Behind an old shoe rack, hidden underneath a rail of clothing, and at the very back of a box of the usual Bygraves et al, yesterday in a charity shop I found three modern records on vinyl; something by a guy going under the name Sohn (sparse indie electronica I believe, although I haven’t heard it yet), the debut album by Glasvegas (destined for eBay, ker-ching!), and lastly The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow.
Maybe it’s my new system, perhaps it’s because the Elbow album is spread over two 45rpm LPs, maybe I’m just coming down with something, but I’m really, really enjoying it, despite being very Elbow-averse until now. I always had them down as bland pap at best, annoying anthem writers at best. Too bad I’ve promised it to my brother in law.
Has anyone here experienced such an instant turnabout in their opinion of an artist by y’know, actually listening to them? I’m sure we’d all love to hear about it.
Oh, did I mention they were only a pound each? A pound!
I’m slightly jealous as The Seldom Seen Kid is the only Elbow album I like and I only have it on CD. I liked it enough to buy the live-in-the-studio version with the DVD, as well.
One Day Like This makes still makes me blubber, which was once problematical as I was doing the sound for a choir who performed it as a treat for me as their encore. When I was supposed to be bowing to the crowd after the gig, I was “blowing my nose” as it had suddenly become very dusty. “There’s that soundman who covers his face with a hanky”.
Aw.
Seldom Seen Kid is an oddity in the Elbow cannon.
It’s a brilliant album. Build A Rocket Boys nearly does the job, but nowt else quite cuts it.
Pink Floyd really annoyed me for ages until I, like, listened to them when the Echoes comp was released in 2001. My favourite albums are Meddle and WYWH.
A lot of my aversion could also have started when a friend was playing The Wall, an album I still don’t like, on repeat for years.
But before they became Roger Waters’ back-up band they were great.
I never took to The Wall either. Dreary and sooooooo loooooooong.
One of the things what I like about The Wall (as with much of Floyd’s music) is its musical simplicity. The fact that a musical eejit like moi can play along to it. Listen to the intro of Hey You. Straightforward E minor / D minor chords, an easy-peasy fingerpicking that anyone could play and a simple bass. And yet it sounds so magic. If you can play basic chords you can play pretty much the whole album. I like that.
With Floyd the songwriting is usually good. What I – think – I don’t like is the slightly pompous production (Bob Ezrin worked with Lou Reed, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Kiss and many others and did good there) and, especially on the second disc, there’s a bit of musical going on.
The Wall got the Mojo CD treatment a few years ago. Cover versions of the entire album. I thought it was an improvement.
I’ve never listened to The Wall and never will.
But the walls have ears.
Ooh! Walls. I fancy an ice cream now. Maybe a Funny Face.
I’m with you. I can’t believe any album that includes that awful single with the children squawking on is worth listening to. Oh, and its by Pink Floyd!
Quite right too. I don’t think you need to hear an album in order to decide if it’s any good. In a similar vein, I’ll never visit Madame Tussaud’s.
I think, if you’ve seen a few waxwork models and don’t like them then its a fair bet that you wouldn’t enjoy Madame Tussauds so why go, there are loads of other things to do in London.
I don’t like anything I’ve heard by Pink Floyd (post Syd anyway) and the single is bloody awful so I think my time is much better spent listening to something I might like and that includes stuff I’m totally unfamiliar with.
Yes. Meddle is brilliant, I also like Wish You Were Here and Animals. Piper at the Gates of Dawn is probably my favourite and The massive, bloated Wall could have made a good EP. Never really took to Dark Side of The Moon mainly because I am very rarely stoned I suppose.
Aye, there’s the rub. I’m very often stoned. And thus I like music that goes well with being stoned. Dark Side, Blue Lines, Astral Weeks and reggae in general are the best accompaniments I’ve come across.
Piper is one of the few Floyd albums I can’t stand (along with The Division Bell and Ummagumma).
I listened to Piper once. It made me think everyone involved should’ve been conscripted into military service before it had a chance to be made.
