“Rock ‘n’ roller” might be overstating it, but Neil Sedaka is still with us, as are Dion DiMucci and Chubby Checker…

Respectfully disagree – it’s actually full of actual, honest-to-goodness TUNES and Chris Thomas’ production is tremendous.

I’m prepared to acknowledge that JL’s lyrics & delivery are more “of the moment” but […]

I was tempted by a recent-ish Stones tour, but I worked out that the cost of 2 tickets alone (even sans travel, food, merch etc.) could have bought me their entire back-catalogue on CD & DVD at the time*, plus a […]

Coincidentally enough, Just Got Lucky came up on shuffle in the car yesterday, and sounded great!

In my very first job (could it really have been 1987?!) I shared an office with someone who played Michael Bolton’s The Hunger album on the new-fangled office CD player non-stop… this was a good few years before […]

Can’t Wait Another Minute is my 5 Star choon of choice – it’s trying a bit too hard to be liked (it sounds like its own remix, if you know what I mean), but it’s a fantastic 80s pop-dance track.

My own biggest […]

Ironically enough, it was Pure Shores that led to the end of Orbit’s working relationship with Madge – she was furious that he hadn’t offered it to her first, and never worked with him again…

Another nice review, thanks Dave, I’m really enjoying your project.

I think it’s worth reminding ourselves just how prolific Bowie was back then – YA followed less than 10 months after Diamond Dogs, and the […]

I had a similar “epiphany” about a year ago, and even did a google map to demonstrate to my wife just how small my world was when I was a child:

Infant school – 4 minute walk from home
Aunt/babysitter – 5 […]

The very first single I ever bought was “Wig-Wam Bam”, so I feel I have a personal interest in The Sweet… I saw Andy Scott’s Sweet live a few years back and it was a great night out.

I assume it’s covered in […]

And now for @bamber ‘s selection!

01. A brazen opener which I’m sure I recognise, but can’t place… I may even own it! Has the vibe of an American XTC, but I want to say Field Music, from that recent album Princ […]

Sorry these reviews are a bit late, life got in the way somewhat over the past few days! Anyway, I promise my two reviews are totally “blind”, and I haven’t Shazam’ed any tracks, googled any titles, or even lo […]

Having had both reviews from my swap-mates @bamber and @ron-cucumber, here’s my “reveal” of my CD… I took the “New” theme at its word, and these are all “New” tracks from the past year, most of them actually f […]

Hi @bamber, glad you (mostly) enjoyed the CD – only one absolute duffer isn’t a bad strike rate, and I’ll have to consider that my natural DJ audience might actually be 4 and 6 year-old girls 🙂

Very […]

So glad you enjoyed the CD, @ron-cucumber, I definitely consider 8/12 tracks worthy of further investigation to be a “win”! I’ll save my reactions for the “reveal” of course, but your comments are really interesting…

… and somewhat related: “If you’re playing poker, look around the table – if you can’t see a sucker, it’s you…”

“Culture eats strategy” (in a business context.)

“A good burger beats a bad steak.”

“Never stay in any hotel named the ‘Station’ or ‘Majestic’…”

IIRC The Observer gave the 12″ of Get The Balance Right a long review (i.e. as long as their big album reviews) on release, holding it aloft as an example of the potential of the extended version as artform that […]