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He was voted into second place in the "Pop Weekly" Poll - but in the section that was headed "Most Likely One-Hit Wonder" which isn't exactly a nice thing to be voted. In fact he and his group were voted, and it was of course Herman and The Hermits. Well, they have proved many of the "Pop Weekly" readers who voted for them that they were wrong and they are now in the charts and riding hight with their latest release Silhouettes. As a group, Herman and The Hermits are one of the in-between groups who aren't really popular enough to make the scene in a big way without having a good record. Their fans aren't sufficiently fanatical to really hit the record shops whenever a new release is announced. They have to make a good record or miss the charts, as they did with their last release, which although it did well wasn't nearly as successful as their I'm Into Something Good. Herman's future depends a lot on what songs are chosen for him and what songs he manages to write himself, and also of course, whether the group are really techically skillful enough to make a different sound and style on every release. I must admit that for a stage group, there is plenty of zest but certainly not enough |
personality in Herman's Hermits and unless the group adopt a new attitude to songs they are going to be lucky if they can make the grade, chartwise, all the time. Given the right songs, a new stage act and plenty of ardent fans, Herman could be a lot bigger than he is. One of the mistakes made early on in his career was to release a disc, his second release in fact, which was almost exactly the same style as the first platter. Doubtless Herman is now going to try and get something slightly different happening. Silhouettes is a good record but still too much along the same lines as his earlier ones. I don't think that Herman has quite got the right kind of voice for anything else which is a pity. I'm sure that given a better style of song and a lot more publicity, and maybe with an orchestra on occasions instead of a group backing on his records things could really happen for him. Maybe Herman and his Hermits will be big pop stars, but I prefer to hold my judgement until he really gets something different going. I only hope for his sake that he records a different sort of material. The material he is recording at the moment isn't really the kind of stuff that is going to make his number an established one. But what do the Herman fans say? |