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Go and Listen to Something You Loved When You Were 14

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Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to go and listen to a single, EP or album that you loved when you were 14, but haven’t heard in years.

Ideally it should be something that you were mad about when you had it on vinyl or cassette, but which never made that fateful jump to the CD collection or the iTunes library.

A Frankie 12″ perhaps? Or how about Kings of the Wild Frontier? Angel Face? Oceans of Fantasy? Elastica?
Metal for Muthas even? The choice is yours!

1

Comments

  1. Marillion – Assassing (12”)
    Yes, I loved Marillion in 1984, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I had everything they did up until the Clutching at Straws album and I even saw them live on that tour in the Edinburgh Playhouse, at the end of my first term in college. It was a hometown concert for Dalkeith boy Fish, but the band seemed subdued. Looking back, that line-up was probably in the process of breaking up, but I thought at the time they realised that they had peaked with the previous album.

    Anyway, Assassing 30+ years on. The first impression is that the music has aged a bit better than I thought it might. There’s a tinny 80s production (especially the drums) and the keyboards are a bit weedy, but the middle eastern style extended intro and the guitar riff still sound good. It’s a pretty good song. What lets it down a bit is Fish. First of all, the look-at-the-size-of-my-vocabulary lyrics and alliteration are the sort of thing that impress you when you’re 14 but a bit less later on. Adjectives of annihilation, indeed. Then there’s his dramatic delivery, he tended to want to act out his lyrics. Again, seemed profound at 14, bit less so now.
    Cinderella Search on the B side sounds more fresh. Marillion tended to use the B sides to try out writing shorter, less proggy tracks (Lady Nina, the B side of Kayleigh is the best example. They even released it as a single in the US) and I reckon it has aged a bit better than the A side.

    I fell out of love with Marillion when I went to college (I reckon this was not so unusual), replacing them in my affections with The Smiths and the Sisters of Mercy (both of whom I still like).

    • I don’t have to do this now, because you’ve done it for me. I loved Marillion when I was 14, and your feelings now are almost exactly in sync with mine. I thought Fish was so clever back then, but now….well, maybe not.

      The other thing I loved then was Springsteen. That’s one that has stuck with me. I came aboard with BITUSA and Dancing In The Dark, but one of my dad’s workmates was already a fan (a proto-Afterworder, perhaps). My dad asked him to tape a copy of the BITUSA album for me, and he filled the other side with a selection of tracks from Born To Run, Darkness and The River. That orange BASF C90 was nailed to my Walkman for years, and even now I find the track sequencing on the original albums where it differs from the tape a bit disconcerting.

      I still dig the Sisters as well.

  3. A quick scan down the “1982 in music” page on Wikipedia suggests I’ll be listening to either “Number of the Beast” (Iron Maiden) or “Quartet” (Ultravox) over the weekend.

    My tastes were all over the shop from a very early age…

      • Sounds about right – my Metal obsession ran from 1982 to probably around 1990 (bookended by Iron Maiden – Number Of The Beast to No Prayer For The Dying).
        I wasn’t listening to nothing else but Metal, but probably accounted for about 60% of all the stuff I bought. From about 1988, the interest began to wane and by my last visit to Castle Donnigton in 1996 it was pretty much gone for good (I only went to see Ozzy – that was an expensive show).
        Still listen to the “big” stuff, but don’t think I’ve heard bands like Kreator, Queensrÿche or Dokken for years.

        • Not very often Dokken or Queensrÿche get a mention on here…
          More when I was 17-23 ish, but i loved them both, travelled the length and breadth to see Queensrÿche.

          I guess I’ll be listening to some Twisted Sister then, maybe some MSG (my first gig, at age 14)…

  4. Miracle by the Kane Gang. I loved it then but it’s long since gone. I think I youtubed it about ten years ago and didn’t like it. Will try it later.

    I struggled with this because nearly all of the music I had when I was 14 I still have… and still play fairly regularly. It would have been more of a challenge if you’d said 30. (Junior Senior? What was I thinking??)

  5. I honestly can’t find anything from 1992 which I loved then which I haven’t really listened to since. Vulgar Display of Power? Check. Dry? The Chronic? Check. Rage Against The Machine? Angel Dust? Check. Check Your Head? Check check.

