BIRTHDAY SPECIAL / SHINGLE SONG

Peter Hammill took a radical sidestep in his musical career in 1975 and relased the album Nadir's Big Chance. It contains very straight-forward songs that have almost nothing to do with prog, instead many songs sound like punk rock - before such genre even existed officially! And yet that honest and personally charming album has stood the test of time better than several others by Hammill.

The A-side of this single, 'Birthday Special', is among the punkiest songs by him. Not exactly raw in the execution, but a plain poor composition. To me it's not even interesting enough to listen to for a second time. Luckily it's not on the album, because if it was it would probably be the worst one.

B-side's 'Shingle Song' is featured on the Nadir album and is among its finest and calmest songs, a melancholic slow-tempo love song in fact. David Jackson adds his saxophone and Hammill's emotional vocals are very good on this one. For a bad non-abum song and a good album song I think two stars is fair enough.