1958 Tommy Edwards: It's All In The Game

When I was growing up in the seventies, the first 'record player' we had as a family was a hefty wood and bakelite 'Radiogram' cabinet affair made up primarily of a two foot diameter woofer on the front face. It also had a chunky turntable that let you build a wobbly stack of singles on its central spindle that would drop down onto the platter in sequence until the tonearm was virtually at right angles to its base. Happy days indeed, but even back then I thought there was something anachronistic about the likes of Suzi Quatro and Slade blasting out of something that seemed more suited to Al Bowly. I get the same feeling of mismatch from Tommy Edwards' version of 'It's All In The Game', only in reverse.

As a recording it's startling retro, almost defiantly so, but not in any kind of La Roux knowing or ironic way; Edwards sounds like he's just emerged Rip Van Winkle-like from a cave after falling asleep mid song in 1939 and then carried on where he left off, oblivious to anything going on around him. Is this a fair criticism of anything in itself? Doesn't quality always win out? Maybe. And there's no doubt that the song's quality shines through when artists like the Four Tops and Jerry Vale are in the driving seat. But Tommy's cut is creaky stuff that would have creaked no less a decade or two previous.

Compared to the va voom of 'Stupid Cupid' it's still on the starting block tying its laces carrying a sense of inertia not helped by Tommy's half hearted cabaret phrasing that makes every line sound like a question. Nothing certain in any event, and it's this general lack of conviction that makes for an uninvolving listen. Not an unpleasant one, just uninvolving. We've moved on from this and, quite frankly, it's showing its age, though I will say it's the greatest number one of all time to have been co-written by a US vice president.