Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes”

This is one of my favourite albums from the glam rock era of the ear­ly sev­en­ties. Mott the Hoople was an ill-starred band from Here­ford­shire that was saved from obscu­ri­ty by the time­ly gift of a song, “All the Young Dudes” by David Bowie, who also pro­duced the album. It’s a sol­id play, through and through. As well as the fine title song, it has one of the three best ver­sions of “Sweet Jane,” the band’s own “One of the Boys,” “Sea Dri­ver,” and “Ready for Love,” all sat­is­fy­ing songs. At heart, the band was a low-key R&B com­bo that did not fit com­fort­ably into the heav­i­ly arranged glam style. I don’t know if this album has any sta­tus as an offi­cial rock “clas­sic”, but it has always remained in my plea­sure play­ing reper­toire. I’ve just acquired the 2006 remas­tered reis­sue, with sev­en bonus tracks.

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