I got a video call today from one of my very nice colleagues.
‘Hang on’ I said ‘Let me just turn off my music here. I can’t hear you over Dusty Springfield’.
Her face lit up. ‘Oh I love Dusty’ she said. ‘Which album is it?’
Me: ‘Dusty in Memphis’
Her: ‘Oh I’ll tell you a great album of hers…’
Me: leaning forward eagerly…
Her: ‘Dusty Springfield’s Greatest Hits’
Anyone else had any good recommendations lately?
He’s got a point.
A very good point.
One acclaimed album does not make an artist.
Ask Swing Out Sister!
Television. An artist.
Rumbelows rental from late 1970s.
Awful TV.
And now an age where “Radio Rentals” is consigned to rhyming slang
Am I Going Insane? (Radio) by Black Sabbath is called that because the Radio referred to Radio Rental, which was rhyming slang for Mental.
Black Sabbath were more Slade than Led Zeppelin ladies and gentlemen.
I always assumed it was like those single versions of hip-hop tracks where they run the swear-words backwards.
“Kuff Cinderella, Kuff Bon Jovi, and Mother-Kuff, Prince, man!”
@hawkfall
Thank you for clearing up something I’ve been worried about for some time!
And moreover, so has she.
Alan knows.
There IS actually an album called Best of the Beatles – it’s a Pete Best solo release
Genius title!
Best Not of the Beatles was apparently already taken.
I met up with an old friend a couple of weeks ago, first time I’d seen him for 18 months, he asked me if I’d followed his advice and really given Adele a good listen, I said I hadn’t, I can appreciate she has a decent voice but I find her far too bland.
“You really should give her a good listen.”
I picked up her 3 albums to bulk out a charity shop purchase – buy 5 or 10 or whatever it was for a quid. 2 went back in the chazza pile at home after a couple of spins, but 21 is a very good album though I can’t remember the last time I played it. Maybe today.
I was in a pub about two years ago in East London and a table of six people, all but one of whom had lived through the 60s, elected to start talking about it.
Put my book down, “I’ll have a bit of this.”
After about 15 minutes chat and silence followed by more chat and silence, the music they could collectively remember was:
Dusty Springfield (“What did she do?” – after a very long discussion, not one of them could name a song), The Carpenters, and “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head,” but they couldn’t remember who wrote it, sang it, or which film it was from.
Dusty has form, probably because she was on the TV a lot in the 60s. Had a couple in an HMV shop a few years ago – again, lived through the 60s – they asked the assistant where to find “Springfield” in the A-Z filing system, and took an age to decide what to buy because they clearly, like the crowd above, knew as much about Dusty as Rees-Smug knows about Victorians or Fat Boy-J. knows about Churchill. They called for further assistance (this was a long drawn-out process), not his fault but the lad who came knew as much as they did.
I was going to pipe up, “If you’re after one, get “As and Bs,” if you’re going to buy two, “As and Bs” and “Dusty in Memphis.”
But they picked up a cheap-looking 3cd job for about £6 and I rather thought they weren’t going to appreciate the difference anyway, so why bother? So I didn’t.
I really don’t want to open up a box of worms, honestly, but…
I’d wager a significant amount of money that all eight of the above voted for Brexit.
I spent about 45 minutes in their collective company (eavesdropping), and they all seemed to have the notion that the past was better, without being able to actually name anything that was better or when it might have been better.
And the nominees for this week’s prize for the unnecessary shoe-horning of Brexit into a completely unrelated topic goes to…
@deramdaze Good job they didn’t know she was Lesbian – HMV would have lost a sale.
Immediately after you left, one of them suddenly went pop-eyed and cried out “Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera!” to which everyone else on the table said “Of course”, slapping their foreheads and making “durrr” noises .
I have an attendee at the Sunday afternoon cafe vinyl sessions who repeatedly fills in the slip with their suggested album: 1977’s compilation ‘Love Songs’ by The Beatles. It goes in the same bin as the ones requesting Bat Out of Hell, Hotel California and Shooting Stars by Dollar.