I like Piper. It’s a lot of fun. Pop music got serious from 1965 as it became Rock. Syd might have been on heavy duty lysergic drugs but Piper is light and flivorous, gloriously defiant Pop music, while there was a dark, brooding undercurrent to The Summer Of Love.
Alternative view: it’s irritating whimsy and if it were a person I’d slap it.
It’s the second best album of 67 after Bowie’s first.
Hi Dad!
Back to your question, I didn’t like Tears For Fears’ magnificent Seeds Of Love for a while as I heard it on a crappily-recorded cassette in a knackered old car (an Austin Maxi IIRC).
Only when I heard it on vinyl did the penny drop. I had some catching up to do.
It does sound marvellous on vinyl doesn’t it?
I think it sounds marvellous on CD too.
One of the very few albums I own where I like every single second of it.
We will carry war…. no more.
Splendid.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I had a summer job in a hi-fi factory testing CD players. Which sounds great until I tell you they were Graceland, The Joshua Tree, Brothers In Arms, Dark Side of the Moon, a DDD Tchaikovsky recording which sounded like splintering glass, and the Hi-Fi News & Record Review CD (with recordings of garage doors slamming, Cheiftan tanks, and jets flying overhead).
Brothers In Arms still makes me twitch. The others I can now hear without leaving the room or, if I’m in a good mood, even appreciate.
Can you reveal the name of the company? I love great audio equipment, but in the heyday of hi-fi I did encounter one or two audiophiles whose tiny collections seemed only to exist to demonstrate their systems. And these collections invariably contained the same predictable artists and albums. Bizarre and a little depressing.
Sure, it was Arcam. I’m not their only ex-employee on here.
I was there every academic holiday from school work experience week (when the last A60 amp was built – I soldered in the power amp capacitors) to the December before I graduated, so about 5 years on and off.
Even with a staff discount I could never really afford an Arcam CD player, and certainly not CDs on a student grant. I spent a whole summer working there to buy a Linn LP12 record deck.
At a Bristol hi-hi show in c.1987, I was supposed to be demonstrating the CD players in the Arcam room, but snuck out for my lunch break to the Linn demo room. They had an LP12 and active multi-amped Isobarik speakers playing – huge, PA-like things which went really loud, shook the room and sounded fabulous. They were playing Raintown, Hipsway, the first Blue Nile album and Hounds Of Love (as Kate Bush had Isobarik speakers in her home studio) from vinyl. I stayed all afternoon, then snuck out to buy Raintown and Hipsway on LP. When I went back to the Arcam room and was asked where I’d been, I sheepishly held up my HMV bag.
Thanks. I went to two hi-fi shows in Brighton in the early 80s and the Linn demonstration made a lasting impression (still use my LP12). I remember them playing “Youth of Eglington” by Black Uhuru and “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp, through Linn Saras, again at impressive volumes. I liked the fact that they were using less obvious material on what looked like standard vinyl pressings. I presume the rest of the equipment would have been Naim amps and an Ittok arm with a Linn moving coil cartridge (Asak?).
The Linn/Naim split came around that time. I have a feeling it was LP12, Ittok, Troika cart, LK1 pre & LK2 power amps, Isobariks. It sounded amazing. I only wish I had a room big enough for Isobariks – and no neighbours.
Naim were definitely playing the Blue Nile LP (on Linn Records) in their room and running SBL speakers.
“.. which sounded like splintering glass..”
Can laugh now but at the time, 1985-ish, and all that perfect-sound-forever marketing bollocks being believed, it wasn’t that amusing. You say glass, I say dentist’s drill, those first-generation CD players truly sounded awful, all leading edges, totally fatiguing. No clicks or pops mind, so the civilians were thrilled.
I eventually relented in 1989 when I won a John McLaughlin (the Festival Hall one) CD off a radio show. These days I’ve got an Arcam! And my Sondek/Ittok/Karma still almost unsurpassed.
