The Vinyl Files Part 10 ... Glen Campbell - The Glen Campbell Goodtime Album (1970)

For the final vinyl files offering, it’s not a case of saving the best until last, more the case of saving the first until last ... 

This little beastie, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Album, by dint of my Mum’s whimsy and best intent, sometime around 1971 or 1972, became the first record I ever owned. I would have been six or seven years of age. A bold yellow price tag/sticker still adorns my near 50-year-old copy ... $2.50, which, I’m guessing, was something close to full price for a new record at the time.

As a child, I recall my older sister and I watching a lot of 70s television music “specials”, whatever the (old) NZBC deemed fit to air at the time; various incarnations of the Johnny Cash Show, the Bobbie Gentry Show, and Glen Campbell’s one-hour blocks of music blended with attempts at comedy. 

And naturally, local productions like Happen Inn, which featured Kiwi artists like Craig Scott, Ray Woolf, Bunny Walters, and my sister’s own favourite, Suzanne (Donaldson, later Lynch). These were formative influences on the family record collection, and for me personally, a gateway to other, much greater things. 

I’m not sure whether or not I expressed a specific interest in the music of Glen Campbell, but I suspect Mum buying this for me was merely a response to my own indignation about my sister building a fairly sizeable collection of Suzanne albums ... “here, have this, now shut up” ... not much more than a parental act of appeasement. 

Released in 1970, the album is collection of popular Campbell tunes as featured on his television series, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. All covers, it contains none of the big hits that established him as a country music/pop charts crossover icon. No ‘Wichita Lineman’, no ‘Galveston’, and thankfully it was a few years too early for the atrocity that is ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’. 

The Conway Twitty-penned ‘It’s Only Make Believe’ was the only single extracted, going Top 10 in the US, but other notable tracks/covers include ‘My Way’ (naturally), Paul Simon’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, and Jimmy Webb’s immortal ‘MacArthur Park’. 

Sadly, it doesn’t contain the only Campbell hit I’d later grow to truly love, ‘Gentle On My Mind’. 

Campbell’s prolonged decline and struggles with Alzheimer’s - he could barely recall the words to many of his biggest hits by the time he finally stopped performing a few years prior to his 2017 death (aged 81) - are well documented in the heartfelt 2014 documentary, I’ll Be Me. 

Well worth a look. 

Anyway, thanks for this one Mum … I think.

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection) 

The Vinyl Files Part 9 ... UB40 - Signing Off (1980)

Signing Off is one of the very few albums I’ve owned a copy of in every format - vinyl, cassette, CD, and digital. That’s no mere coincidence, it has been with me every step of the way on this journey through life as a music consumer/hoarder. I’ve checked the blog archives and I can scarcely believe I haven’t published anything about it before today.

But one of the problems with writing about the music of UB40 is the notion that they became so deeply unfashionable and hard to endure it seems almost pointless trying to convince any reader of the band’s critical worth. Long before the now well-publicised family bust-up that hastened the band’s demise, and the creation of several new half-arsed UB40 entities, the original collective had long since “sold out”. From about album four or five onwards - let’s say the start of the Labour of Love series of cover albums in order to put a stake in the ground - the band’s music became utterly devoid of any real creative integrity and merely a vehicle for some of the worst lightweight reggae fluff ever inflicted upon mankind. 

The music was/is simply unbearable, even if they had - by then - completely won over less discerning sections of the record-buying public. By the mid-90s, they were unrecognisable as the band that made Signing Off in 1980, one of the greatest and most utterly compelling debut reggae albums of all-time. The follow-up, Present Arms, was also quite special. 

Prior to the seismic shift in the band’s direction, UB40 were serious reggae artists first and foremost, a multicultural Birmingham-based collective with something important to say about an increasingly restless UK enduring its first outbreak of rampant Thatcherism and life-changing Tory rule. The opening handful of tracks more than hint at the band’s prevailing social conscience, with unguarded references to racism and colonialism in particular. 