When I finally do restart, it’ll probably be Abbey Road vs Let It Bleed.
Shooting Stars has the Trevor Horn songs on, doesn’t it? You ought to be all over that.
Hell, Moose, you think @fentonsteve actually wants folk to come to his gigs?
He’s refining his audience…
Retro’s absolutely right. I only want my friends to come, not the great unwashed (or the kind of people who like Meatloaf).
You’re thinking of The Dollar Album which features the four Trevor Horn singles and, sadly, eight others tracks produced by David Van Day.
@fentonsteve – the first Dollar release was on Acrobat Records which was part owned by the director of the freight company I worked for at that time.
The staff were told to each go out and buy 5 copies of the single from five different chart shops and we would be refunded the money.
They came to our Christmas part at the Albany Hotel in Brum – jumped up little shits they were too.
Hard to believe that such a likeable public character as David Van Day could turn out to be a bellend in person, innit?
Well yeah, we knew he was little, but …
Not forgetting ‘From Dusty With Love’ which is just as good as Memphis
To be fair, the best album of nearly every artist in history is the Greatest Hits.
Even Donovan.
Surely Donovan’s best album is his shortest.
No, not having that. He may be a pompous poltroon at times, but he’s a pretty special talent.
Have it. I’m right, you know in your heart I am.
When I used take an interest in poetry most of the books I read were “Selected poems of ….” which were pretty much the Greatest Hits, and I never felt I was missing much. I doubt even Wordsworth read all of Wordsworth.
If only he’d lived another 140 years or so, we could’ve had Wordsworth on 45
It could even have been imaginatively titled ‘Now Thats What I Call Wordsworth 45’.
I prefer the early pencil drafts.
Of course, you can only call yourself a real fan if you were present at the original “smokin’ up in Kendal” sessions in Dove Cottage with Sister Dot on BVs.
With heavy friend Sam “the man” Coleridge on, like, vibes.
Sadly, Take 1 is interrupted by the Man from Porlock, and the vibes are never the same again.
Sam had some hassle with an albatross and had to quit the scene, man.
Now That’s What I Call Lyric Poetry 37
My advice came from much closer to home. In my home, in fact. I was about 11 or 12, had recently left my Nan’s house with her copy of the Beatles red album, which had started my Beatles obsession, and when we were on holiday we had come across a stall selling albums. I was allowed to choose two to be put away for my birthday, so firstly I chose Please Please Me, because I wanted Twist and Shout, the song that at that point I thought was the Beatles’ defining song, but it wasn’t on the red album.
My second choice was an obvious one, in that I went for the blue album, and it’s here where my dad’s wise words of advice came in. “you’re better off sticking to the red album son, because the Beatles went all weird after that”. Thankfully, I stuck to my guns. I just wish I could listen to it for the first time again.
Paul McKenna claimed on DiD that he could hypnotise himself into hearing a record for the first time again.
Talking out of his arse.
That last sentence can be sung to the tune of Steve Winwood’s Talking Back to the Night. So that’s this weekend sorted.
@Moose-the-Mooche
Is there no end to P McK’s talent?
No, and no beginning either.
b’dum and, peradventure, tish
@Moose-the-Mooche
Hessle Road Old Jokes Home on the line for Mr Moose!
Clive Anderson says he’s still got a few days to claim copyright royalties for his joke about Jeffrey Archer.
What a tosser 😉
Last week a friend was telling me how much he enjoyed the Elton John movie Rocketman. I don’t dislike the I’m Still Standing hitmaker but haven’t seen the movie. I asked if it covered the darker times, drink and drugs problems etc.
‘Oh..did Elton have a drink and drugs problem?’
They obviously didn’t sit through the whole film or fell asleep part way through.
Ironically I suspect he was drunk and fell asleep…but still enjoyed the movie enough to recommend it!
