Glam rock may was on the wane – Bolan out of ideas, Bowie embracing soul, Sweet turning metal – when the Mael brothers stoked its dormant fire and reanimated a seemingly lost cause. While the ‘stampeding rhinos’, gunshots and dramatic falsettos of the A-side broke the California misfits across Europe, B-side ‘Barbecutie’ was just as operatically out-there and startling. It caught singer Russell riding a chugging metallic bass riff and strident piano vamps with a sinister paean to tossing an unwilling guest onto the barbeque (much more wholesome than a shrimp). And while Sparks got to promote the A-side on Top of the Pops they refused to play it straight, singer Russell a theatrical jack-in-the-box, drummer Dinky Diamond a wide-eyed menace, although most younger viewers were transfixed by static keyboardist Ron, impenetrable behind his piercing stare and Hitler moustache. That may have scared off some – the Rubettes’ conventional throwback ‘Sugar Baby Love’ held firm at number one – but neither side of this single has lost its cart-upsetting lustre, the disorienting ‘Barbecutie’ a mind-blower as vital as anything on Kimono My House.