On the opening track ‘Tyler’ - the true tale of Gary Tyler, a black teenager wrongfully convicted of the 1974 murder of a white teenager in smalltown Louisiana - the target is clear: 

“Tyler is guilty, the white judge has said so, what right do we have to say it’s not so … testify under pressure, a racist jury, government lawyers, it’s all for show; with rows of white faces, false accusations, he’s framed up for murder, they won’t let him go” … 

(Gary Tyler spent time on death row, before serving a life sentence, eventually being released in 2016 after serving 42 years) 

Then on ‘King’ … with reference to Martin Luther King: 

“You had a dream of a promised land, people of all nations walking hand in hand, but they’re not ready to accept that dream situation, yet … King, where are your people now? … chained and pacified, tried in vain to show them how, and for that you died” … 

And this from the brooding ‘Burden of Shame’ (still just four tracks in): 

“There are murders that we must account for, bloody deeds have been done in my name, criminal acts we must pay for, and our children will shoulder the blame … I’m a British subject, not proud of it, while I carry the burden of shame” … 

All of that contained within an opening 20-minute thrust; politically aware lyrics underpinned by the laidback grooves of the now signature UB40 sax, layers of percussion, a gentle probing bass, some clever and quite beautiful floaty synth excerpts, and vocalist Ali Campbell sounding for all the world like a repressed black man doomed to remain trapped in a white man’s body. It’s a simple enough formula, but one which produces quite exceptional (and timeless) results. 

After the brief instrumental interlude that is ‘Adella’, we then come to one of the album’s genuine highlights - and an eventual single lifted from the album - ‘I Think It's Going to Rain Today’. The dubby sax-infused ‘25%’ then provides for another brief instrumental break, before the band’s breakthrough single and the album’s masterpiece ‘Food For Thought’ reminds us that UB40 need not have compromised to the extent they eventually did in order to achieve commercial success. ‘Food For Thought’ was, of course, a major global smash with its infectious skank and silky smooth crossover leanings. The mournful ‘Little By Little’ and the upbeat instrumental title-track then close out the album with understated aplomb.

But it doesn’t quite end there. Signing Off also comes with a bonus EP - a separate 12-inch pressing with the vinyl edition; all three tracks as equally rewarding as the album proper, including the majestic 12-minute-plus opus ‘Madam Medusa’, an epic track which showcases some extraordinary percussion, before “Astro” Wilson adds a touch of old-school-style toasting as the sweet cherry on top. Throw in a soulful version of the dark standard ‘Strange Fruit’ and another riveting ska-paced instrumental in ‘Reefer Madness’ (does exactly what it says on the box) and you end up with one of the very best collections of UK reggae you’re ever likely to find. 

UB40 would never again scale such heights, and Signing Off presents the picture of a band positively bursting with fresh ideas. They clearly had something to say and despite possessing an undoubted hunger to attain mainstream success, something that ultimately destroyed the band, the message gets through undiluted and without compromise on this wonderful debut. 

Signing Off is, without question, an everythingsgonegreen Desert Island Disc. 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection) 

The Vinyl Files Part 8 ... Blondie - 'Dreaming' (single, 1979)

Changing focus for the Vinyl Files slightly, as it would be remiss of me not to feature at least one single or 45 amongst the records I’m covering in these blogposts, given that the format often forms a big part of most vinyl collections. 

This one, Blondie’s ‘Dreaming’, was a relatively late addition to my own collection and it landed in my lap more by accident than by design. But I love it, just as I loved the tune when it was first released (although evidently not enough to have picked up a copy back then). 

In 2009, when my significant other was celebrating a significant birthday, we decided to have a birthday meal at a local tapas bar with a group of friends. After the meal we would all (most of the group, at least) head up to San Fran (bar) on Wellington’s Cuba Street for a night of 80s new wave nostalgia at the popular retro night, Atomic. The 80s was the wider theme of the “party”, and we decided it would be fun to thank those who joined our celebration by presenting each person with either a 1970s or 1980s-themed vinyl single. We spent that afternoon rifling through the large selection of preloved vinyl at Real Groovy Records to select appropriate records to hand out later in the night. Everyone loved the gesture, a bit of swapping went on, but come the end of the night we found ourselves in possession of two “unclaimed” records – Blondie’s picture-sleeve ‘Dreaming’ 45, and something far less memorable by 80s chart-rockers Reo Speedwagon. 