There’s something to be said for a movie you can sleep through.
I think this comment may be “peak middle-aged gadgie”
Hopefully you’d wake refreshed and ready to Go Go Go!
Well, when I wake up normally I do want to go go go.
Assuming I haven’t already gone gone gone.
I was at a small gathering a few years ago and it was one of those situations where there is a core group of people who have known each other since school and their social life is 99% each other. They were in their 40s. I was there because the host described herself as a “fellow music nut” and invited me along to their regular get togethers at her place. She played an ELO album and then moved onto Hotel California and then Cliff, talking us through the songs, track-by-track. Her mischievous friend changed the record while she was in the loo to a Venga Boys platter. Rather than being annoyed, she turned it up to an ear-splitting volume and they all got up and danced to it.
There’s music you like and music you don’t. There are people who have a deep passion for it, and people who are happy to skim the surface without needing to buy every release including that record day only release of Paul Oakenfold remixes. I am very much in the former but there are times when I can see how much more enjoyable the latter is. And sorry to say, but the term “civilians” is just musical snobbery.
Of course it is. And that is kind of the lighthearted point of this whole post.
But if you can’t point out ‘Isn’t it sometimes funny that people are not as in to music as we are?’ on here then I’m not really sure where you can…
I wasn’t really meaning to grouch. But it’s quite easy to slip from smile to sneer. This place isn’t the Steve Hoffman forum I’m pleased to say, but it does have it’s moments.
Very true.
No sneering intended.
Grouching always allowed.
My use of the word civilians isn’t condescending, it’s envious. How much easier their lives must be.
I must admit ‘civilians’ really grinds my gears. I think it was coined by someone in the world of fashion shows or film premieres; the masses beyond the carpet (or rope) were ‘just civilians’. Not part of our world, they don’t belong kind-of thing. I’m not saying that’s how its used here.
I’m a civilian music-wise. I know nothing, compared to lots of people on here. On the other hand, I know bags of stuff about rivetting things like World War I air aces, Vosper torpedo boats and Formula 1, up til the mid-1990s. . .
I’m sure we have all fallen into the trap of trying to politely keep the conversation going on a subject we know very little about.
Tricky to work the conversation round to vosper torpedo boats at the best of times I’d imagine?
Impossible, really. My mates are aware of my interests, and are polite enough not to mention them.
I know that feeling.
‘I know how you feel, Gordon’. Possibly misquoted. . .
Are you Midge Ure?
^ This means nothing to me.
I think it was Liz Hurley who coined or at least popularised ‘Civilians’ to describe her adoring public.
And then the military did the same.
Thanks, Gatz. My brain was going Anna Wintour, but I didn’t think that was right.
I don’t think “Civilians” know who Steve Hoffman is…and there in a nutshell is the point of the OP’s post !
What about “muggles”?
Think that was Hugh Grant’s pet name for the divine Miss H
ISWYDT.
When my interest in African music comes up I often get asked whether I have heard Juluka or Angelique Kidjo.
Who?
Oh have you heard that one by Paul Simon?That has lots of African singing and I think Chevy Chase is on it too
That too
My late uncle considered himself well versed in world music. His entire collection consisted of Graceland, and Brother Louie by Hot Chocolate.
I was once given a Juluka album. It was terrible.
I hope you passed it on to some other unfortunate.
They have their moments, to be fair.
Unbelievably, I sold it.
Waves in a gesture akin to love (sorry Bingo)
And of course reggae… oh I love Bob Marley. … Do you know any other reggae artists…. Confused look, conversation ends.
A few years ago, I attended a work weekend away. At dinner on the first night, a few of my colleagues were talking about how much they “loved” music. One of them then proceeded to describe how she’d recently been married and the first dance at her wedding had been to How Will I Know by Whitney Houston. This seemed to excite the rest of the table; I took a moment to mentally note which of them appeared supportive of this music choice and then allowed the conversation to move on. Somehow, I doubt that any of them has even compiled and maintained a word file listing all of their CDs in order of purchase (with retail venue noted).
