It is in England of 1961 that it begins. What will become “the Profumo affair”. John Profumo, Secretary of Defense, has an extramarital affair with a high-profile model, Christine Keeler. Nothing to write to the queen. The scandal erupts when the press reveals that the very modern young woman would have clung to a Soviet attaché. In short, we send James Bond to save the Kingdom, and the Beatles to distract the planet. Still, this great album provides us with the soundtrack of those shady years that preceded the multicolored explosion of SwingingLondon. In black and white, the cover photo, where the handsome singer Anthony Newley plays it suave between the sulphurous Joan Collins and Christine Keeler, is the key shot of this era, and the eclecticism of the titles chosen tells us what is fomenting : American R&B (the explicit Sugar Baby by Jimmy Powell), thinly veiled commentary (Christina by Miss X), ribald pop (A New Kind of Lovin’ by Eden Kane), and the theme of the spy series Destination Danger at a high point. Shocking.
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