I was quietly chuffed that of all the records purchased that day, I personally would be able to take home the Blondie 45. By default, on account of it being left behind.

As good as it undoubtedly is - good enough to peak at number two on the UK singles chart - it is baffling to me today that ‘Dreaming’ was chosen as the lead single off the band’s 1979 album Eat To The Beat, when you consider that’s the album which eventually spawned the number one hit single, ‘Atomic’. In fact, ‘Atomic’ was merely the fourth single released from the album, following ‘Dreaming’, ‘Union City Blue’, and the forgettable non-charting ‘The Hardest Part’ … indeed, ‘Atomic’ appears to have been released only as a very belated afterthought, midway through 1980, perhaps to follow-up or cash in on the success of the non-album single ‘Call Me’ (off the American Gigolo OST), which hit number one earlier that year. 

Apparently inspired by Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’, the live-in-the-studio take of ‘Dreaming’ as released, is pretty decent, and it highlights, more than any other Blondie single, how crucial the frenetic stick work of drummer Clem Burke was to the band’s overall sound. Yet oddly, in reference to the track’s failure to hit number one, and more generally its lack of global impact, Burke believes his drumming held the song back: 

“The reason why ‘Dreaming’ came out the way it did is because (producer) Mike Chapman really gave me free rein and it was really a surprise. That take of ‘Dreaming’ was just me kind of blowing through the song. It's not like I expected that to be THE take. I was consciously overplaying just for the sake of it because it was a run-through. I always say ‘Dreaming’ would have been a bigger hit had I not played like that. It was Top 40, but it was never a huge hit.” 

Burke is clearly downplaying the significance of reaching number two in the UK. The single reached number 27 on the Billboard charts, and it peaked at number nine here in New Zealand. 

But more than anything else, my copy is a permanent reminder of a special night out with friends.

Eat To The Beat's ‘Sound-A-Sleep’ is on the flip.

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

The Vinyl Files Part 7 ... The Cure - Japanese Whispers (1983)

Having released four albums by the end of 1982 - or five if you count Three Imaginary Boys (UK) and Boys Don’t Cry (US) as entirely separate works, which I don’t - each one markedly gloomier than the last, The Cure had reached something of a crossroads. 

The recording, release, and touring phases of the band’s desperately bleak fourth studio album, Pornography, had highlighted all sorts of problems, not the least of which were issues around Robert Smith’s depression, infighting over the band’s artistic direction, and debilitating levels of hard drug use. An alignment of events which took The Cure to the precipice, staring into a self-destructive abyss. It’s all there, laid bare, on Pornography. Which may or may not be the reason many Cure fans cite the album as the band’s pivotal work. 

Bassist Simon Gallup (temporarily) left the band after Pornography, and across late 1982 and all of 1983, The Cure embarked on a slightly more upbeat pop-embracing path, with Robert Smith honing his song-writing skills and repositioning himself as a master of the quirky love song. With that shift in focus came a series of standalone single releases and an EP - The Walk - and it’s those tracks which formed the core of what would prove to be the first (of 11, to date) Cure compilation albums, Japanese Whispers.

But Japanese Whispers was no ordinary compilation. It wasn’t a standard “best of” or “greatest hits” to-date set, and it concerned itself only with tracks which hadn’t featured on any of that first quartet of albums. Indeed, Japanese Whispers was simply a collection of the band’s post-Pornography singles through the late 1982 to late 1983 period. So, three singles - ‘Let’s Go To Bed’, ‘The Walk’, and ‘The Love Cats’ - and the associated B-sides, making it eight tracks all up. Yet oddly enough, it tends to play out like a regular album, and to my ears it’s a far more coherent piece of work than the transitional mixed bag studio album which followed in 1984, The Top. 

