For twenty-five years* I have been collecting records, tapes and CDs at a fairly prodigious rate. I dread to think how much money I have spent, especially in the days when I was skint. Add on the cost of taping all the vinyl (which now sits on a high shelf in the bedroom - next to the teenage diaries, actually).
It seems criminal that there's stuff I never play nowadays, let alone have an opinion on, yet I must have liked it enough to buy it (or, at least, tape it off a friend).
I did play through my collection systematically, but that was about ten years ago. I have been playing my pop CDs alphabetically by artist - I'm currently up to Meatloaf - but the tapes are being ignored. I have just sorted them into alphabetically by artist, rather than chronology of obtaining them, and realised why I never did it before - most tapes have two albums on them, and there is no way of establishing a pure alpha system). However, undeterred, I have decided to play every one of my tapes, impurely alphabetically, as well as each of my CDs.
note to self Classical CD; Pop tape; classical tape; Pop CD; - don't follow rigidly, passion must rule, ultimately
I just cheated, because having blogged about Deacon Blue yesterday, I decided to play Raintown, which set me off on the tape quest. Raintown is backed with U2's The Unforgettable Fire. Which, I have to say, is rather forgettable, apart from Pride (In the Name of Love) which I have on CD multiple times. Raintown hangs to gether well as an album, with two outstanding songs - Dignity and When Will You (Make My Phone Ring)? Both of these were bought in a record-buying splurge in the months after starting a real job - they date from the Westcliff era.
I then picked out the first one alphabetically, also dating from the Westcliff era. Friend or Foe is actually much older as an album, but for some reason - probably financial - I never bought it. This tape is written out in Helen-in-Glasgow's handwriting; the other side is Manners and Physique - I seem to recall I bought that and taped it for her.
I was a bit scared getting this out, because I was so obsessively into Adam Ant/Adam and the Ants when I was a teenager, and there's that really scary feeling that maybe you'll be left staring at your hands wondering why you invested so much emotional energy.
Well, Friend or Foe is fab!!!!!!!! (oops she reverts to adolescent over-use of exclamation hyperboles). Starting with the title track, moving onto the jolly Something Girls, and the funky Place in the Country. If they were the only good tracks on the album, it would still be ace, but Goody Two Shoes is yet to come (evocations of the heat of summer of 1982).
This post is being brought to you by much over-excited bopping. I really really really can't understand why, way back in the early 80s, stuffed shirts somehow portrayed Adam and the Ants as the end of music. I mean, why? Yes, they were mind-blowingly radical - ooh, they used double drumkit - and they wrote about some fairly obscure abstract concepts, but, ooh, did they have tunes, and energy, and - they were so so so so fab. Youngsters today don't know what hasn't hit them with their identikit formulaic manufactured 'stars'.
I'm going to see if I can blog every album. You don't have to read it; it's my blog, my diary, the outlet for my slight anal tendencies. I'm not providing links - if you're desperate, you can use a search engine, or if you're really desperate, come round to my place to have a listen. Hopefully, you will be surprised by the slightly eclectic nature (although, ultimately, I'm an Eighties Pop Tart). Hopefully, I'll also be honest and actually play Phil Collins and Gloria Estefan...
*oh my god, help me, help me!