After dinner, we went to a bar. At the bar, a different colleague was telling us how much he enjoys live music. I asked him who his favourite band was and he replied that it was Blur. I obviously couldn’t contain my expression of thin contempt, because his face changed and he asked if I was OK. I told him I was, excused myself to the bathroom and made a list on my phone of ten bands who are – empirically – better than Blur. I was in there for a while, because I soon realised that ten was not enough.
When I eventually rejoined the rest of the group, they were all up and dancing; it felt like the music in the bar had got considerably louder since I’d been away, and I realised to my horror that at least some of it was perilously adjacent to Europop.
I looked across the sea of faces pretending to enjoy themselves and felt a surge of pity. Pity that these people would never know the real joy of music, that they’d never experience the sheer authenticity of Bob Dylan, or the raw melodicism of Miles Davies.
As I stood gazing out across that vista of idiot glee, a new feeling began to take hold, and it was one of calm clarity, focused around a single point of insight: all these people had to die.
I plunged into the crowd, swinging wild punches, immediately filling the air with a cascade of blood, sweat and tears. I made a mental note to play Child Is Father To The Man on my walk home. Within moments, I found myself atop one of my colleagues, choking the breath from his body. As I did so, I noticed that the thrashings of his legs were still – still! – in time with the bar’s music. I tightened my grip and began to rhythmically smash his head against the floor, taking care to do so in time to Ringo’s drumming on an early bootleg version of Rain that you probably haven’t heard. Sheer percussive genius; a lightness of touch paired with a raw power so unusual in a drummer of that sort.
By the time the Police arrived and tasered me, they tell me I had killed three people and wounded dozens more. They let me play Rush albums in my cell most days. Life is peaceful now.
Gold.
Perilously adjacent. TMFTL.
I assume you are listening to early Rush in mono? Otherwise we will have to excommunicate you from this place old chap
Such a civilian question.
Like any true music fan I had my malleus and incus surgically altered several years ago, with the result that I only hear in mono.
Surgically altered?! My goodness, how very mainstream of you.
I had mine done by Brian Eno repeatedly thumping me over the head with an original Georgian reel to reel tape machine at an art installation in Huddersfield in early 1968. I remember I turned to Yoko and said…
Brian Eno was in Winchester for the first three months of 1968.
He didn’t get to Huddersfield until 1971.
You’d know that if you actually enjoyed music.
Oh dear. Did you think I meant mainstream sell out Brian Eno later of Roxy Music?
I’m talking about the original underground Huddersfield Brian Eno.
He’s still there, in Huddersfield, under the ground
At least you haven’t wasted your life.
Very funny post Bingo! I’m sure most of us here are guilty of a little light snobbery. I work with someone, 29 years old, who thinks my music is ‘weird’ and hasn’t heard of Morrissey. It’s hard getting through the work day without conversation but we manage it.
Two different female acquaintances, one of whom gave me the book as a present and one of whom saw me reading it, remarked of the bloke in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity that he’s “just like you!”.
As I don’t have any exes and don’t own my own business, I was forced to conclude the similarity was entirely to do with my fondness for “weird” music and a perception that I tended to be a prick about it..
I switched on our office radio when it was announced that John Peel had died. A colleague said to me ‘He plays your kind of music, doesn’t he?’. After 15 minutes of the Smiths, Fall, etc, they switched over to Magic FM or something similar. I don’t think I’d ever had a conversation about music with either of them.
Adding to the echoing chorus of praise* – because here on the Afterword we are self-knowing and can take the hit – Ned Ryerson to your Phil O’Connor.
The doozy for me was the Blur reference. Up till then I could imagine it as a true anecdote, twisted slightly with the hyperbole of the Word doc reference. But Blur was the marker of who the voice was – the humourless rock snob. And that’s none of us. Because we can take a joke.