    Maybe I’ll go with Core by Stone Temple Pilots. I’m certain it’s bobbins, mind. Or maybe Welcome To Wherever You Are by INXS…

    • That INXS is damn good. It’s a shame they’ve kind of been reduced to a one hit wonder by history (Need You Tonight) as they were deservedly quite the thing back then.

      The 1992 album I still adore, even though I shouldn’t, is the Ocean Colour Scene debut. It tanked, they fucked off for four years and when they came back the world loved them… and I didn’t.

  6. 14, mmm. Neil Diamond – Beautiful Noise; Jethro Till- Ring out Solstice Bells; Starland Vocal Band – Afternoon Delight. Without double checking ( or picking stuff from stuff from the first half of 1977, when 1 was still 14, but things moved fast), these are the songs I liked best. I still hear all three played on the radio, Afternnon Delight seems to be on every other day.

  7. mid-1984 to mid-1985.
    Definitley the early Metal Years for me – plenty of Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Motorhead and Metallica. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Whitesnake also figure highly.
    Marillions ‘Misplaced Childhood’ was released at the end of this period, and still ranks as one of my all-time favourite albums (remastered box set on the way, just in time for my birthday)
    Add to that a pre-occupation with The Beatles, The Stones and The Who (this stuff was nearly 20 years old, I felt so cool listening to “old” music, and the discovery of T.Rex. I also think I bought Led Zep 4 around this time too.
    Madness still figured and U2 were often being played.
    The Smiths were about, but it would be another year (just as they were about to split) that I finally “got” what they were on a about.
    Most of what I was listening to then has made the jump to CD, or still gets regular airings.
    There are some things that haven’t (Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw being two off the top of my head examples) but I didn’t exactly “love” them (despite buying most of the singles and albums.

    A 14/15 year old finding musical identity listening to damn near everything, and finally aligning himself to the scruffy Metal people (but still listening to Wings, Slade and The Sisters Of Mercy)

    The one I did notice, that hasn’t been played for a while was a single I won in a Radio 210 competition (along with nine other singles, the only other on I can remember is Blondie: Denis)
    (Radio 210: locally serving Reading and the Thames Valley, locally, in glorious stereo on 97.0 FM)

    Jimmy Barnes – Working Class Man

    Right, to be clear up front – this aint exactly fantastic, but it is pretty good in a sort of sub-Springsteen meets Journey, American radio rock type way.
    Why did I love it so? Springsteen and Born In The USA was everywhere, and being 14 years old I decided that if everyone else liked it, then I was going to be awkward and not like it.
    This fitted with the pervading air of Springsteen and the like, and gave me the “snobbery value” of discovering something similar that no-one else had heard.
    The album that it cam from (yes, I bought that too) is OK, if a tad predictable and same-y.
    A year or so later I learnt my lesson, and along with the ongoing Metal obsession, bought the Springsteen back catalogue (including Born In The USA, which I still don’t like very much)

    Yes it was OK, and “nice” to hear again. Would I be looking to upgrade to CD? Probably not.

  9. As it was mid 1980 – to mid 1981, most of it is stuff I still listen to (and love). It’s a period full of lovely post-punk, new wave, The Pretenders, Squeeze, Joe Jackson, Adam and the Ants, Stray Cats, Postcard Records and the like.
    However I do vaguely remember a brief flirtation with the NWOBHM and I’m fairly sure I’ve not listened to a Saxon record out of choice since then.

  10. 14 was just a year or so too early for me to be really interested but my brother was in the forces in Germany and used to bring records back (nothing better to spend his money on probably and he always was a big record buyer). My attention was caught by the stencilled logo he had on his army suitcase and while he was away I grew to love the album it came with, TRB: Power in the Darkness. I just played it again and it still sounds really good to me. Maybe not “authenic” enough for some but who cares? I found I still know a lot of the lyrics after all these years and this is my favourite track on the album. Even this live version isn’t too shabby.