Arcam did it right. They were the first non-Philips or Sony firm to take out a CD player manufacturing license (Meridian had earlier sold souped-up rebadged Philips 14-bit players). They waited until decent 16-bit chips were available, class A output stages and all that jazz.
The mastering on that Tchaikovsky CD was atrocious, though. I can still see the sleeve, and still hear the whistling in my ears.
A lot of CD remasters were pretty appalling, back in the day. Done quick and cheap with regard only for profit. Either so loud and bright they hurt, or muddy and muffled.
I think we should have a thread about Good Early CDs. Frexample, I have the 1985 Tommy and Quadrophenia and they both sound great.
The turning point came with the Led Zep remasters in 1990, I would suggest.
There were a few notable technological leaps. The end of the Sony PCM 1610 (14-bit) PCM interface, the realisation that mastering engineers couldn’t use EQ’d-for-vinyl cutting masters, the end of pre-emphasis, SADiE PCM editing, (in 1999) SACD/DVD-A.
I could go on (and on) but I will spare us all. For now.
I’d be interested to know what you make of Sohn. He writes for people like Rihanna and The Weeknd, so in theory he should be good, but he bores the pants off me.
I found a Sohn track on a spotify playlist last year, loving it and and bought it. A few stonkers and then it gets samey. Credible, tho’.
Which album was it? His first was pretty good, but then he went and spoiled it all with the follow-up, ‘Rennen’. That had precisely one decent track, ‘Hard Liquor’, which I later found out he wanted to give to another artist because he thought it was too upbeat for the album. Which says it all. It isn’t at all ‘upbeat’; it just has a bit of a pulse.
Listening to the rest of it I immediately thought ‘Jo Whiley’s playlist’, Googled, and sure enough…
I must admit, I don’t understand the fascination these people have with crooning wounded-heart vocals over minimal electronics. London Grammar, Lo Fang, James Blake, Jessy Lanza. It’s like watching paint dry!
I like James Blake (I always enjoy a very good singer refusing to sing properly, and ideally fucking about electronically with their vocals until they sound like Thom Yorke’s office shredder) but you can keep those others.
The one I’ve got is the debut, Tremors. I’ll get back to you once I’ve had a listen.
Mine was/is Tremors too.
Well @leicester-bangs, I’ve given the Sohn album a few spins now, and I really like it. I can see why you might find it a bit boring, but as a nice slab of chilled-out pop electronica it makes my ears happy. It’s definitely best listened to with headphones. And I can hear the similarity with The Weeknd, now I know about the connection.
The only problem is a little scratch on one side causing a single skip, which is annoying, but I may be able to reduce it to just a click using the toothpick trick.
Overall a pound well spent.
Nice one. Just don’t bother with the second album is my advice. Even if its only 50p.
What is the toothpick trick, please?
Here you go: https://everyrecordtellsastory.com/2014/05/12/how-to-mend-a-record-that-skips-and-jumps-with-a-toothpick/
I’ve done it on maybe half a dozen records and it only didn’t work on one; a £1 and otherwise perfect one-skip copy of Low. Gah.
Great for removing skips from records, especially if you like removing records from skips.
Surely there is an easier way to remove crumbs of prawn cocktail shells from a record?
Does the same method work for Wotsits and Space Raiders?
Pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I was potty trained with a packet of Skips. Told I could have a Skip each time I used the potty, apparently I was careful to exploit the situation fully, having twenty two wees in one day.
(Skips were the exciting new snack at the time.)
Skip, skip, skip to my loo, skip, skip, skip do a poo…
Did your parents sing that while chuckling to themselves?
Forgot to say that it worked a treat. A couple of tries with the toothpick, and then a rub with a drop or two of isopropyl, and the skip is now merely a click. No more cringing as the moment approaches, hurrah!
3I don’t understand the aversion to either Elbow or Guy Garvey for that matter. A good lyricist with a decent voice. Seldom Seen Kid it has to be said is their shining beacon but they have done loads of other great stuff. Station Approach for example is a fabulous
song.
Glasvegas on the other hand are shite.
