Those we have loved and lost
We talk a lot in this digital age about how we get re-united with the favourite music of our youth. We buy the remastered CD. We rip it. And then, all of a sudden, it pops up on your iPod when you least expect it.
But, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about those who failed to make the crossover. The albums and singles that were a huge part of your life but either never made it when you switched from vinyl to CD, or never got ripped.
They’re not the greatest bits of music you ever owned, but you loved them all the same: and now you seem to have left them all behind.
My collection (well, those I can remember - and in completely random order) is a strange and varied bunch.
- Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane: Rough Mix Don’t quite know why I liked this album so much. My thought process probably went: I’m a mod. The Who is a mod band. Pete Townshend is in the Who. I should like his solo album. Strange because it was really a slice of gentle 70s rock and blues. It was really the slightly epic (well it had strings on it) Street In The City that I played over and over again. Recently I was reunited with another track when I downloaded My Baby Gives It Away on KaZaA (go on, arrest me), which is actually a better track. Although it’s one of those songs that makes you dance around like a sad middle aged man, so best played when you’re at home.
-Working Week: Companeros I think I picked this up because they looked quite cool on the cover. It was a bit of deadly serious 80s jazzy stuff lead by Simon Booth and Larry Stabbins. At 17/18 I thought I was very cool by just listening to it. Came during my Oxfam suit period.
- Chapter and Verse (can’t remember the title): The key track here was Black Whip. I thought I originally heard it on a Rebirth of The Cool album, but no trace. Did I buy the album, or just the 12 inch single? There was a rapper (who Kirsty MacColl says in this interview was called Madison). It featured guitar by Ivan Boogaloo Jones, and it rocked.
- Pink Industry: This is the end. A fantastic piece of depressing early 80s synth, with a dead simple bass line and slash-your-wrists lyrics. ‘Is this the end/Or just some game we play/ I never thought/ It would end this way.” Don’t know whether this was before they became Pink Military or after. I had it on 12 inch, and my version had a slight scratch on the start which meant it always played with a crackle, that to me is part of the song.
- LL Cool J: Bad I had this on the turntable while I was a nice middle class student (Bristol 85 - 88) wearing a little too much tweed for my own good. For some reason however, I was also very happy jumping round my room shouting the words out in my best Bad Ass accent. You’ve just got to love the lyrics: “If you think you can outrhyme me, yeah boy I bet/ Cause I ain’t met a motherfucker who can do that yet/ Trendsetter I’m better my rhymes are good/ I got a gourmet plate that says I wish you would”. Eric B and Rakim stuck with me. LL Cool J remains lost on the vinyl shelf.
- Salif Keita: Soro My world music phase was short-lived. But this, I seem to remember, had the most beautiful, haunting opening.
- Generation X: Shakin All Over. OK, I’ll stop now, as I’m starting to embarrass myself. But the single of Valley of the Dolls (on a sort of murky brown vinyl) was all right. But the b-side had a version of Shaking All Over on that was just brilliant. Somehow, I never felt the urge to buy Billy Idol CDs.
OK - that’s enough nostalgia. Now, when are my new CDs coming?