I suspect Japanese Whispers served as a softcore introduction for many US-based listeners, or any new pop-loving Cure fans emerging in the wake of increased radio play. Which itself was a direct result of the band’s commitment to a rather more inclusive “pop” aesthetic. The fact that ‘The Love Cats’ had given The Cure its first Top 10 hit (in the UK, at least) perhaps tells its own story. 

I’m really not 100 percent certain how this came to be in my vinyl collection. I have an idea, but I certainly can’t recall ever purchasing it, despite owning all of the previous Cure work on either vinyl or cassette. None of which survived the great enforced collection cull of 1992/1993. I mean, I’m a fan of the band, and I’ve subsequently replaced the stuff I sold with CDs or digital files, yet still, here sits Japanese Whispers, in all of its black wax glory, my only actual Cure “record”, a shiny happy testament to a band in recovery mode, and I can’t recall quite how it got there. 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

The Vinyl Files Part 6 ... Bread - The Sound of Bread (1977)

For those of us involuntarily tasked with the onerous assignment of growing up in the late Seventies and early Eighties, or at least, those of us prone to rummaging through our parents’ record collection, The Sound of Bread will be a very familiar album. You’ll know it, you’ll have heard it, and most of you will either love it or hate it - depending on your general disposition and any sense of nostalgia you’re able to attach to it ...

Pure nostalgia is the only reason this album has survived a couple of vinyl collection culls, and like the previous entry on the Vinyl Files, this one isn’t particularly rare. If anything it’s quite the opposite. It’s a soft-rock staple and many of the tracks on this compilation helped to define an era in popular music when soft-rock ruled. Classic Hits Radio playlist compilers still love this stuff. 

While The Sound of Bread blends a nice balance of the soft and fast with the softer and slower, it’s generally tracks of the latter variety which stand-out, and best serve to highlight the modest beauty of David Gates’ smooth yet occasionally delicate lead vocal - ‘Baby I’m A Want You’, ‘Make It With You’, ‘Lost Without Your Love’, ‘Guitar Man’, ‘If’, and ‘Everything I Own’ … really, what more needs to be said? 

Of all of my Mum’s records - and there weren’t that many, in retrospect - I found myself lounging about to in the hour or so after school before being forced to refocus my attentions on pesky stuff like homework, only Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours enjoyed more airtime than The Sound of Bread. 

But back then, I really didn’t know any better. 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

The Vinyl Files Part 5 ... Lloyd Cole and The Commotions - Rattlesnakes (1984)

I gave my vinyl version of Rattlesnakes a spin a few weeks back and was surprised, and relieved, to learn that it is still 100 percent playable after all these years. I’ve had another listen to the album via Spotify this morning as a refresher for writing this blogpost and it never fails to impress, whatever the format … 

There’s nothing particularly rare or collectable about Rattlesnakes on vinyl. It doesn’t necessarily fit the Vinyl Files template (thus far) of being especially relevant on any personal level, and neither is it an obscure gem, or even a “cult” favourite. It always reminds me of certain people and a specific flat/abode I lived at way back when it first came out, but that’s about it.

What it is, however, is a genuinely underrated masterpiece. That’s why it’s here, and that’s why it survived the most recent vinyl cull. 

It also stands out as a debut release, and the most important work in what would prove to be a long and successful career for key protagonist, Lloyd Cole. Of all the very literate albums released during an era when literate was de rigueur - think mid-80s wordy stuff from The Smiths, Costello, et al - Rattlesnakes has arguably stood the test of time better than any of them. 

Songcraft, and the frequently stunning set of lyrics - artful, clever, and littered with pop culture references (to Mailer, Adler, de Beauvoir, and others) - are at forefront of everything that makes the album special. Its soft-rock immortality heightened by the sense of romance on hand, whether through added strings or the band’s predilection for ballads over the more fashionable harder edged alt-rock of its time. 

And wasn’t there something just a little bit Elvis-like/lite about Lloyd Cole at that time? That gorgeous voice and those handsome features … (probably just me). 