Ah, Glasvegas. The biggest hype there was for at least one week. Poor kids. What are they up to now?
Bearded Theory last year. Missed them, albeit unintentionally.
I’d go further on Guy’s voice – I think it’s truly beautiful. It’s just a shame that, for me, every Elbow album has only one or two really good songs on it. Seldom Seen has the best hit rate (Grounds for Divorce is an absolute belter, and familiarity/contempt aside, One Day Like This is a fabulous song).
They’re really not bad, Elbow. They’re not Coldplay (much better lyrics and none of the tendency towards U2-even-liter). But honestly I could happily go to my grave hearing nothing of theirs again but Grounds For Divorce and Lippy Kids.
‘Grounds for Divorce’ and ‘Lippy Kids’ are both great. However, I loved their other stuff at a rather…*overwrought* time in my life and now can’t listen to them without curling up into a foetal position, rocking gently.
Turn it all down a notch, guys.
(Guy Garvey’s solo album is ok, couple of great tracks.)
I’ll have to give the solo one another go. I picked up a copy, still shrink wrapped, from a chazza for 30p a week or two ago, gave it one play and thought I deserved a reward for wading through the beige-ness of it all.
Yeah, it’s….not bad. I am struggling to remember the good tracks; oh iTunes reminds me of ‘Unwind’- very nice.
I seem to be in the minority, but I like Elbow a lot. I think Guy’s voice is fantastic and I like the way he wears his heart on his sleeve. Last year’s album being as good as anything else they’ve done. I wasn’t too keen on ‘Golden Slumbers’ though – he should have left that one alone.
It’s Guy’s voice that puts me off Elbow. It was the duet with John Grant that clinched it. When Guy sings, the track plods like any other Elbow song. When JG sings, it absolutely soars.
God help me I’m quite liking the Glasvegas one now.
Definitely must be coming down with something.
That first album is a prefectly fine debut with some excellent high points, but by crackey, that 2nd album was shit-on-a-stick…
The Wall is the best Floyd album
(there, I’ve said it and I mean it. So shoot me)
Other opinions are available, but they may be very wrong
You are Roger Waters and I claim my £5.
It really does divide opinion – I really like der Floyd but The Bloody Wall can do one. Besides Comfortably Numb, which is great, it’s like fingernails on a blackboard to these ears.
I periodically go through urges to try again with Pink Floyd. The thought process is essentially that I’m now quite old and own a number of jumpers, so surely it must be time, but every time I do it’s just – NO. My ears won’t tolerate them. The only band that produces a more instant and violent emetic response in me is St***y D*n.
Comfortably Numb is ok but I much prefer the Scissor Sisters’ version.
How can anyone not like David Gilmour’s gorgeous voice or melodic guitar playing? Or Richard Wright’s delicate piano and keyboards? You mad fool, you. (And, while I’m at it, one day you’re going to feel reet foolish for describing yourself as old before you’re even forty).
I strongly dislike his guitar sound. Much too smooth and string-backed-driving-glove for my taste; it’s a Pringle sweater in audio form. His voice is alright, but the bollocks it’s crooning takes away any potential enjoyment: bad lyrics are often a dealbreaker for me and Pink Floyd lyrics are so bad I go all pretzelly. And, while I’m sure everyone involved is very competent (apart from Nick Mason, who makes Mary Chain-era Bobby Gillespie look like Billy Cobham), the sum total of the sound just rubs me wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Roger’s my favourite lyricist, like, evah.
I just googled Pringle sweaters cos I’d never heard of them. They’re nothing to do with yer actual Pringles, as far as I can make out. Which is confusing.
No, you were right Gary – both Pringles are covered in cocaine.
What’s wrong with string-backed driving gloves? They are my second favourite gloves of all time.
Squeak squeak!
What kind of person has a favourite kind of glove? Okay what are your favorite gloves then (seeing as no-one else is prepared to ask)?
Favourite Gloves: a Haircut 100 B side?
