Over the past year or so, I've focussed this blog on things I like. Now it's the turn of the things I don't; specifically, albums that I've decided to delete from my iPod.
The first is Hot Fuss by The Killers. I bought this album to scratch an itch, and itch duly scratched I realised I didn't like it very much and that quite honestly I preferred the itch. Growing up listening to Eighties synth-pop and hearing some of that electro / New Romantic sound evoked in the singles taken from Hot Fuss made The Killers appealing as a concept, and I listened to the album repeatedly when I bought it. Then I just went off it; Sam's Town killed turned me off them completely and now it's time to say farewell to Hot Fuss. CD sold on eBay and deleted from my iPod.
After my wife played me 'Slow Hands' I fell for New York's Interpol in a major way around the time of their second album, Antics. In New York in 2005 I caught up with their back catalogue and bought Turn On The Bright Lights from Other Music in the Lower East Side. However, I was frustrated by the paucity of their back catalogue. And then along came Editors, rising from the somewhat less glamorous Midlands, with The Back Room, which seemed almost to be a carbon copy of Interpol. I loved it. And then Interpol released Our Love To Admire and suddenly I had no need of Editors. Plus since then they've become altogether Killers-esque in their leanings. See above. CD sold on eBay, deleted songs from my iPod.
We all liked Keane when their début Hopes And Fears came out didn't we? The album was released at a time when introspective, emotional music was in focus – Snow Patrol, Elbow etc – and for a while Keane were leading the dour pack. And to think they didn't even have guitars. I had a couple of their songs pegged for inclusion on my hypothetical soundtrack to the film adaptation of the book I haven't finished writing yet, but finding the album again and giving it a listen I've decided they're just boring. Deleted.
Bloc Party's A Weekend In The City was a major disappointment for me. I liked Silent Alarm, their 2005 debut, and I figured I'd like the follow-up. The sleeve – with its slightly eerie shots of the Westway – is weirdly moving; opener 'Song For Clay (Disappear Here)' is named after Clay, the main protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis's seminal Less Than Zero, with the parenthesised section being a phrase that has appeared in every one of Easton Ellis's novels. Sadly, given Less Than Zero's air of casual detachment from the events unfolding around Clay and the sonic possibilities that could be created using that reference point, the Bloc Party track is hugely disappointing. As is the rest of the album. The closest the band get to that vibe of chilly aloofness is on the thinly-veiled 'On'. Sold / deleted.
Vinyl corner
I used to buy a lot of records from charity shops. Back in the days of my first website / blog (Red Elvis Central), most weeks I would just write about 7" singles I'd bought that week in Colchester's many charity stores.
Occasionally I'll still go into such shops and look for things, but it's without the enthusiasm of my early twenties. I'll flick through vinyl absentmindedly, smile at 7" singles I own and ruminate on how it's generally Eighties pop tracks that you find there these days. Back in the mid-Nineties it was Eighties stuff that I'd buy, feeling excited when I chanced upon a Human League or Tears For Fears record, if only because they were unusual in amongst the vast swathes of dumped Jim Reeves records. Now I can't be bothered.
However, a couple of weeks back I found a copy of Owen Paul's 'My Favourite Waste Of Time' from 1986, a song I saw performed on children's TV at the time and have had buzzing round my head at various points ever since. With maturity I began to think of the song as a bit of a guilty pleasures and that's exactly how I felt when I finally bought it for 25p a few weeks back.
I haven't heard 'My Favourite Waste Of Time' since it was released, and I'm impressed that I had even remembered how it went after 24 years, but that wasn't the most surprising thing - the surprise was the fact that I may have remembered this as a cheesy pop track, but it's actually a reasonably mature example of proper pop, in the same way that Nik Kershaw or Talk Talk transcended chart-bothering naffness. Sure it's anthemic, soulful, joyous, whatever, but it's not naff at all. It has a pleasant acoustic guitar running throughout the track, and true to this point in the Eighties, it has a sax solo; I wonder whatever happened to sax solos.
B-side 'Just Another Day' is a delicate, laid-back mixture of skipping percussion, Michael Karoli-esque Krautrock* guitar atmospheres tucked away in the distance and a heartfelt vocal.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Owen Paul McGee to give him his full name, 'is now back on the road as the lead vocalist for Ex-Simple Minds', a fact that I only mention because he was never a member of Simple Minds.