  11. I’m a lucky sod as I turned 14 in 1997 which was a good year to reach peak adolescent.
    There have been a lot of ’20 year anniversary’ articles & additional stuff this year & it’s prompted me to re listen to a lot of albums which have IMHO aged very well indeed. (Spiritualized, Daft Punk, The Verve, Radiohead etc.).
    However, I have to admit that at the time I was also listening to a lot of Stereophonics (I was obsessed with them) which I find very hard to enjoy now. The odd track has aged well but a lot of it has not.

    In response to OP request I have just listened to Copper Girl by 3 Colours Red & it sounded bloody fantastic. Thanks

  12. 1981. Early New Order. I have tended to listen to the later stuff – particularly the albums. So, Procession it is then. Loud.

    It’s still fantastic. I mean, really fantastic.

    • Likewise, but 1984 for me, so Thieves Like Us b/w Lonesome Tonight. Both bloody marvellous.

      Hadn’t played them for years but went back recently after reading Hooky’s book.

      • I have been listening to them more recently due to his book as well. But I started at Power, Corruption & Lies and completely forgot about Procession, which, with Ceremony, were the songs that made me love New Order.

        The book’s great fun isn’t it? Hooky really was the odd one out in that band but its his bass that makes them different.

        • I’ve really enjoyed all three of Hooky’s books. He’s self-deprecating, honest enough to admit when he’s behaved like a tool, and our views on NO align. Having also read Barney’s misery memoir, I can see why they don’t get on – Barney considers himself an introspective serious artist and Hooky’s like Tigger and can’t quite believe his luck.

          I’d like to have afternoon tea with Hooky – a pint’s out of the question (he’s in recovery and I’m on strong meds). I met him once during the Mrs Merton years and he was an obnoxious drunk, that appears to have been a (long) temporary blip.

          Like the best music books, it has made me go back to the music and listen with a new viewpoint.

  13. As I climb into my DeLorean and travel back in time to the forgotten days of the year 2000/2001, I find myself scanning the pages of Wikipedia for inspiration –

    Looking down the list of best-selling albums, I was given ‘1’ by The Beatles for Christmas. That kickstarted a fondness for the fab-four (and a love of alliteration). I also owned ‘The Invisble Band’ and ‘The Man Who’ – which my iPod told me listen to in the car the other week and Oasis’s ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ – which I’ve not listened to in years, and neither should you.

    There’s a few albums which came out then that I didn’t buy at the time, but have since purchased – ‘Kid A’, ‘Parachutes’, ‘Best of Blur’, ‘Echoes- Pink Floyd’ etc.

    At 14, I was still at the age where I knew what was number one, but I’ve never bought singles (except ‘Three Lions’ and ‘Baby One More Time’) and I didn’t really start buying music until I had a disposable income of my own (i.e. from the age of 15/16).

  14. It was 1976 when I turned 14, the current stuff was The Beatles! All their reissued singles were in the charts, I got A Hard Days Night and Please Please Me on cassette for about 3.50 each, still listen to them regularly now.

    • 1976 for me too, but I can hardly claim to have not listened to them since.
      I love The Royal Scam, but didn’t listen to it at the time.
      What I realise I don’t listen to much from then is Buzzcocks, and you know what – Boredom is still great.

    • Same year as me then. It was a big deal that single, was it in the top 3?

      Joint single of the week in the NME with Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm.

      New albums by Public Enemy and Prince coming out soon… My mate’s got a tape of the Black Album….”He says “motherfucker” on it!”

      And the Fiesta Summer Special for bedtime “reading”. Oh yesterday leave me alone.

  17. I still listen regularly to some of the stuff I liked then.

    But I went back to Use Your Illusion I to revisit something I haven’t heard since. Not convinced. Maybe II is better. At least I thought so at the time.

  18. 1979 would have been The Jam who I still listen to now or The Police which I don’t. I will put that right I just need to check which album……
    Regatta de Blanc it is then

    • Outlandos D’Amour would be the first contemporary album I bought (but at 16), the guys at school said “Dai’s a punk”! Never listen to it now, pretty weak album apart from the singles. I also was getting into The Jam and, like you, still listen to them occasionally.

    • 1979 was my year too. Back then I was listening to:
      Regatta de Blanc
      All Mod Cons
      Black Rose
      Cheap Trick At The Budokan
      Its Alive
      Discovery (Disco? Very!)
      Days In Europa
      One Step Beyond
      Setting Sons
      London Calling
      ELO’s Greatest Hits

      Of those, I probably haven’t listened to Days In Europa in years.