Don’t ask, Tahir. Tiggs’s victims call mutely for vengeance from gravel bins up and down the M6.
I’m glad you asked, @Tahir-W:
1. Luvaria Ulisses (Lisbon) hand-made red leather driving gloves
2. Potters of Buxton string-back driving gloves
3. Sealskinz Dragon Eye Trail multi-coloured
4. Leica Biosystems Cut Resistant Hygeine
5. Marigold Kitchen
6. Reusch Training R-Tex XT Ski
7. Briers Advanced Grip & Protect
8. Bodyguard 4 Powder Free Latex
9. Dent’s Bath cashmere lined black leather
10. Aspinall’s of London traditional sheepskin.
Luvaria Ulisses? Oh yes, cool place. I looked in there when I was in Lisbon a few months ago. That’s the v. traditional glove shop with the really narrow front, isn’t it? Just a pair of tiny windows sloping inwards towards a microscopic shop. I didn’t buy anything, but I wish I had.
This thread has taken a turn for the sinister.
It is indeed. Everything is beautifully made. They take orders. Being on the receiving end of the attentive Portugese lady rolling the gloves onto your hand, placed carefully on a cushion, is one of life’s great experiences. You must try it when you visit Lisbon.
It rubs the lotion on it’s skin.
I can just understand the need to wear gloves in Sweden.The UK though is nowhere the Arctic Circle and anyone wearing gloves over here should be soundly beaten.
Their purpose isn’t to keep my hands warm. Most of my top ten are functional. A few are decorative. I do love a driving glove, though. I regard those as both functional and decorative. Mostly, they are to keep shit from getting on my hands.
I don’t possess any jewellery nor do I have a watch.
Careful you don’t forget which one’s you’re wearing. Those string backs could do some damage, if extending into the fingers…….
Don’t limit his horizons. Think about his Sigue Sigue Sputnik tribute act!
(Tig Tig Sputnik?)
Man, you is one rich mofo!
I only own four pairs of shoes: one for walking through mud, one for work, one for chillin’ and one for posh.
and your current glove inventory?
24 pairs (two of which are the Leica Biosystems) not counting the two and three-quarter boxes of Bodyguard 4.
…please stop encouraging him. He’s joined a support group and everything…
Make glove, not war.
@DisappointmentBob the jumpers are only the first step – wait until you have the pipe and slippers then you should be ready.
Nah, as you get older Floyd just sound worse and worse. Syd was great though.
“The only band that produces a more instant and violent emetic response in me is St***y D*n.”
The above indicates a severe pathology in the ear of the beholder. The very language used betrays that fact.
While PF just sound worse and worse the older any sensible person gets, SD should sound better and better. If not, I’m afraid I don’t know what treatment to recommend …
He’s right… Stoney Din are terrible. Worst tribute act ever!
I harboured a prejudiced dislike of Guns n Roses for many years.
When I first saw them in the pages of Kerrang, I decided they were nothing more than Hanoi Rocks copyists, and a triumph of style over substance.
When I did hear them a bit later, I had to declare them “a bit rubbish” purely because my brother liked them and there was no way I was going to admit to my little brother I was wrong.
Appetite For Destruction, Spaghetti Incident, GnR Lies, even Use Your Illusion – I had to ignore them even though I liked a lot (possibly even all) the tracks.
10 years later I finally bought all the albums, and have to admit I was very wrong
(or maybe I was very, very drunk at the time)
I was with you all the way until the last sentence.
Just noticed horrendously annoying mistake in OP; should be “bland pap at worst”, not “best”.
I always distrusted the Moody Blues for their blatant commerciality in the age of right-on hippydom, which was my era. Just about everyone else around then was also coming out with platitudinous pseudo-spiritual claptrap for lyrics, but from them it just seemed phonier than from the others. You got the impression most of those bands really believed in that stuff at the time, whereas with The Moodies it was a business decision.
Too bouffant, porky and satin-clad looking as well.
I have decided to give them another go, see if I have maligned them, having been reminded of their very existence by their flautist’s death. Not that many albums, so it won’t take me very long.