The album produced three (minor) hit singles: ‘Perfect Skin’, ‘Forest Fire’, and the title track, and it was named by the NME as one of the top 100 albums of its decade. If you have no other Lloyd Cole work - either under the Commotions banner or in a solo guise - Rattlesnakes is the album to own. 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

The Vinyl Files Part 4 … Keith Le Blanc - Stranger Than Fiction (1989)

I’ve blogged about Keith Le Blanc and this album before, but since the The Vinyl Files is all about the black magic plastic stuff, and the small fact that this record itself has survived a couple of major vinyl collection culls, then a few more words won’t matter too much. 

Keith Le Blanc is the World’s Best Drummer You’ve Probably Never Heard Of ... yet, if you’ve listened to any of the Sugar Hill label’s pioneering hip hop of the early 80s (see Grandmaster Flash), any Tackhead, or any On-U Sound stuff, then the chances are, you’ve heard Keith Le Blanc ... even if you haven’t heard of him. 

He’s more than just a drummer. He’s a label owner, a producer, a programmer, and session musician extraordinaire. He’s worked with some of the best in the business for nigh on 40 years.

Le Blanc’s 1986 album, Major Malfunction, which deals with themes relating to that year’s Challenger (space mission) disaster, is frequently cited as his best solo work, but Stranger Than Fiction is my own favourite release for the way it best documents his obsession with sampling and cut-up beats. 

The album is perhaps a little dated these days, but back in 1990 and 1991 when I was consuming this album on a regular basis - more regularly than might have been healthy given its relatively subversive content and harsh industrial edge - this work was state-of-the-art. 

Stranger Than Fiction never made much of an impact in a commercial sense, but there’s a raft of underground or cult Le Blanc devotees out there, and it’s almost certainly the only record ever made where you’ll find voice samples of historical figures as diverse as Albert Einstein and X-rated comedian Lenny Bruce nestling comfortably alongside each other. 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

The Vinyl Files Part 3 … The Green & White Brigade - The Holy Ground of Glasgow Celtic (1968)

Taking the blog out of its comfort zone to explore something a little bit different this time. An album that taps into my love of football and my love of Celtic FC way more than it does my love of music. An album handed down to me by my Dad, much like my love of football and Celtic FC. A rarely played but very precious gem within my collection.

Some background: In 1967, Scottish football ruled the roost. That year, Celtic FC became the first British club to win the European Cup - yesterday’s equivalent of today’s Champions League - and it did so with an all Scottish playing eleven, with every player being born within a short driving distance of the club’s home ground in Glasgow. A month or so earlier, the Scottish national team had beaten the then World Champion English national side at Wembley to claim the British Home Championship, and a week or so after Celtic’s Cup triumph over Italian giants Inter Milan in Lisbon, the club’s bitter rival, Glasgow Rangers FC, narrowly lost the second tier ECWC Final against crack German outfit Bayern Munich. These were halcyon days for Scottish football. Never to be repeated, although Celtic would make another European Cup Final in 1970, and semi-finals in 1972 and 1974. 

Released in to commemorate Celtic’s phenomenal 1967 success, The Green & White Brigade’s The Holy Ground of Glasgow Celtic is essentially a collection of the terrace songs and accordion-led Irish rebel tunes so beloved by the club’s supporters ... many of whom identify strongly with Ireland; although based in Scotland, the club and its forefathers had - and still have - strong links with the Emerald Isle … it’s complicated, and deeper explanation of that scenario would require more than just a separate blogpost, it would require a whole book. 

Musically, it’s an acquired taste, obviously. I have no idea who The Green and White Brigade are, other than the fact that they clearly have great taste in football teams. The singing isn’t anything to write home about, but if you like Irish “folk songs” with um, tribal elements at their core, or if you feel the need for more accordion in your life (who doesn’t, right?), then this may just be an album for you. 

Includes timeless masterpieces such as ‘Hail Hail, The Celts Are Here’, ‘We’re All Off To Dublin’ (in the green, naturally), ‘The Soldier’s Song’, and ‘Sean South of Garryowen’, plus of course a couple of obligatory medleys. Just sing along in private, and make sure you don’t get arrested. 

