1960 Cliff Richard & The Shadows: I Love You

After the vim of 'Apache', it would be easy to imagine The Shadows grumbling into their beer at having to keep the noise down and indulge Cliff in his latest bit of whimsy, but as 'I Love You' was actually written by guitarist Bruce Welch then they've only got themselves to blame for their great leap backwards. In fact, if anybody sounds like their doing any favours here it's Cliff himself, delivering Welch's play school lyric ("Your love means more to me than all the fishes swimming in the sea") with the bored disinterest of a man who really would rather be fishing than singing this guff. The hobnail shuffle of the beat sparks no fires either, and with the double beat hiccup before the verse closing payoff of "I Love You" lifted straight from 'Lolipop', then Cliff's got every reason to stay in first gear. As a half decent song three of an EP it would just about pass muster, but as a number one hit it only serves to keep British pop dumbed down to Anthony Newleyesque levels of the trite.