Actually, It’s about 40 years since I knowingly heard any of their records. A forgotten band, it would appear.
BBC R2 and all of the commercial stations seem to have stopped playing them shortly after the end of the ’70s. In their heyday they were everywhere.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. A lot of great tunes. Those albums weren’t big for no reason (and not for pseudo-mystical narratives either).
Justin’s hair was crap, though.
Sort of like the Beatles would have been if they’d made nothing other than variants of Sgt Peppers. Big on production, low on fun.
Low on fun gets to the nub, I think. They weren’t called the Moody Blues for nothing. Gave the appearance of a group of very earnest RE teachers.
A group of very earnest RE teachers would be called the Moody Browns.
Because they were so sad, you see.
3 albums in on my Moodies re-evaluation and not greatly impressed so far.
Haven’t bothered with their very first, with Denny Laine and before Justin Hayward and John Lodge joined, as that’s not really the same band in my opinion.
There are a couple of decent “band” bits on “Days Of Future Passed”, which I’m looking at separately from the orchestral bits, but the rest is pretty dire fare. Some of the orchestral bits are pretty mediocre too.
The next one, “In Search Of The Lost Chord” is where they really set their stall out for what they want to convey. Off to a good start with Ride My See-Saw and Dr. Livingstone I Presume but then it slumps. Most of the rest is pretty thin gruel IMO.
“On The Threshold Of A Dream” yet again is front-loaded with two good songs and then descends into tripe territory. Side two opens well and drifts again. The ending trilogy Have You Heard/The Voyage/Have You Heard II almost succeeds but there is major clunkiness to overcome.
Three down, four more to go until their 5-year split in 1973. Justin Hayward’s songwriting strike-rate is highest so far. Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas not doing nearly as well. Cannot fault Tony Clarke’s production (the sixth Moody?) so far. I wonder about his input in the choice of direction and material.
Regarding Pink Floyd.
Their generally plodding style is not only down to Nick Mason’s limitations as a drummer. Roger Waters’ bass playing is not exactly earth-shattering either. They were clever though, in recognising and adapting to their rhythm section’s limitations.
Some of the early ’70s ‘Floyd albums have not aged terribly well. Of the studio sides of “Umma Gumma” only “Grantchester Meadows” still appeals and “Atom Heart Mother” is pretty turgid fare, in retrospect.
“Meddle” was a definite step up.
Can’t for the life of me recall “Obscured By Clouds” and looking at it’s track listing I can’t think how any of the tracks go.
“The Dark Side Of The Moon” was an incredible recording feat. A stereo demonstration record for “freaks”, released just as all the “freaks” were upgrading from Dansettes to cheap stereos. Great packaging too. Another breakthrough.
“Wish You Were Here” is, for me, peak ‘Floyd. Musically another step up and again, superb packaging.
“Animals” was a bit of a disappointment for me. That was when I began to seriously doubt them.
“The Wall” confirmed my doubts in spades. Self indulgence. And so it was over between me and Pink Floyd, forever.
So, for you, The Wall was the final cut? I would suggest that was a momentary lapse of reason.
I still love side 1 of Atom Heart Mother. It is probably my favourite Floyd, a fairly short list comprising AHM side 1, Echoes and Shine On You Crazy Diamond.
That triple run of If, Summer ’68 and Fat Old Sun is great. Don’t care much for the tracks either side of it though. Same with Meddle, the triple run of A Pillow Of Winds, Fearless and San Tropez are what makes that album for me. I’m far less keen on the other tracks. I don’t share the general love for Echoes.
Carole King. Until a 90s BBC2 doc on Tapestry, I thought she was bland soft-rock pap like, I dunno, the Carpenters (who I’ve also come to appreciate, albeit in small doses).
Then I took Tapestry out from the CD library. Bloody hell, it’s a cracker.
Shouldn’t you have returned it by now?
*runs excitedly to front of thread*
*clears throat*
“CHAZZ-VEGAS!!”
