Alvin Stardust – ‘Jealous Mind’

7 March 1974

Never mind your favourite James Bond; who’s your favourite Alvin Stardust? I’ve only just found out that the familiar leather-clad, mulleted and sideboarded Alvin Stardust is not the Alvin Stardust who appeared on Alvin Stardust’s debut hit, ‘My Coo Ca Choo’. That record was written, produced, performed and initially promoted by Alvin Stardust as played by a Peter Shelley, who was not the Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley. When ‘My Coo Ca Choo’ first cracked the UK top thirty at the back end of 1973, Shelley had second thoughts about the whole pop star thing, and so a Bernard Jewry became the new Alvin Stardust. That’s Bernard as Alvin on the record sleeve above, in the video thumbnail below, and now for posterity. They didn’t recast the part for a gritty late-’80s direction, ’90s post-Cold War worldview, or ’00s origin story about how Alvin Stardust became Alvin Stardust after the second of his two kills.

(Digression. I checked. He’s clean. Nothing to worry about. All good. Now read on.)

Alvin is very much on the ’50s-revivalism wing of glam. His wandering vocal styles on ‘Jealous Mind’ are something of a Seven Ages Of Rock N’ Roll, from Buddy Holly and Elvis to rock n’ roll future in Shakin’ Stevens. The lead guitar revs and swoops like a powerful motorbike; the rhythm guitar chugs like a smaller motorbike. As with ‘My Coo Ca Choo’, ‘Jealous Mind’ grooves rather than stomps: a throwback not just to Buddy Holly but to the first-wave glam of Electric Warrior by T. Rex, and you could even imagine this as the sound of Marc Bolan if he had made it to middle-age and Las Vegas.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, they’re casting the new Alvin Stardust for the big-budget Amazon era, and—keep this a secret—I fancy my chances. After all, with the hair and the outfit, plus the signature pose I’ve been practising in the mirror, I’m already halfway there.