Can anyone help out? When Simon Reynolds published his superb Rip It Up And Start Again he also made available two extensive discographies as downloadable PDF’s. In the great computer outage that took down my itunes playcounts my copies were also nixed, and after a bit of googling the links are all now broken. From memory there was a ‘core curriculum’ and a ‘further listening’ – the latter being particularly vast. Would be very grateful.
Simon Reynolds The Post-Punk Curriculum
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I have the RIUASA compilation CD, if it helps.
Thanks but it’s the PDFs I’m after the further listening was a real labour of love
This is why I HATE internet “oh it’s online” assumptions. So often ‘it’ is lost and when you Google it, it is no longer available. (Equally, sometimes I love the Internet and find something I’ve been looking for by a quick Google (I replaced my beloved NME tapes with digital rips- but that’s becoming less so as music downloading sites dry up)).
I much prefer the archival approach and am surrounded by filing cabinets, books, CDs, hard drives of download back ups, LPs I now never play, and could now spend the rest of my life going through it without repeating myself. Good luck finding those PDFs.
Maybe we need a “Curator’s Corner”, or a dodgy “quid deal” bloke who knows where to look if you need something.
Oh, and why not ask Simon Reynolds, who probably has them. He has a blog: http://retromaniabysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/
I was coming back to suggest that. Maybe social media is the answer.
His blog says the best way to contact him is via his email which seems to be simonreynolds at mindspring dot com
Sounds interesting though, so if you do find them I’d be grateful if you could post the link on here.
Try here – https://web.archive.org/web/20110915073415/http://fmstereo.awardspace.com/Listas/Listas_SimonReynoldsPostPunk.pdf
and here –
https://web.archive.org/web/20171002105318/http://fmstereo.awardspace.com/Listas/Listas_SimonReynoldsPostPunk_Esoterica.pdf
The internet archive – http://web.archive.org/ – is always worth a punt for stuff that was once online – no guarantees but it often finds stuff you fear has gone for good. I’m an ex-librarian and still fill chunks of my working week finding useful information that no-one else bothered to look after properly!
Blimey. There’s an awful lot of Cabaret Voltaire records in the core curriculum!
Mmm, there’s a lot of stuff there that I wouldn’t necessarily label as post-punk. For example, Dollar – Mirror, Mirror and Give Me Back My Heart. I’ve never really considered Dollar as a proper pop group anyway, as they came out of Guys and Dolls, who were more end of the pier light entertainment. I was amazed at the response on SDE to the announcement of a Dollar boxed set. My reaction was who on Earth would want to buy that, but seemingly I misunderstood the fan base they have.
A ‘young’ Trevor Horn produced a number of Dollar singles before he became mega. They are excellent.
Yes, the production is very good, but not my cup of tea at all. That said, I bought the T.A.T.u CD just because I love his production. Can’t see me buying the Dollar box set any time soon though.
It’s funny isn’t it, that in hip hop and various branches of electronic music you’d seek albums out just because of who produced them, but in rock and pop you’d be less inclined to do that. I seek out things produced by Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Danger Mouse (although his work with Red Hot Chili Peppers is way beyond my imaginary line in the sand) and have got some great CDs as a result. The Pete Rock produced Center of Attention by InI is one of my favourite rap albums, albeit difficult and expensive to track down, and Danger Mouse’s Rome album with Daniele Luppi, Norah Jones and Jack White is fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever sought a rock or pop album just cos of the producer, apart from the T.A.T.u. one of course.
I agree the Dollar box is a step too far and Rome is brill.
thanks so much @tinysuns – why does it does not surprise me that I am not the only person interested in a comprehensive, exhaustive perhaps even exhausting set of post-punk lists.
My first call would be to put the url where the original downloads were linked into the Wayback Machine, you might be lucky first time. See archive.org as suggested above.
Dollar were produced by Trevor Horn for their third album & the big hits. The musicians were his usual cronies & the songs co-written with Bruce Woolley. They leapt out of the radio, with many of the production tricks he used on ABC.
Here’s the best one.
I bought all those Dollar singles at the time, before ‘a Trevor Horn production’ became a thing.
I thought I just liked the tunes, but it turns out it was the first inklings of me becoming… well, an AfterNerd.
Dagnabbit, if I end up downloading any Dollar songs after all this I’m stopping coming on here! I’ll give a couple a listen then, seeing as though I haven’t heard them for nearly 40 years and always fast forwarded past them on the TOTP reruns.
I bought a cheapy greatest hits CD years ago for pennies, even that seems to be worth a tenner now. I’m sitting on a gold mine (of crap).
Unfortunately Trevor H only produced the 4 singles, the “band” producing and writing the other 2/3 of the album, so if you have a best of… covering those it’s probably all you need – but they are tremendous, particularly “Give Me Back My Heart”.
And here we are: followed the rabbit down the hole and there it was.
http://ripitupfootnotes.blogspot.com/