Rod Stewart: Maggie May

Back in 1971 a teenager named Robyn stood in a trendy boutique in Manuka. Wafting over the radio came an unfamiliar sound. “Who is that!?!” she exclaimed with excitement.

Maggie May was the song in question and it jettisoned Rod Stewart into superstardom. Flash forward to 1981 and he found himself about where Britney Spears is now. No, not a single mum with a muffin top, but a matured artist in no-man’s-land. By now his teenage fans had children, mortgages and worst of all, husbands. They weren’t interested in an old heart throb with an old sound.

Enter Carmine Appice, the drummer in Stewart's band. He said "Rod was always trying to be on the cutting edge at that time, so we did drum machine (and sequencer) stuff.” The album Young Turks marked the beginning of breakdancing on MTV. This sharp modernity both in sight and sound saw Rod back in the charts, reaching #11 in the U.K. and #5 in the U.S. And Robyn? She still dusts off a copy of Atlantic Crossing every once in a while. It’s the simple things, you know…