* Ian - you might be disappointed to know that Krautrock comes up as 'geriatric' on my BlackBerry spellcheck.
The first is Hot Fuss by The Killers. I bought this album to scratch an itch, and itch duly scratched I realised I didn't like it very much and that quite honestly I preferred the itch. Growing up listening to Eighties synth-pop and hearing some of that electro / New Romantic sound evoked in the singles taken from Hot Fuss made The Killers appealing as a concept, and I listened to the album repeatedly when I bought it. Then I just went off it; Sam's Town killed turned me off them completely and now it's time to say farewell to Hot Fuss. CD sold on eBay and deleted from my iPod.
After my wife played me 'Slow Hands' I fell for New York's Interpol in a major way around the time of their second album, Antics. In New York in 2005 I caught up with their back catalogue and bought Turn On The Bright Lights from Other Music in the Lower East Side. However, I was frustrated by the paucity of their back catalogue. And then along came Editors, rising from the somewhat less glamorous Midlands, with The Back Room, which seemed almost to be a carbon copy of Interpol. I loved it. And then Interpol released Our Love To Admire and suddenly I had no need of Editors. Plus since then they've become altogether Killers-esque in their leanings. See above. CD sold on eBay, deleted songs from my iPod.
We all liked Keane when their début Hopes And Fears came out didn't we? The album was released at a time when introspective, emotional music was in focus – Snow Patrol, Elbow etc – and for a while Keane were leading the dour pack. And to think they didn't even have guitars. I had a couple of their songs pegged for inclusion on my hypothetical soundtrack to the film adaptation of the book I haven't finished writing yet, but finding the album again and giving it a listen I've decided they're just boring. Deleted.
Bloc Party's A Weekend In The City was a major disappointment for me. I liked Silent Alarm, their 2005 debut, and I figured I'd like the follow-up. The sleeve – with its slightly eerie shots of the Westway – is weirdly moving; opener 'Song For Clay (Disappear Here)' is named after Clay, the main protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis's seminal Less Than Zero, with the parenthesised section being a phrase that has appeared in every one of Easton Ellis's novels. Sadly, given Less Than Zero's air of casual detachment from the events unfolding around Clay and the sonic possibilities that could be created using that reference point, the Bloc Party track is hugely disappointing. As is the rest of the album. The closest the band get to that vibe of chilly aloofness is on the thinly-veiled 'On'. Sold / deleted.
Vinyl corner
I used to buy a lot of records from charity shops. Back in the days of my first website / blog (Red Elvis Central), most weeks I would just write about 7" singles I'd bought that week in Colchester's many charity stores.
Occasionally I'll still go into such shops and look for things, but it's without the enthusiasm of my early twenties. I'll flick through vinyl absentmindedly, smile at 7" singles I own and ruminate on how it's generally Eighties pop tracks that you find there these days. Back in the mid-Nineties it was Eighties stuff that I'd buy, feeling excited when I chanced upon a Human League or Tears For Fears record, if only because they were unusual in amongst the vast swathes of dumped Jim Reeves records. Now I can't be bothered.
However, a couple of weeks back I found a copy of Owen Paul's 'My Favourite Waste Of Time' from 1986, a song I saw performed on children's TV at the time and have had buzzing round my head at various points ever since. With maturity I began to think of the song as a bit of a guilty pleasures and that's exactly how I felt when I finally bought it for 25p a few weeks back.
I haven't heard 'My Favourite Waste Of Time' since it was released, and I'm impressed that I had even remembered how it went after 24 years, but that wasn't the most surprising thing - the surprise was the fact that I may have remembered this as a cheesy pop track, but it's actually a reasonably mature example of proper pop, in the same way that Nik Kershaw or Talk Talk transcended chart-bothering naffness. Sure it's anthemic, soulful, joyous, whatever, but it's not naff at all. It has a pleasant acoustic guitar running throughout the track, and true to this point in the Eighties, it has a sax solo; I wonder whatever happened to sax solos.
B-side 'Just Another Day' is a delicate, laid-back mixture of skipping percussion, Michael Karoli-esque Krautrock* guitar atmospheres tucked away in the distance and a heartfelt vocal.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Owen Paul McGee to give him his full name, 'is now back on the road as the lead vocalist for Ex-Simple Minds', a fact that I only mention because he was never a member of Simple Minds.
* Ian - you might be disappointed to know that Krautrock comes up as 'geriatric' on my BlackBerry spellcheck.
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