Solosounds - We Were So Young

Hear The Track Here

Jon Solo is a pop junkie. I know this because he told me and, through his tracks, I have discovered it to be true. All very good things in my world because I am myself a bit of a pop junkie. I do like a tale told with style and skill and - despite it's more sugary side - pop music has always been a good place to pick up great songs that have meaning and substance. Unlike, I might add, the more commercial X Factor crud that infests the modern pop world like a malignant cancer. So if there is an antidote to such rubbish it's going to lie in the capabilities of musicians like Jon Solo. Solosounds is his side project and thus far I have only reviewed one track from this source - Across The Great Divide (February 2011) - which I liked despite the fact that it was a Carpenters flavoured ballad of the old school.

Can't have everything. can you?

I am absolutely certain that Jon is a young man (Ed: unlike this reviewer) and although he is placing 'Phil (Spector), Hal (Blaine), Carol (Kaye) and Glenn (Campbell) in the comments and then saying 'So I did it myself'. Obviously he wouldn't have done it at the time those names were festooned with glory, unless it were possible to write a pop song at -2 years of age (Ed:or more likely -22 years old). Nonetheless, if you recognise those names you will know that we are discussing some of the greats of songwriting and - despite his musical and vocal prowess - Jon Solo is a songwriter to the depths of his soul. This skill is evident both in the Solosounds track I mentioned above and his - even better IMHO - solo work. Jon...Solo... how easy could it be?

If the early sixties (ie pre-Beatles) had any redeeming feature it would have to be the 'wall of sound' girl groups put together by a young (but still extremely weird) Phil Spector. His manufactured girl groups (The Crystals, The Ronettes) triggered a whole new sound revolution, If this song is supposed to be about that period of musical history, then it is eerily, uncannily accurate and I say that as someone whose early life was enlivened by the original sound. Once again it shows that - whatever his age - Jon Solo has his roots firmly planted in very fertile historical soil, and is a master of making pop blossom in the time honoured way. So, the only question remaining is why I am beginning to sound like a gardening programme? Anyway, those of us of a certain age are about to have the flashback of their lives and for the rest of you young un's here is a taste of what it actually sounded like.

MUST HAVE girl group pop flashback.