Everyone seemed to have so much fun jumping into the wayback machine with Nicolette Larson – and really, who wouldn’t want to jump into a wayback machine with Nicolette Larson? – that I thought I’d write up another song from the same era, though from a completely different universe than the one that birthed “Lotta Love.” I bring you, Sir Cliff Richard.

Cliff Richard was the Kylie Minogue of his time – and a lot of other people’s times – in that he racked up hit after hit after hit in his native UK (born in India to British parents, technically), while scratching and clawing his way into the American Top 40 a mere nine times. Nine times, compared to…wait for it…one hundred and twenty-five Top 40 hits on the UK charts (number spelled out for dramatic effect), including a staggering 70 Top 10 hits. Wow. Just…wow. That’s insane. And it will never happen again.

By the time “We Don’t Talk Anymore” reared its mellow disco head in late 1979, Richard had already cracked the UK Top 40 sixty-seven times. To establish a point of reference, the Beatles have notched 52 Top 40 hits in the States to date. No wonder he was knighted in 1995. The man is a national treasure, and not even a 1985 remake of his 1959 hit “Living Doll,” performed with the cast of BBC cult show “The Young Ones” (resident douchebag Rick, “spelled with a silent ‘P’,” was a big fan of the Cliff), would change that. If he were an X-Man, he’d be Juggernaut. Unstoppable, that Harry Rodger Webb.

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Last week in this space, I described a single by the Canadian rock band Prism as “sounding like an early-’80s Cliff Richard single (not that there’s anything wrong with that).” I’d like to say I spent hours deciding whether or not to make such a seemingly insulting comparison, but I’d be lying – I tossed it off. It wasn’t until I was editing the piece that I began weighing the significance of what I’d written; suddenly (ahem), the wheels were in motion, and that phrase triggered a flood of memories and bits of knowledge that I’m pretty sure I’ve been suppressing since about 1983 – when I finished high school and headed off for college determined to invent a cooler version of my previous self (just like everyone else does, right? Right?).

Anyway, thanks to the magic researching powers of the Internet, I quickly discovered that not only had I been a fan of Cliff’s turn-of-the-’80s singles like “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” “Dreaming,” and especially “A Little In Love” – I had actually owned a Cliff Richard album. Legit MP3 files are difficult to come by for some of these tunes (how can it be impossible to buy a copy of a top-10 hit like “We Don’t Talk Anymore”?), but as I searched iTunes and Amazon I found the title of his 1980 collection I’m No Hero vaguely familiar, and as I sampled track after track I recognized each one, until…

Cripes! I know it was 28 years ago, but I’ve owned at least 10,000 records/tapes/CDs/digital albums in my life, and until now, I thought I had a pretty good handle on which ones I’ve had and which ones I haven’t. Is Cliff really that forgettable?

Apparently so, at least in the U.S.

Of course, in the U.K. no homegrown solo artist has ever been bigger. Beginning with “Move It” in 1958 – a song that no less an authority than John Lennon identified as the “first British rock record” – Cliff has sold more singles than any other act in British history. (more…)