  19. 1975. That’ll be “Physical Graffiti”, “Yessongs”, “Welcome to my Nightmare”, and “Crime of the Century”. Listen to COTC and Yessongs often enough anyway. PG has a good range of songs but “In My Time of Dying” is dangerously close to the rock blues-orthodoxy of the times. “Trampled Underfoot” goes on a bit – not a lot of ideas and the groove is shorter than the track. “Welcome to my Nightmare” is another pretty perfect album for a 14-year old. I saw the concert in London that September, which was also teen-boy Heaven – hard pop-rock with horror film pantomime theatrics.

  20. The Toys – A Lovers Concerto.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGLshciXjxU

    The McCoys – Hang On Sloopy

    The Sir Douglas Quintet – She’s About A Mover
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHF2LHtHt78

    Also available that year, 1965:
    The Beach Boys – California Girls
    The Lovin’ Spoonful – Do You Believe In Magic
    The Animals – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
    The Yardbirds – For Your Love
    The Rolling Stones – Get Off My Cloud
    Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Going To A Go-Go
    The Beatles – Help!
    The Who – I Can’t Explain
    James Brown – I Got You (I Feel Good)
    Sonny & Cher – I Got You Babe
    Fontella Bass – Rescue Me
    Simon & Garfunkel – The Sound Of Silence
    The Supremes – Stop! In The Name Of Love
    Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
    The Kinks – Tired Of Waiting For You
    Stevie Wonder – Uptight (Everything Is All Right)
    Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs – Wooly Bully

  21. 1973, the year ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ came out so I would have been starting to discover Pink Floyd but mainly listening to Wings, 10cc and Elton John.

    I haven’t played the whole of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ in years yet it’s one of Elton’s best.

  22. gulp, How About Us by Champaign….
    memories of my first girlfriend come flooding back.
    she let me touch her once…….”I’ve never heard it called that before” etc.

  23. 1979. My tastes were evolving at hyperspeed and in a year or two it would be post-punk all the way, but four of the first albums I bought were Replicas (Tubeway Army), Setting Sons, Eat To The beat and Discovery by ELO. A mixed bag there. The middle two I listen to regularly to this day and are from two of my very favourite bands. I’ve not listened to Replicas for ages so am giving that a spin – it’s aged very well, Numan’s flat nasal monotone as full of alienation as when I was 14. Me I Disconnect from You, Down In The Park and of course Are Friends are still excellent. And what a cover – black shirt, white hair, lightbulb, window with nighttime and the neon sign for The Park. He quickly became quite uncool (around the time of Telekon) and I’ve rather neglected Replicas.

    Discovery though? I just need to look at the tracks – Last Train to London, The Diary of Horace Wimp, Shine A Little Love to shudder at how plastic the music was. It would be discarded very quickly.

  24. I am just sitting down, having, in my head, turned over Pictures at an Exhibition from side 1 to 2. Of course I haven’t really had to, as it on Spotify. (It is still on a vinyl disc in my study, but unplayed for many a long year.) And, do you know, it is fecking great, even the bleep and booster Dr Who noises that annoyed me a little when I was 14 in 1971. (Could this be thru’ my exposure to much electronica/dance, where such sounds are often de rigeur?) Emerson, Lake and Palmer, for it is they, were my favourite band and some. Shame we won’t ever be getting a replay on this one.
    I know they haven’t even been reappraised beyond some grudging praise, and that in the wake of 2 of them dying within months, but this does warrant a good listening to with open mind and ears.
    What shall I listen to next?

  25. 1983/84. I do actually listen to so much of the music from then now. I really don’t believe there’s anything I don’t listen to at least some of the time.

    If there is anything that is my metal phase it’s probably The Alarm, I was nuts about their first album ‘Declaration’ and I just recently put the remastered version onto my mp3 player. But it’s an album I didn’t listen to for years. It’s great though, even if The Clash and Dylan and The Jam that they were obviously listening to were/are better. The first album has an energy that’s so 14 years old, and a great sound/production and the songs are brilliant, if a little dumb lyrically.

