Glad All Over

The Dave Clark Five's first album might seem a bit on the meager side outside of the context of the first flush of the British Invasion. At the time, though, it was a pretty exuberant slab o' vinyl that rocked pretty hard for the most part, paced by the three Top 10 singles "Glad All Over," "Do You Love Me," and "Bits and Pieces." It was a huge seller as well, peaking at number three and remaining in the charts almost as long as the albums by their chief competitors of the era, the Beatles. And it does have a few decent, though not great, original songs that don't show up on greatest hits compilations: the solid pop/rocker "I Know You," the raucous "Twist and Shout" rip-off "No Time to Lose," and the surprisingly savage instrumental "Chaquita," an inversion of "Tequila" with its snaky, growling guitar riffs and dirty sax. There's also some pure filler, like the jazzy instrumental "Time" and the infantile "Doo Dah." It certainly ranks among their best non-greatest-hits albums, which isn't as high a recommendation as it sounds, since the group's LPs weren't that good overall. ~ Richie Unterberger