*bows to audience, exits stage left pursued by bear*
In my head, it was more like this
In my student years ie mountains of pot consumed weekly it was prog folk rock roots jazz and blues but hard head banging rock was off the menu.
So classic Aussie rockers like AC/DC and Rose Tattoo were off limits. There days I have all the Bon Scott era AC/DC and that guitar interplay is a joy to behold.
The Bon Scott AC/DC records produced by Vanda and Young are probably the best sounding Hard Rock albums. I think Rose Tattoo were also produced by them?
I understand why AC/DC had to hook up with Mutt Lange. The productions on Highway to Hell and Back in Black were the ones that made them mega. But those albums don’t sound as alive as Let There Be Rock. That album jumps from the speakers and orders a drink.
I’m learning to love AC/DC rather late in life, as my lad is learning the drums via the Rockschool books. The only one I had already was Black In Black, and I bought that because it was cheap.
We now have all the Bon Scott albums and they’re rather good, albeit one at a time. A bit more punky than some of the other metallers. Rather like Motorhead, in that respect.
I developed a dislike of them at the time because they were beloved of the double-denim hairies at school who were into Maiden and Qu**n – and beating up the skinny indie-kid likes of me.
I used to have one of those Rockschool books that my Dad got me in a charity shop. I remember a full-page picture of a very sweaty Joan Jett which I found very… inspiring.
I think I feel about AC/DC how Bob feels about Floyd. I find them absolutely unlistenable. That strangulated voice, the toy ‘loud’ guitars, the ridiculous campiness. A joke band.
They are everything Led Zep aren’t.
I am totes agree, Mrs Cowslip, sir. My iPod has room on it for all manner of crap, including Zep and even Queen, but nary an AC/DC track to be found upon it. Awful cartoon band for 13 year old boys into superhero movies.
Pixies for me. Heard a few tracks on various tapes I borrowed from mates; couldn’t get it. Tried a copy of Doolittle in its entirety – got it (but it took a while).
I’m really enjoying this George Michael fella. Especially the ballads. His lyrics are coming into focus, and I’ve been taken aback by the detail and the honesty. Must be the time of life.
Nothing to be ashamed of there; “Listen Without Prejudice” is excellent (title aside), and “Older” is at least as good… his skill as a producer is often overlooked, too – both those albums have a lot of different styles, but all tackled with much style & imagination…
I wasn’t that excited by the recent George Michael documentary, but Elton John’s comment about George going for that big #9 Dream/Mind Games wall of sound thing on Praying for Time, really made me sit up and take notice, in true Afterword style. Lennon was dead before George Michael was famous, but Elton John was a bridge between them.
Elbow
I bought the album before ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ on a recommendation. It was that underwhelming, I can’t even remember its title. It wasn’t awful (I’ve still got it) but it has clearly made no impression on me in ten years. I thought the SSK was much better, but didn’t buy it because I heard it constantly at work for half a year when it came out, and especially when it won the Mercury.
Pink Floyd
I was fifteen or sixteen when I first heard Dark Side of The Moon at a friend’s house. I hadn’t even taken any drugs and I liked it instantly. Prior to that, I’d borrowed the Echoes compliaiton from the library and thought it was terrible, but decided to give it another go after hearing DSotM. I much prefer the likes of ‘Echoes’ and ‘Shine on you Crazy Diamond’ to Syd Barrett’s whimsical tripe on ‘Pipers’.
Elbow: phlegmy and lugubrious, everything. Unlistenable.
Pink Floyd: much to enjoy between Piper (1967) and Animals (1977). The Wall, not.
PS And can everyone lay off Nick “can’t really play” Mason. You want Buddy Rich/John Bonham/Vinnie Colaiuta/Ringo, you know what to do.
Don’t talk arse. The Wall shits all over Animals.
That can’t be right. Surely animals piss on the wall?
They also shit on the ground and see in the dark.
Much too overwatered for my taste, Leics.
Yeah, I’m only messing really, I do like Animals — just not as much as The Wall.