Whilst ‘Wall Street’ wasn’t exactly a big seller, its predecessor ‘The Worst Band In The World’ (Creme/Gouldman) fared even worse, missing the charts completely. In truth, it’s a little bit too up itself to be a single, with all the clever tricks like stop-start passages and risqué lyrics designed to annoy the heck out of the radio shows of the day, but that’s no reflection on it’s quality as a song (it’s a close cousin of The Beach Boys’ ‘The Little Girl I Once Knew’, whose failure in the charts mortified Brian Wilson by limiting what he could get away with). Every single year sees some new wannabe with no talent who seems to hang around in the charts because of a) a song that vaguely catches a nation’s mood or b) is pre-determined by an epic advertising campaign, where record-buyers are practically forced into buying certain songs in the hope that they’ll go away (you could add in c) for modern tastes, when a band is on X Factor/Pop Idol/Strictly Come Dancing/World’s Greatest Musical Morons, etc, though I may have just dreamt that last show). This is a song all about that fact, but sung in the first-person by Lol Creme in the manner of one of these bands. There are some real classics in the lyrics: from the moody drumbeat that fills in the space in the first line where the word ‘shit’ is clearly supposed to be to the line about leaving the van to the roadies and the roadies in the van. Not to mention the line where Creme gives an ‘up yours’ to all the real genuine hard-working bands putting the graft in, working the hours and working their way up the hard way. Luckily the music isn’t quite as mean-spirited or as poorly turned out as the lyrics suggest, making the most of Eric’s trademark wail of a guitar sound and another strong second vocal from Graham in the middle eight. Some fans love this song, some hate it – certainly it’s a little too clever for its own good, especially as a single, but it’s all good fun and played with a certain joi de vivre that allows the band to get away with it. Only one aspect doesn’t work: the band are clearly trying to go for another neat track in the fadeout, with the song switching to another character, the record itself (back in the days when vinyl was the only medium for music and cassettes hadn’t quite taken off yet), inviting the disc jockey to ‘play me’ and then ‘fade me’. After two spot-on minutes of the band singing as idiotic failures this finale is a bit of a disappointment and the record fading away is a bit of an anti-climax to be honest. Still, for the most part, this is an under-rated minor gem.