I felt safe to allow myself a wry smile. Thank you.
*actually genuine.
Thank you, Sal.
The real giveaway was in the final para; as if any true Afterworder would allow their impeccable collection of vintage but purchased on the day of the original release vinyl to be sullied by the presence of The Police.
I think secretly we all harbour a longing to be tasered by Sting in his Dune knickers.
Or is that just me?
KRS One had something to say about this.
“Stop the Violence” I think it was.
Okay, everyone fess up – how far down did you get before you realised Bingo was joking? I got to paragraph 5!
worryingly, second sentence of paragraph 6
Me too.
Wonderful stuff.
We have a friend who just bends with the yummy mummy wind. Buble, Newton Faulkner, small-guitar ginger whiner Sheeran etc.
Can’t say I want to kill her, though.
Not for that, anyway.
You should delete that last line while you can – it may one day be brought up in court.
I’m only kidding. She’s lovely.
It’s deliberate – a rising scale of AWness.
Whitney Houston; Blur; Europop; Dylan & Davies; Blood, Sweat & Tears*; The Beatles**; The Police; Rush***
– what’s your threshold of tolerance/exclusivity?
I’m proud to getting out at Blur.
—————————————–
*I had to Google – I’m so civilian
** But B-side Beatles – almost a masonic handshake
**It’s always Rush at the end
The end of the first paragraph. Not even an Afterworder could give a rats arse about the retail venue of purchase. I bought my first Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge discs in Woolworths in Salisbury, but I haven’t written that fact down anywhere. Oh. Hang on… Dagnabbit.
I sometimes feel my taste in music is weird even for here……. Territorials is what I call you.
I’ll raise you. Per a previous ‘civilians’ thread, ‘announcing to a messroom of Mancunian traincrew that you are spending the weekend dancing to Blowzabella.’
That means people like @du-cool are the SAS. He’ll like that.
Special boat service: just as tough, just nicher.
Meanwhile, down in the catering corps…..
@Retropath2
We frontliners from the Roy Buchanan Battalion of the
First Division of the Guitar Army prefer to call them
Pussies in boots
or
Easy Listening Surrender Monkeys
You Radiohead fans probably think it’s man’s life in the Women’s Auxiliary Balloon Corps.
See these pips? Kluster.
A few years back I was in Canada on business and the lady I was doing sales calls with was asking about my musical taste. I mentioned that among other things I did like Jazz.
Later in the week she presented me with a cd that she had made – a compilation of Michael Buble that was binned as soon as I got back to blighty.
You ungentlemanly cur. Be a man…. Put it in a cupboard.
Jazz – now that’s a whole other. I love jazz- all those clarinets and riverboats, to the obvious token album Kind of something.
In a good-natured conversation about 80s pop, I mentioned to a family friend that I still quite like Depeche Mode. This was about 4 years ago. He really, really laughed. A few minutes later he came back into the room and goaded me with the do-do-do-do-do-do-do tune from Just Can’t Get Enough. Laughing his head off.
I blushed hotly and said that, actually, Depeche Mode were still a very big live band. “What – at Butlins!?” and laughed harder. The fucking bastard. Nobody has seen him since then. Know what I mean?
@Black-Celebration
You mean he actually became a member of Depeche Mode?
Respect
@jaygee
Arf!
I think the idea of Depeche Mode taking on someone who doesn’t even know their music, who presumably rarely attends their recording sessions and just stands around on stage, doing nothing, is absolutely preposterous…
Yes – as if that could ever happen! Andy Fletcher does attend the recording sessions though and vetoes things that aren’t right. I imagine that this may have been a contributory factor to the eventual exit of Alan Wilder, who could spend a week perfecting 20 seconds of music only to find it’s been rejected by Fletch after one listen.
You’ve outed yourself there pal. Mode fans do not “blush hotly”, they merely settle their gaze on an impossible distance while wearing a look of enigmatic inscrutability. In high-contrast black and white.