    • The Alarm – the Welsh Big Country.
      Simplistic, and probably very unfair.
      I liked The Alarm, and have seen Mike Peters solo a couple of times.
      Declaration is a great album – Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke is one of those songs that sounds infinitely better when played at full volume, and the full version of 68 Guns just has “something” that the single version missed

      • Te Welsh Big Country? *Sigh*

        First off – The Alarm can stand alone in their own releases. Spirit of 76, Where were you standing, et al, stand on their own with no comparators.

        Big Country. One day, someone, and and at this rate, me, will write the tome on BC. They weren’t bagpipes; they weren’t everything that U2 wanted to be. They were a band of the 80s who stood apart from their contemporaries and deserve deeper critical analysis. They were, above all , a guitar drievn band who spoke to, and about, the ordinary person.

        Hey Bono – that pedestal you’re looking for? Stuart Adamson has had it for years.

        • Big Country and The Alarm are the bands U2 want to be
          (a bit Alan Partridge, but not far from the truth)

          The Crossing is surely one of the greatest albums ever – but very few seem to have noticed

          • I was lucky enough to see The Alarm live as I mentioned here many times before. In terms of sheer power, performance and making sure the audience have a good time they are right up there with Foo Fighters. It was a performance that has stuck in my mind for over 30 years. This morning I will listen to “Declaration”.. For some inexplicable reason Big Country passed me by in the 80’s I have put that right recently. For once Si and I agree both bands stand on their own without the need for U2 references

              • Re: Big Country

                I put on my old vinly LP of “The Crossing” a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in ages.

                The songs have stood up really well, I think. “Inwards”, “The Storm”, “Porrohman”. All good stuff. Stuart Adamson was a terrific frontman.

  26. Mmm mine would be “Electric Warrior ” which came out the previous autumn and which I got for my birthday in March. I was utterly smitten by “Get it on” and still think the album stands up. Many of my later lifetime faves came out then, but as I didn’t know shit from sugar I didn’t know that. Later that year it would have been Ziggy of course.

  27. Of that period (1976/77), I can’t find an album that I listened to a lot and didn’t subsequently upload to my iPod. Rumours, Exodus, DSotM and WYWH, Year Of The Cat, Spanish Train, Hotel California, Rainbow Rising and On Stage, Rock Follies 1 & 2, would have been my main listening around that age, all with tracks that please me to this day by occasionally coming up on shuffle.
    So I’m going to go way off the rules here and post a song I hadn’t heard for many a year until I thought of it yesterday, remembered it as being quite good if a little sloppy, played it and was knocked out. Such a stunningly beautiful song. I checked out various versions on youtube. Some good (George Michael; Johnny Cash), some bad (Peggy Seeger*; Peter, Paul & Mary; Celine Dion), none to compare with Roberta Flack’s. I was disappointed to find out that the song has become something of an X Factor audition favourite. Seems other people have been listening to it all these years and I’m the only eejit who forgot all about it. Her voice, natch, but also the minimalist backing. Just wonderful.
    The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

    * Yeah, I know, I know already.

    • You know how there are those singles that, when released, are runaway steaming winners, smash hits lauded by all and sundry…and yet for the life of you, you just can’t see what the fuss is about. It’s okay, serviceable, not offensive…but worth all that clamour? Hardly.

      Then, years later, you hear it again on the off-chance, and – it’s as if you’d never heard it before. Like the sun breaking through the clouds on a stormy day, like that bit at the end of the instrumental in Something In The Air…with crystal clarity you understand what it was that you missed, and the mean, moody magnificence of it stands bare before you, shining and perfectly formed.

      That’s how it was for me and this song.

  28. I was 14 in 1974, so it was mostly Slade, T.Rex and Wizzard/Roy Wood at Moriarty Towers. I still love Slade and Sir Royston unreservedly, T Rex are more of a curates egg. When Bolan was good, he was great, but his quality control left much to be desired.

    Much other stuff that was more in the rock/album area that I love and still listen to now I caught on to much later. About the only radio outlet for it was Fluff, and I had better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than listen to the radio and risk having my ears subjected to Yes and Genesis. I was a prog refusenik even then.

