Dead End Kids - Breakout

Striped sox’n’braces for the teenies

With glam pop-rock, the 70s managed to drive up a dead end street, rather like the 1968 ultra-bubblegum sound. Following The Rollers, Sweet et al, this band were indicative of the producer-led machine approach that pervaded the 70s, issuing perfectly acceptable, though derivative, pop for the pre-teens. The fact that several of the tracks here (Glad All Over, Have I the Right, C’mon Let’s Go, Radancer) were remakes of previous groups’ hits only serves to underscore the lack of decent new material. Produced by Barry Blue, the sounds are acceptable enough zippy pop, but at no point do you feel anything of the group’s own musical approach, other than “we want to be famous”, which is underlined by the sparse sleeve notes. Nevertheless, there is a fondness for, and collector interest in, the glam era, and though they weren’t in the first division, Dead End Kids were a part of it.

7Ts | GLAM CD 44

Reviewed by Kingsley Abbott
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