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SHOULD'VE BEENS

There will only be a few of you who would even remember a Disc Jockey called Paul Burnett. He presented the lunchtime show on Radio 1 back in the mid to late 70s and in those days when I had the chance I would listen avidly all day to that station.

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He had a great section which has always stayed with me and can provide endless hours of pub debate even now. He invited listeners to write in with three tracks to be played under the title of "Is, Was & Should've Been" - basically, you favourite current hit, you favourite of all time and your hit that never was...

In the spirit of DiscDiscussions enduring mission to encourage you to head to the loft or the garage and pull out your forgotten classics, it's time celebrate some of those "should've beens" once more.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a time when I spent my time scouring the records that hadn't broken the Top 40. Their subsequent success naturally made me feel slightly superior as a spotter of talent - and obviously a precursor for my desired (but never realised) career as an A&R man. But it meant you had to share your great find with the "hopper-bopper under-12 roller disco" crowd, as I once described them, clutching their pocket money down at Woolworths.

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Yes, I was an awkward sod even then.

But now it's time to put all of that aside and revisit some of those records that not enough of you bought and so are now mere footnotes in the panoply of pop history, when really they are the Lost Belters.

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There will always a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive for them round at mine...

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