Only if Anton Corbijn is nearby. If Boris Johnson had Anton in tow, he’d look less like a shaved Honey Monster (c. Marina Hyde) and have the tousle-haired, troubled-genius academic philosopher image he craves.
Maybe they’re just bored.
https://youtu.be/C-c9Bt64fKM
I know they’re not trendy, and never have been since briefly in the last 80s, but surely the worst example has to be talking to virtually anyone about progmeisters and internet fan involvement pioneers Marillion.
“Ooh, I loved Kayleigh..”
“Is that Fish bloke still the singer?”
“Are they still going?”
“They’ve not had a hit for ages…”
etc
I think they were on 3 in 10 on Popmaster not long back, not often I get 7 seconds spare.
I wanted to share this with you lot because I think you’ll like it. I can’t think of a better place than a thread about “Civilians” It turns out they love music too. As Moose once described me. “Same army, different regiment”.. Lovers of Nick Heyward shared their stories with me for a Toppermost Top Ten… Enjoy
https://www.toppermost.co.uk/nick-heyward/
Hurrah!
(Are they on that as well…?)
PS nice to see The World made the cut…
I don’t think I oversold it did I?..
“So there you have it, 11 years after Pelican West and Nick Heyward was inventing Britpop. I’m with Phil, From Monday To Sunday is as good as anything made in the 90s. Kite really draws on, and seems inspired by, Nick’s love of XTC while Caravan is a love song to The Jam. It really is a tremendous album.
What came next is perhaps even more remarkable. In 1995, Nick released the self penned, self produced Tangled. Why is it remarkable Dave? Well, let me tell you. It’s like a best of Britpop released by just one man, a man who 15 years earlier was producing some of the greatest pop tunes ever made, here he was creating an album where you’ll find nods to Supergrass, Dodgy, Garbage, Oasis, the list goes on. So while Blur and Oasis were battling it out for number 1 with two ordinary songs, Rollerblade and The World were struggling to make the top 40. A travesty? I think so. How bands and artists achieve radio play is a conversation for another day but Nick was an 80s boy and I suspect that stuck in the craw of the uber ‘hip’, self aware radio DJs and music press of the day. These albums just deserved better. Rant over. Normally, if I’m asked the question “Blur or Oasis?” I answer “Pulp”. Should I ever get asked again I’m answering “Nick Heyward”. Give From Monday To Sunday and Tangled a listen and you may end up doing the same. If you think you’ve heard the best of the Britpop era, think again.”
I saw Heyward at Dingwalls in Camden on the Tangled tour. The others must have wandered up from the Mixer to see how it’s done.
Totally agree with that, From Monday to Sunday is one of the best albums of the nineties, let alone of the Britpop era. Another one is Stephen Duffy’s “Duffy” album from 95.
Also… I Love My Friends, recently reissued.
And everything else by Stephen Duffy, while we’re at it.
I was considering submitting a Duffy one to Toppermost a while back. Might get round to it.
Get round to it!
(doo-doo doo)
Get round to it!
(doo…doo)
…and do Kool and the Gang while you’re at it…
Really enjoyed that @dave-amitri and glad you found room for Take That Situation.
You mentioned his love of The Beatles. The first time I saw him, about 30 years ago at the Liverpool Empire (supporting Squeeze, a brilliant 2 for 1), he did a fantastic version of Rain, that went down very well.
Stephen Duffy kind of had a Take That Situation dinnee 😉
Yes, very good. I cringed at that stage of his career, but I guess it made him the money to let him do his own records. And Duffy never thought he’d be on stage in front of the size of crowds the dancing monkey used to attract. He saw it as one of the downsides, of course,
I think it’s a good album. Mind you I like most of RW’s records up to and including Progress.
He did an otherwise completely pointless cover of Kiss Me on his next album to throw Duffy a few more bob as a thank you.
