‘Headline Hustler’ at last moves us away from the doo wop spoofs for a parody of the journalists of the world, nice boys pretending to be nasty in order to get better splashes for their front page. You really don’t need to know about the lyrics of this song, though, as much as the music which includes a distinctive riff, a chorus that erupts out of nowhere, a classic Eric Stewart guitar solo and a catchy drum pattern from Kevin Godley. Eric takes the lead on this song and it’s one of his best, part innocent kid in a world out of depth, part naïve innocent and part raving troublemaker, desperate to secure the scoop his rivals can’t. Like many a 10cc song he’s intensely jealous: he pulls celebrities down in order to make a name for himself and become someone important himself, boasting ‘you’re gonna hear from me!’ while stabbing everyone in the back on his way up. What he doesn’t know – and what the song oddly doesn’t say – is that other people will surely do this to him in time in a great cycle of jealousy and bitterness. My guess is that despite the vocal this is really more Graham’s song as he was particularly keen on these ‘loser’ type characters fighting back (one of the joys of 10cc is their mixture of personalities: Eric feels like he would naturally be the cool sporty bright kid in the school everyone loves and who acts as if he knows how the world works, while the others are the eccentrics sitting on their own in the canteen). No scandal is too small or too private for this private eye, with his morals gone by the board the moment he sniffs money and power. Having been or at least been around journalist for some years I can say that this song is all true, especially concerning music writers! Hmm a catchy tune with the lyrics mixed low, a spoof of a section of the society with control over the masses and words quite unlike any other song of the day, this is surely where Gouldman and Stewart get their future writing template from and makes for a rocking end to this album’s first side. There’s another energetic band performance that really lifts a so-so song too, with the guitars waiting to pounce on a scoop and a memorable quirky drum pattern that keeps relentlessly stirring up trouble.
