No Beatles in this batch but their presence can be felt. We have fellow Liverpudlian bands The Searchers and Gerry & the Pacemakers with chart topping hits "Needles And Pins" and "I'm The One" respectively. There's also the biggest hit for the Merseybeats which I think is the best of the 3 records mainly for the guitar riff.
Liverpudlian singer Billy Fury also has a record that clearly sounds like it was inspired by The Beatles. He had the best record in the 1961 batch but this bottom half finish is more of an indication of how much better the competition was.
Outside of Liverpool we have the chart debut of Manfred Mann with "5-4-3-2-1" which was the theme tune to the TV show Ready Steady Go and also sounds inspired by the mersey beat sound. Another record clearly inspired by the sound was the Beatles cover "All My Loving" by Dowlands which was produced by Joe Meek.
Another band whose presence could be felt was The Rolling Stones. They had their first 2 hits in 1963 which included a Beatles cover and their sound at the time was known as British Rhythm And Blues. Adopting this sound in this batch are Dave Berry with "My Baby Left Me" and The Paramounts with "Poison Ivy".
I've now covered 8 of the 9 best records except the best one which is "Baby I Love You" by The Ronettes. I heard the excellent Ramones cover of this first which perhaps helped me to like the original when I heard it.
At the other end we have Shirley Bassey with "M Special Dream" which I find boring. Just above we have the final hit for Helen Shapiro with "Fever" which came when she was just 17. The Brenda Lee record "As Usual" was also boring/old fashioned, but she did jump on the Beatles bandwagon later on in the year.
The Bachelors and Frank Ifield continue to sound outdated in this era. Nino Tempo & April Stevens did a better version of "Whispering" than The Bachelors who did a version the previous year. Finally there's Tony Meehan with "Song Of Mexico" which was his only solo hit without Jet Harris and is better than I expected it to be.
The fact every record has had a mention shows the small quantity of records this time which hadn't been seen since the charts were a Top 30. Overall I've found this batch to be the most listenable by far and this is reflected in the score.
Score: 50
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