare's Sonnet 57.

The Next Time is another timeless poem on loss and regret featuring the great Norrie Paramor's orchestration, making us feel that even if it didn't seem so at the time, the 60's was a better time to be a teenager than now.

Among my favourites is also one of the singles that came with Cliff's revival in the late 70's, Some People, somewhat hopefully pleading that 'he's not like that at all' when considering how cruel others can be to each other. Well, he was, actually, when he stole one of The Shadows' girlfriends. He's not quite the angelic boy next door that he pretends to be, having pursued his career with a single-mindedness that some of his more drug-addled rivals wouldn't have been in any fit condition to emulate. The Shads were put together from the best club musicians he could find and were, in those glory days, the best backing band money could buy.

One of their finest performances comes on the rock'n'roll classic Dancing Shoes.

Which leaves us with that usual Top 6 quandary of having only one choice left and far too many candidates to mention. I don't know. Rather than go for an obvious classic, though, I'll have Time Drags By.

It's a shame he missed out on having a number one in each decade. We had just the song for him but we'll probably never know if he even listened to the demo.