  30. That would be 1973 for me, so that’s Bowie, Alice, Roxy and ELP…never stopped listening to them to be honest. Had a mild interest in David Essex but that’s definitely one to stay in the past .

  31. It’s funny how everyone has gone straight to “what came out that year”. When I was 14 I was of course listening to a lot of new stuff (1987-8) but I was also starting to listen to Pet Sounds, Rubber Soul, Moondance… The Band even.

    Is that normal at that age? You may not use the word “weirdo” in your answer.

    • I remember buying myself a Sony Discman with my paper-round money and listening to it religiously on the bus to and from school. I’d gone against the grain (most of my friends were into Nu-metal and such like) and would just listen to ‘Blonde on Blonde’ or ‘Revolver’. I soon learned that harmonicas are easily detectable through earphones.

    • Yes because radio one in 1979 was probably at its peak – it was all about the charts. Only the Golden Hour played oldies. Though to me old stretched back to the first lp by the jam. The only oldies band I listened to age 14 were elo.

    • When I was a 14-year-old pop fan it was whatever was played on the radio, which wasn’t really a lot, or nothing at all. Radio Luxembourg, a handful of pop shows on The Light Programme and maybe someone on a TV variety show.
      Records were expensive and my parents had no interest in music whatsoever.

      If it wasn’t in the charts any more, it was gone and you just didn’t hear it anymore, because while pop was still pretty new, it was also ephemeral.
      Anything “old” was from your mum & dad’s generation and completely unlistenable therefore.

  32. The end of my teeny bop years 1973 – 1974. Glam was my thing and Slade were my favourites. I still enjoy them if I hear them on TV or the radio, but haven’t listened to the records for over 40 years.

  34. Not remotely cool but I’d say that this was the track I listened to most at the age of 14. It was a Sky b-side (Toccata) and apparently a Curved Air cover version. I liked it so much I painted the label with yellow paint for some reason. I still have the vinyl single…

  37. “A Collection of Beatles’ Oldies,” the reason why “Bad Boy” has always been as familiar to me as “Day Tripper,” “She Loves You” or “I Feel Fine.”
    The back cover is still my favourite photograph of the group.

    It no doubt would attract a degree of criticism, but if Apple put out the 16-track album on CD (coupled with “Rarities” maybe? “Bad Boy” twice!), I’d buy it in the blink of an eye.

  38. I still listen to most of the music I liked at 14, but I tried two that I haven’t heard in years, on Spotify. Had to stop mid-second track in both cases – which probably had more to do with track two being shite than perhaps the entire albums, but I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for continuing the experiment… The albums were U2 – October and Depeche Mode – Speak and Spell. To be fair, I think I probably would have liked most of DM had I stayed with it, but I’m in a restless mood!

  39. 14 was my first year of really owning my own lp’s, seeing my first gigs and really being into music almost to the exclusion of other pastimes (It was two years before pubs/drinking featured).
    First gigs were Deep Purple and Free probably about 3 months apart.
    In Rock and Fire and Water were prominent as a result but so too were Simon and Garfunkel and before the year was out Leonard Cohens Songs of which still gets aired fairly regularly today.
    At the time I had worldly mates who supplied the dope and introduced me to less mainstream stuff namely Groundhogs (Split), Pink Fairies, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Ten Years After, Hot Tuna and the Amboy Dukes (before Ted Nugent became a knob or maybe he was always a knob).
    Heady days and there isn’t much from then that I can’t listen to now but interestingly my younger ears couldn’t listen to stuff that I appreciate now like Jazz, Country and Reggae.

