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Rediscovering old albums...

Timbuk 3 -Greetings From... A really underrated band forever tainted with the 'one hit wonder/novelty' label after 'The Future's So Bright' but they had some cracking songs.

Paul Young - No Parlez Loved this in my teens, and there are bits that still stand up today. Very 80s production though!

Data - Opera Electronica - thought this was the bees knees when it came out first off, classic retro synth pop with a heavy dose of nuclear armageddon paranoia thrown in...
 
I’m sure everyone of the typical pfm age demographic with a reasonably sized record collection will have many albums that haven’t seen daylight for maybe decades. This thread is for those records. Pull ‘em out, play them, and report back. I’ve done three over the past week or so, by coincidence all late ‘70s-early-80s new-wave, but obviously this thread should cover all genres.

a) Public Image Ltd - Flowers Of Romance. I mentioned this one on the recent PIL topic and really it was the spark for this thread. I’d just totally forgotten just how unique and good this record is. It also sounds amazing, which obviously helps. I remember being almost frightened/alienated by it when I bought it as it just sounded like nothing else I’d ever heard. It remains a wonderful outlier.

b) Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance. Another wonderful slab of late-70s WTF released on a imprint of Mercury. I have no idea what the A&R dept of this major label thought they were buying, but I suspect it was not this. Just bonkers, but in a very, very good way. I’ve pulled Dub Housing out ready for a spin too.

c) Talking Heads - 77. I love this album, always have done, but again hadn’t played it for a very long time for no logical reason. It still sounds great, just as fresh and fun as it always did. So well worth pulling out for a spin.

So, go pull a few long neglected gems out... left a bit, right a bit... yes that one.

Records from the Ottoman:

I've got a ottoman box full of vinyl I put in the spare room when we moved into our house in summer 2002 that has been pretty much untouched since then. Like Tony's list its nearly all 80s and early 90s rock/pop vinyl and some older 60s stuff: I guess thee are probably are 200 - 250 records in total. By the time we'd moved in I'd switched to playing CDs most of the time and kept a shelf of favourite records downstairs for when the kids were in bed, but that was mainly jazz. At that point my CD player was much better than my turntable so I tended to pay new CDs rather than old records. Over the years I've occasionally had a rummage but over 90% of it hasn't been played this century.

As I'm doing some part time consultancy from home and the kids are doing remote school learning on their laptops I've decided to use this lockdown period to play a record a day. There are some great records in there (and lots of records by Spirit for some reason) : I've no idea why I've not played them :confused:

Yesterday : Graham Parker - Heat Treatment - If is was asked in the late 70s this would have been one of my favourite records. I saw them a few times and remember loving Fools Gold, which is still a great, great song. At the time I thought he was better than Costello or Springsteen but it's not aged as well as something like Born to Run or even Costello's first record, maybe one of those groups that never really transcends their influences - but it has some fine songs on it.

Re Tony's OP, I saw Pere Ubu opening for Graham Parker and the Rumour at The Roundhouse just after Modern Dance came out. One of the most amazing live performances I've ever seen. They nearly cleared the hall - but the 100 or so who stayed were blown away. I bought Datapanik in the Year Zero and Modern Dance the following day.

Today: The Only Ones - Even Serpents Shine - Id forgotten what great songs they wrote - and such great guitar playing. I've got their first record in the same box and it'll be out soon. Love this.

There's a box of singles in the loft which I might check them out later - mainly punk / new wave stuff.

Listening to them after all this time is quite strange - like opening a portal to my younger self.
 
My son has gone back to Uni, one of his housemates has a turntable so other half has let him take some of her singles with him. I managed to salvage the original pressing of ‘Love will tear us apart’ though. Didn’t bother to go through the rest but they were all Depeche Mode singles.
 
Records from the Ottoman:

Today: Dr John, In The Right Place - not sure I can recall when I last played this - may have only been once or twice when I got it. With The Meters and Allan Toussaint it is seriously funky. A keeper and in very cool fold out sleeve with some very fabulous early 70s graphics.
 
I dug out two Magazine albums last year, "Real Life" and "Secondhand daylight". It must be at least 10 years since I listened to them, and 25 years since they were played regularly - was really into them during my first year at university. A couple of cracking tracks on "Real Life" (Burst is my favourite). "Secondhand daylight" is a better overall album I think - more flow to it.


I transferred them onto CD and pop them on very month or two.
 
Have spun OK Computer for the first time in many a year tonight. By no means a Radiohead obsessive but there are some sublime moments on this album.
 
Have spun OK Computer for the first time in many a year tonight. By no means a Radiohead obsessive but there are some sublime moments on this album.

I went through a period of playing that album obsessively of all the albums I have it's the most affecting (and I have a lot of other 'miserableist' music) - it's not sad, or angry, or melancholy, it's just permeated with a sense of weariness and fatigue and "oh, I just give up with the whole World, what's the point" - it just slowly works on you. It changed my mental state for the worst.

I can play a couple of tracks at a go but cannot listen to it all the way through, even 20-odd years later.
 
I dug out two Magazine albums last year, "Real Life" and "Secondhand daylight". It must be at least 10 years since I listened to them, and 25 years since they were played regularly - was really into them during my first year at university. A couple of cracking tracks on "Real Life" (Burst is my favourite). "Secondhand daylight" is a better overall album I think - more flow to it.


I transferred them onto CD and pop them on very month or two.

The first three Magazine are 'must haves' along with the Peel Sessions.

My only gripe is that the best version of 'Shot by Both Sides' is the single (recorded before Dave Formula joined, I think) and not on the album.

 
I knew I'd heard a slightly different version of "Shot by Both Sides". On a similar theme here's another blast from the past:

8718469536726.jpg

Love the A sides. The B sides not so much.
 
Record from the Ottoman:

Today Prefab Spout: Jordan the Comeback: for the first 15 minutes I was wondering why this had been neglected for so long. Then I got very bored. There are some great songs on this but as a whole record its nothing like as good as Swoon ( my favourite) or Steve McQueen which have stayed on the shelf. I think this one will go back in the box I'll and stream the songs I like.


I dug out two Magazine albums last year, "Real Life" and "Secondhand daylight". It must be at least 10 years since I listened to them, and 25 years since they were played regularly - was really into them during my first year at university. A couple of cracking tracks on "Real Life" (Burst is my favourite). "Secondhand daylight" is a better overall album I think - more flow to it.


I transferred them onto CD and pop them on very month or two.

The Correct Use of Soap is in my box of neglected vinyl and is on the list to dig out sometime soon.
 
I knew I'd heard a slightly different version of "Shot by Both Sides".

There are 6 officially issued versions:
  • Single version.
  • 'Real Life' version.
  • 'Play' version (live in Melbourne 1980).
  • 'Play +' version (Live in Manchester 1978).
  • 'Alternative' version (sounds like a demo version to me) on Disc 1 of the 'Maybe It's Right to Be Nervous Now' set.
  • Live the Russel Club Manchester (date U/K) on disc 2 of 'Nervous'.
And they're all f**king great, just not single version great.

Then there was this song that nicked the riff.

And of course, Radiohead's 'Just' is erm, inspired by that riff too.
 
Here's another not listened in a long while. I don't care for any of their other albums (save for the single "Jesus just left Chicago", but I think this is a great album
ZZ_Top_-_ZZ_Top%27s_First_Album.jpg
 


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