Ok. This will probably only end in tears. I posted tonight on the social media a screenshot of Jeff Buckley’s Grace LP on my turntable with a caption to the effect of “after a 20 year layoff, it is back on with this album”. One comment from a friend (in her forties, as am I) says she loves the LP; another comment, from a former student (I’m a high school teacher; she’s probably now late 20s, early 30s), mock-chiding me for not listening to it for the last 20 years. All in good humour and a shared understanding that it’s a great record. My existential question is this: Is there a (admittedly loose) cutoff point in the future from which someone could post an FB pic about a particular LP and have both peers AND people, say, 20 years younger still claiming it having a lasting resonance for them? Are the doors of the canon closed? Or, have they been closing? Have we been hastily waving (say) the new Radiohead album under the steadily descending door? I do want the answer to be no. But I remember discussion here about Mark Lewisohn’s Beatles biography trilogy and people quite genuinely and » Continue Reading.

M’learned colleagues. Am travelling to London from Sydney in a couple of weeks with the family to see the sights etc. Am also looking to sneak away and shop for records. Berwick St is obviously on the list, but has anyone any tips for their favourite vinyl haunts?

Not usually my style on here, but here goes. Been going through a tricky patch of late – just the slings and arrows, complex life stuff, but no threats or dangers – and have spent much of this late Winter morning (Sydney-time) pondering about gratitude. I’ve been feeling like I’ve had my head up my own arse for the last while and am trying to mindful of the good things and to actually express them, to notice lifes rich pageant in a way that’s more positive and outward rather than being caught up in my own processes, which are becoming so well trodden I fear I’m becoming a kind of meta-consciousness, reflecting on my reflections ad infinitum ad nauseam. So, sitting on the lounge, my wife at work, the kids, 7 and 2, and I watching Play School which this year clocks up 50 years. As part of it, one of the old presenters of this much-loved kids TV show, John, comes on to reprise one of his songs from my own childhood. Instant tears of recognition, sadness and joy. Anyway, as I’m sure you know, @Mousey on this here blog plays piano on the Play School » Continue Reading.

The FPO and I have just spent a very enjoyable evening listening to Never Mind the Bollocks (or as Tina Weymouth would say, “Don’t Listen to the Bullocks”). In our admiration, we remembered a great quote by one of the guys from Def Leppard about AC/DC’s Back in Black. Wonderfully, he said the album was “sonically correct. It doesn’t date”. In our ensuing discussion (we don’t get out much these days) we liked the idea that that “sonically correct” meant it was somehow the high watermark of that field not just musically but in its sonic texture, overall shape, dimensions as an artefact etc. Back in Black… Never Mind the Bollocks… I then advanced Wish You Were Here as the uber-70s Floyd sound. We also mentioned Please Please Me as the sonically correct (TM) early Beatles sound. As a long time lurker and very infrequent poster, ‘er Indoors suggested that, yes, it *would* make a great Afterword post! Any other suggestions for albums that are ‘sonically correct’?

https://youtu.be/yqrAPOZxgzU