  40. 1968. Small boys, summer Scout Camp, jumpers for goalposts, a tiny transistor radio. I spent much of my time thinking I was lucky to be alive in an era of such fantastic chart music. Having just listened to both of these through a Sonos system they both still sound amazing

  43. I turned 14 in March 1964, so I was born with the David Hepworth defined ‘Golden Ticket’ – having presumably badgered my parents all through 1963, I was given my first record player at Christmas 1963 along with the singles ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ and the immortal Freddie and The Dreamers epic ‘You Were Made For Me’. I don’t think I was a particular fan of the latter, but I’m guessing Mum and Dad assumed I would like a huge chart hit of the moment. Needless to say,I don’t revisit Freddie and his Dreamers oeuvre too often these days, and listening now just evokes nostalgia rather than a long lost love of Fred! On Boxing Day 1963 I bought With The Beatles with my record tokens and I think I added the Searchers EP ‘Ain’t Gonna Kiss Ya’ soon afterwards, along with the Beatles ‘Hits’ EP, and Glad All Over by the Dave Clark Five as well as an EP by them too, and the Shadows Greatest Hits LP was an early buy. Bits and Pieces was the last DC5 record I bought, and I really went off them quickly. I still love nearly everything from that year now, but there was a progressive period in the late 60s which prompted me to get rid of most of those records (except the Beatles) – they didn’t go with the hair and greatcoat! All now rebought in one form or another….except Freddie…and I adore the Searchers, and the Fabs obviously!

  44. Was 14 in 1986

    Cassettes only on our house and I got a walkman with my birthday money.

    The first things I bought were

    Tears for Fears – Songs From The Big Chair
    Phil Collins – No Jacket Required
    Status Quo – In The Army Now

    Listened to SFTBC on Spotify a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it still and its had a few repeat plays since then.

    Phil and Quo not so much. Didn’t like NJR as much as Hello I Must Be Going or Face Value which we had in the car – Quo got a couple of plays, don’t think even their biggest fans would say it was their finest hour (or anywhere close)

    After that I got Peter Gabriel – So, and the first Police Best Of – the one with the terrible remake of Don’t Stand So Close To Me on it. This led me into a great few months discovering PGs back catalogue and some less satisfying investigation into The Police – as it turned out the singles was pretty much all you needed apart from a few other tracks.

    Due to the wonders of tape to tape and a strategically placed piece of sellotape I managed to record the original version of DSSCTM over the remake on my copy of the Greatest Hits before returning to WHSmiths to exchange my copy of Zenyatta Mondatta for something better.

      • Side 1 got a lot of plays, Side 2 (Ghost in the Machine era onwards) increasingly less which involved a fair amount of strategic FFWDing to get to a decent song when turning the tape over

        Unsurprisingly the next stop from PG and PC was Genesis – Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb still big favorites

  45. What great albums appeared in 1970: Abraxas, John Barleycorn, Lizard, Zeppelin III, Quintessence, Parachute, Hawkwind, Thank Christ For The Bomb, ELP, Deja Vu, The Least We Can Do., All Things Must Pass, Black Sabbath, Bitches Brew, If I Could Do It.. Hell, even my favourite ever, Journey In Satchidananda, which I discovered a little later. Also was enjoying the radio hits stuff.

    Since then, still upgrading my stereo, still listening to all of them on vinyl, still discovering stuff in the grooves, such is the life of the music lover. My taste was already intact at that time, what’s changed is, I’ve realised music is music, good is good, coolness is bollocks. Now listen to the aforementioned plus jazz, country, modern classical, scratchy blues, the Carpenters, whatever.

    Everything’s mostly cool. Bought a Garbage CD recently though, as I had dug their first two. But Bleed Like Me is technically shocking, everything seems to be turned up full all the time, there’s no air in it. You can’t sit in front of it, you literally can’t turn it down. This might be the development that spoils my trust in record companies to release the best they can. Or maybe I’ve finally become too old to appreciate what they’re doing for us. Hell, I’d love to have this out with someone.

  46. I was going to post Hit the Road Jack yet again until I read the OP properly…like everybody else pretty much everything I listened to in 1961 I still listen to. It were all singles then of course, so you’ve got Crazy by Patsy Cline, Crying by Roy Orbison, Runaway by Del Shannon, Shop Around by the Miracles, Runaround Sue by Dion, Walk Right Back by the Everly Brothers, Dum Dum by Brenda Lee, Stand by Me by Ben E. King, etc ,etc…they all survive in various playlists.

    But I suppose this is something that doesn’t seem to pop up very often…
    https://youtu.be/pbWXbm2Z4z4

  48. This is nothing new. It is something I have regularly done all my life. A teen band crush isn’t just for Christmas…

    P.S. To be fair. 1978 was a good year… 🙂

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