Thanks @paul-wad the story behind the selection of Take That Situation was my favourite. From a fan who may be sneered at by rock snobs but the love of music, in this case Nick Heyward’s music is as real as any of us here. Perhaps more so because it’s love without caring how it’s perceived.
I’m not sure I know his solo stuff but Fantastic Day was, erm, fantastic!
I didn’t realise that he was to be sneered at, to be honest. To me he’s a classic British grown up pop singer-songwriter with a debt to the (mainly Paul side of the) Beatles and a side helping of funk. I put his songwriting alongside Stephen Duffy, Terry Hall (solo), Gary Clark, Boo Hewerdine, Chris Difford, Bill Pritchard and Paddy McAloon. It’s some of kind of stuff I was most likely to be listening to in the late 80s/early 90s.
No sneering from me but as I say in the article his eightiesness is definitely held against him by some. I think it hindered his appeal in the 90’s when he was at his real peak. Was “From Monday to Sunday” bettered in that mid 90’s period but did you hear it anywhere?
Excellent, as another fan of the criminally underrated Nick Heyward I shall read that in a bit. Interesting song choices too, but it’s difficult to go wrong with his records.
@Paul-Wad
Unless, of course, you actually buy one
Stuff and nonsense, he’s fab
I have on several occasions, and to several people, mentioned a band I’m seeing or have been listening to and have been greeted with “Aw yeah. They still goin’, are they?”
@DanP
The Who?
Stupid question, because nearly ALL bands are still going in some form or another. Back in the 20th century bands splitting up was a big deal – now it’s meaningless because you know 18 months later they’ll be on a reunion tour.
Somewhere amongst Afterworders there’ll be someone who’s seen Lindisfarne play “Farewell” gigs 20 years apart.
When John Fogerty last toured Europe (playing mostly CCR songs) we went to see him outdoors in an old castle in Berlin. Our daughter brought along her newest boyfriend. After the gig I asked him if he liked it. “It was brilliant, but why-oh-why did he cover that damn Status Quo song?”
Clearly a civilian. (I advised her later to get rid of him…)
Fogerty did Pictures of Matchstick Men? Cool!
*heads to Guitars 101*
I can hear him hollering out ‘Down The Dustpipe’ with a ten dollar bill in his jeans, mind you. I think that would work well.
Come to think of it, they must have had Creedence in mind when they wrote that one, surely?
Had no idea RAOTW wasn’t a Quo song, I learned something today!
Mind you, I’ve never heard anything else by him either and had no idea he was in CCR (which isn’t a surprise admittedly as I can only think of four of their songs, one of which I only heard recently when it was used in a King Kong film).
Not saying that’s a good or bad thing, I think I was grasping for some comment about what defines a civilian to different people, but turns out I didn’t really have one 🙂
You’re OUT the army now…..
It’s a fair cop, was probably only a matter of time! 🙂
Not so much a tip as a comment: not too long after starting a new job, around 2004 I was talking about music with a co-worker. When I was less than enthusiastic about his liking for Jamie Cullum, he suggested that was because I didn’t have broad enough taste to appreciate him.
Hard to think of a comeback there Carl!
There was a strange period in the early 2000’s when lots of bland music was being marketed as if it was something more interesting.
The likes of Jamie Cullum, Katie Melua and James Blunt.
Not sure what was behind it all but with hindsight it was maybe a combination of Radio 2 airplay and CD’s being sold in supermarkets and petrol stations to an older demographic who still had an interest in new music but didn’t want to have to search too hard to find it.
In some ways you then had the likes of Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers and even Coldplay as the ‘indie’ equivalents.
I have yet to find Jamie Cullum’s singing voice or any of his records to my taste, but he’s a decent enough chap and he plays some good records on his BBC R2 show.
Indeed. He went to the same university as me, reinvigorated Monday Jazz night in the SU, and is an all-round good egg with a lovely wife. A shame his music is not to my tastes.
The only time I ever got Monday Jazz night full was when I’d booked Tori Amos for fresher’s week after ‘Silent All These Years’ had gone in the charts over the summer.