In these days of mass marketing of football, where all manner of paraphernalia is available - replica kits, books, CDs, posters, club magazines, unofficial fanzines - it’s perhaps easy to forget that it wasn’t always like this, and an album like The Holy Ground of Glasgow Celtic would have been a relative rarity 50 years ago when it was released. A forerunner of things to come. For me, the music is hardly important, but purely as a keepsake, passed down from father to son, it means the world. 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

The Vinyl Files Part 2 … The Gordons – The Gordons (1981/1988)

An interesting one this. I have a vinyl reissue of the classic 1981 Gordons debut album released in 1988. Not to be confused with The Gordons compilation album also released in 1988 – which included additional material from the band’s Future Shock EP of 1980 – or the second self-titled Gordons album of 1984 (aka Volume 2). This 1988 reissue was released on Flying Nun (FN099) after the first version of the debut was self-released by the Christchurch-based band (GORDON2). Same album, different release, different catalogue number. Clear as mud, then ...

Whatever version of the album you listen to, it’s guaranteed your ears will be ringing. It’s likely your eyes will start watering. And there’s a fair chance paint will start peeling from the walls. Even if you don’t have paint on your walls. It is, put simply, a cacophony of guitar-led noise; seven blistering tracks featuring fuzz, feedback, full tilt grinding guitar, with pulsating and frequently chaotic rhythms underpinning everything. All topped off with punky vocals of varying degrees of clarity and adequacy. Don’t ask me what the songs are about. I probably won’t be able to hear you. And who even knew a three-piece could create this much of a racket? 

There was nothing else quite like this album when it was first unleashed upon an unsuspecting local record-buying public back in 1981. Other than perhaps the band’s three-track EP released a year prior. Sure, there was punk and post-punk, both local stuff and releases from overseas, but this album defied all attempts at labelling, and it somehow managed to create a genre all of its own. It was territory nobody else occupied, although the similarly inspired Skeptics would give things a fair old crack later in the decade. 

The Gordons – Alister Parker, Brent McLachlan, and John Halvorsen – would eventually morph into Bailter Space (aka Bailterspace), a band with a much wider commercial flavour and appeal, even if the trio’s basic modus operandi didn’t really change all that dramatically. 

The album was belatedly but deservedly honoured with the inaugural Taite Music Prize ‘Independent Music NZ Classic Record’ award in 2013. 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

The Vinyl Files Part 1 ... Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (1980)

A quite wonderful, stripped back, minimalist slice of early 80s indie out of Cardiff, featuring Alison Statton (vox), and the Moxham brothers, Stuart (on guitar and keys) and Philip (on bass). Relatively unique for its time, Colossal Youth was an album without drums, and despite its ethereal atmospheric bedroom/DIY feel, as a debut release, it has stood the test of time rather well. Essentially a collection of songs about bedsit living and life on the fringes of Thatcher’s society-less* Britain. Songs like ‘Searching for Mr. Right’, ‘Music for Evenings’, ‘Wurlitzer Jukebox’, ‘Salad Days’, and ‘Credit in the Straight World’ were all the more compelling for their simplicity and understated beauty. The latter tune was eventually covered by Hole, and Kurt Cobain himself was a notable high-profile fan of the album. Released on Rough Trade, Colossal Youth charted on the official album charts here in New Zealand (reaching number 20), the only country where it achieved such exalted “mainstream” status. Although it also hit number 3 on the UK independent album charts.

Young Marble Giants toured with Cabaret Voltaire during their pomp, and there have been a number of post-millennium reunion gigs without any new recorded material being released. There was a 2007 reissue - released as Colossal Youth and Collected Works - which came with additional work from the era, including Peel Sessions, singles, and the like. Statton later formed the jazz-orientated Weekend, which eventually morphed into the popular Working Week. These days she works as a chiropractor. 

I’m currently in possession of my second vinyl copy of Colossal Youth, and although I remain uncertain of the whereabouts of that first copy, I’d like to think it is in good hands. Hopefully hiding away in a bedsit or student flat somewhere. 

* Margaret Thatcher … ''They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.'' 

