The Hit Parade: Cornish Pop Songs

23 years after More Pop Songs, The Hit Parade turn their attentions to Cornish Pop Songs. This move doesn’t quite see the self-styled “London's No.1 Pop Group” turn into “Cornwall’s No.1 Pop Group” but the Cornish milieu dominates proceedings. There’s even - gasp! - biting social commentary on The Ghost of the Fishing Fleet.


Did someone say concept album? How wrong they were. This is very much a Hit Parade album, so it’s songs about girls and being a bit of a loser in love. Old musical themes are revisited: Spector piano on From Paddington to Penzance, fist-pumpin’ punk pop on Treen Girl, pocketbook electropop on See You At The Seaside, gurlie dickweed indie on Zennor Mermaid.

So business as usual, then. Only instead of getting dumped in London’s leafy western suburbs, it will come as no surprise when our hero Julian Henry advises us that the “girl from Penzance/kicks me in the pants”.



Cornish Pop Songs (CD) is released by JSH Records on June 16.