Has anybody noticed that his voice is almost the same as yer man out of Silver Seas?
And why are you throwing chairs? They’re meant for sitting on, you beatniks!
I once worked with a fellow music nut. She was massively into Stryper.
For those who don’t know, Stryper were (are?) a Christian glam metal band from the US and are ruddy awful.
Once she ran out of Stryper CDs to lend me, she started handing out “self improvement” leaflets and suggesting I didn’t play darts at lunchtime with the (unmarried) receptionist. She went on maternity leave and didn’t come back.
@fentonsteve
Astonishingly, Stryper still “are”….
Almost certainly still ruddy awful.
Still yellow and black?
Possibly not on the same level, but at the time it was in the charts, a work colleague opined that Hooked On Classics was great “because they just play the good bits”.
Our village pub used to put on a massive knees-up for New Year. Given that we don’t frequent the place, preferring the boozer one village away in either direction, the New Year beano was attended merely because it meant we could get reasonably spannered and still walk the 150 yards home the following year. But when the landlord changed some while back, he started using a different (presumably much cheaper) DJ to host the 10pm to Auld Lang Syne and beyond disco in the public bar.
Now, I can accept that catering for an audience aged between 12 and 92 means some mainstreaming is likely, but this new bloke, armed just with his Windows XP laptop, took things to such extremes of laziness that we stopped going. When you’ve been subjected to 2 and a half hours of continuous Stars On 45 at skull-crushing levels of distortion from an Amstrad PA system, you begin to lose all sense of reality….
I was in the passenger’s seat of a girl’s car at university and out of the blue on Radio 2 came “Dead End Street,” a relatively unlikely event 30 years ago, almost impossible now I’d imagine.
It went straight off! She was doing a degree in music and the only pop music she seemed to like was Michael Bolton.
Referenced above, another girl had a Beatles’ cassette, but only “Love Songs.” I wonder if one day prices for all those naff compilations on vinly (“Reel Music,” “Beatles’ Ballads” are two others) might go through the roof? “Reel Music,” released almost 40 years ago, apparently got to no. 56 in the chart. Can’t be many of them knocking around.
In my experience, anyone doing music, either at school or university, was almost guaranteed to know the square-root of jack-shite about pop music. I actually can’t think of an exception.
I have many a time asked a new acquaintance what music they are into, sometimes the answer is “loads of stuff” or “everything”, on examining their record collection that often seem to mean Phil Collins, Coldplay, Annie Lennox and Dire Straits. Do I feel superior? Probably, but I actually am not.
I can think of quite a few folk I know who have far cooler and more on trend music tastes than I do and who are all over Sussudio, Walking On Broken Glass, Money For Nothing, Against All Odds, etc.
Phil Collins, in particular, has sort of been so far out of fashion he’s maybe come back round the other side entirely.
A couple of years ago I was on the train opposite a young cool looking chap who had evidently been to a record shop. After a while he naturally took out his purchase to have a closer look. I was expecting Squarepusher or somesuch.
It was Running in the Family by Level 42.
It’s a masterpiece. No, really it is…
I would absolutely love to see a generation where all the heppest kids got super into solo Annie Lennox. Just blasting Why over and over again without a care in the world.
Or playing air bass along to “Lessons In Love” with joie de vivre
Laughing at older people because they don’t “get” Simply Red.
I considered telling him that I’d bought that album when it came out and I was thirteen and that it was unimaginably uncool. He would rightly have greeted that with “….so what ?”
It’s not a masterpiece, agreeable as it is . World Machine on t’other hand…
Worked with a bod a while back who announced he’d bought himself a Vinyl Player, and was now stocking up on Vinyls.
I was alerted to the rare recordings available in The Works ( or budget factory overstcks shop that seem to be in every town centre with no consistency of stock).
He did make one special Amazon purchase, and suggested it was the best thing on plastic – the Greatest Showman soundtrack