(The Vinyl Files is a short series of posts covering the best items in your blogger’s not very extensive vinyl collection)

Here’s ‘Credit in the Straight World’ … 

The Vinyl Files – Introduction

For the blog’s 600^th post (yay me, etc) I want to introduce a new “series” focusing on the small but precious set of vinyl records in my collection. I plan to roll out a post per week, over the next few months, looking at ten of the best or most important records within that collection. But first, some context … 

We all consume music in different ways. I’m not much of a fan of Spotify. I don’t have the premium option and therefore don’t “store” albums for future streaming. I only occasionally check into Spotify for one-off album previews and only rarely check out the odd playlist that platform offers. It isn’t that the cost of premium is prohibitive or anything like that, far from it, it’s just that Spotify doesn’t really hold much appeal for me. Other members of my family swear by it.

I’m relatively old-school, and most of my current music collection consists of CDs and mp3s (albums downloaded). My collection in each of these formats is extensive and varied. Some might say its huge and rather excessive. The mp3 option, for all of its flaws – compression, variations in bitrate quality – offers the portability I crave in a way that still allows me to “own” a copy or file of the music I listen to. The CD option appeals because I like to collect “physical” things and stack them on a shelf. 

Having said that, purchasing CDs is a less frequent indulgence these days, and the vast majority of new additions to my music collection in recent years have arrived in the form of album downloads/mp3 files, which are meticulously tagged and filed away with all the pedantry of a particularly speccy and spotty OCD librarian. 

In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, when I first started collecting music, it was a combination of vinyl records and cassette tapes. By 1992, my collection was extensive and – in the wake of CDs becoming the most fashionable form of consumption – largely redundant. Desperate for cash, and determined to embrace the CD format just as soon as I could afford it, I sold virtually everything I’d spent the previous 15 years collecting – vinyl and cassette tapes, the vast majority sold in bulk to a trader on Wellington’s Cuba Street. Sold for peanuts. It broke my heart. 

Well, it did, and it didn’t. It did because they were my life; the only tangible thing(s) I had to show for more than a decade in the workforce. And it didn’t because my life was undergoing major change and I desperately needed the money to fund long-yearned-for overseas travel. And hey, I couldn’t fit that little lot into the one backpack I left the country with, could I?

It just made sense (at the time) and it made even more sense that when I was flush with the green stuff, I’d be able to rebuild the collection – replicate it, even – in the form of CDs, which had fast become the mainstream poison of choice. And that's exactly what I eventually did … but I also held on to a number or tapes and records I couldn’t or simply wouldn’t give up. I stored them at my parent’s abode for the duration of my travels. The most precious and sentimental stuff; the first vinyl record my Mum ever bought me (Glen Campbell’s Goodtime Album, 1970). Something passed down to me by my Dad (The Green & White Brigade’s The Holy Ground of Glasgow Celtic, 1968), and naturally enough, a childhood first love, 1978’s Solid Gold Hits Volume 22. Plus a few others, which I may or may not get to in future posts. 

Among the handful of cassette tapes I couldn’t bear to part with were The Cure’s ‘Seventeen Seconds’ (1980), and New Order’s ‘Movement’ (1981). Those albums remain firm favourites today, although I tend to listen to each of them in a newer format nowadays. 

Since then – since The Great Purge of 1992/1993 – I’ve purchased very little in the way of vinyl, but I have added a few records here and there, and I’ve “inherited” a few albums to add to that small core set. Last Christmas, when I was gifted a very cute and portable “record player” I had yet another purge because it was clear that some of the vinyl I had was simply unplayable – badly scratched, tatty, and/or filthy – and I figured there wasn’t much point in keeping them or trying to salvage them. Which means my collection today is even smaller (about 40 albums and a handful of singles) but rather more selective. I can play what remains and what remains tends to be those records I value most. That’ll be my focus in this series of blogposts. 

With new vinyl so much more readily available than it has been at any time across the past couple of decades, I also harbour sneaky plans to add to this wing of my wider music collection. But for now, it strikes me that the most unique or more interesting works in my post-purge music collection exist in the vinyl format, so I’ll try to cover off ten of the best in the coming weeks, with a short post about what makes each one so special.