Eyes down ....

Anyone following Car Boot Vinyl Diaries will be familiar with their list of perennial LPs to be found at car boot sales (also available as a handy bingo card here). Ultimately these are albums that sold in vast quantities in their day but which no longer hold the interest of the casual listener. For that's who would have sent their sales into overdrive - people who didn't regularly buy music but who found themselves at the record counter in Woolies, creating a snowball effect on sales. Put it this way: if you find someone with a record collection comprising mainly of those 12 LPs, you could comfortably say - or sing, if you wish - to them: "You don't really care for music, do you?" and they either won't know what you're talking about or, worse, will get all excited and say "I know that - it's that X-Factor song!".

That is not to say that these are all bad LPs. I was dragged up to the sounds of those Carpenters singles albums, and with its re-recording and segueing of tracks the 1969-1973 collection is far more appealing than the more recent cash-in trick of padding out a best-of with one or two, often poor, new recordings. And although Abba spent most of the 1980s being ridiculed their resurgence in the 1990s with the success of ‘Abba Gold’, topped-off by ‘Mamma Mia’, brought home the fact that although some of their lyrics might have been questionable (but could you do better in Swedish?) their melodies contained more hooks than any medicine show might muster up. 'No Parlez' on the other hand seems unlikely to ever regain the public's imagination; but if it does, I can point you in the direction of one Cambridge charity shop that has at least three copies in stock, along with assorted other selections from Mr Young's back catalogue.

The same phenomenon is being repeated with CDs (which incidentally are getting cheaper in charity shops). So who are the modern day equivalents of the Carpenters and Dr Hook? Apart from one extreme example (along with Lance Armstrong biographies, people have understandably been quick to offload their Lost Prophets collections, though by donating them to charity shops are they seriously expecting anyone to buy them?) they generally fall into the same pattern as their 70s & 80s predecessors – sell by the bucketload and then fall out of fashion.

Brit bubble popped
Blur may have won that battle but there's no denying who won the war, even if Damon & co are the ones getting the plaudits in 2015. As a result it was Oasis who truly crossed over and one CD in particular rears its ugly head rather too often. 'Definitely, Maybe' is too much of a fan's favourite, and even though '(What's The Story) Morning Glory?' was their biggest seller it remains popular and so it's 1997's 'Be Here Now', initially adored by the press, subsequently denounced as bloated and sometimes referred to as the album that killed Britpop, that people are discarding with relish. With estimated UK sales of 1.8 million (only 'Heathen Chemistry' is believed to have made it to 7 figures since), many of those are now available to you for as little as 50p.

Nods from this period also go to the Lightning Seeds best of 'Like You Do', Kula Shaker's 'K' (the K section of Reckless Records' now closed Islington branch consisted of little else) and The Verve's Urban Hymns.

Sisters are doing it for themselves
Eminem's 'Stan' famously featured an extract from Dido's 'Thank You'. This was arguably the best part of either song but the sales of ‘Life For Rent’ and it’s follow-up, ‘No Angel’ showed that several million people were keen to hear more. But not perpetually it would seem. Duffy’s ‘Rockferry’ is another staple, and I’ve noticed a recent rise in copies of Lily Allen’s ‘Alright, Still’. On the flip-side I don’t think I’ve ever seen any Adele (though if she doesn’t hurry up and release a new album the public may turn against her and send her CDs out into the wilderness), and rarely any Amy Winehouse.

Boys Keep Swinging

Or at least Robbie does according to ‘Swing When You’re Winning’, one of many CDs by the ex-Take Thatter you can pick up at your leisure. David Gray’s ‘White Ladder’ used to be prominent; I don’t think it’s recent lack of visibility is down to a new-found love for the album, more that everyone who wanted shot of it did so a while back. Jack Johnson and Army-man-turned-Twitter-comedian James Blunt are common finds.

And the rest ...
From the 90s you can expect to find Simply Red's 'Stars' and Robson & Jerome; the noughties offer up The Scissor Sisters self-titled debut and follow-up 'Ta-Dah' and Mika's 'Life In Cartoon Motion'. It's possibly too early to see any significant trends for whatever the current decade is supposed to be called, although the Only Men Aloud! CD is becoming a regular spot. I'd have predicted Florence & The Machine but their recent promotion to Glastonbury headliners has bought them at least another couple of years in people's collections. 1D look vulnerable, as do Mumford and Sons following the lukewarm reaction to their latest album. Time will tell ...

MELODY MAKER November 4 1978

MELODY MAKER
November 4 1978
Cover: Keith Richards
Lead album review: 'Dub Housing', Pere Ubu
Lead live review: The Clash
Single of the week: 'Nothing New', Bethnal

The chances are that any TV show setting itself at the tail-end of 1978 would be using punk/new-wave music and imagery to help set its scenes, with maybe some disco elements thrown in for good measure. One look at the front of this issue of Melody Maker paints a very different picture, featuring as it does Keith Richards, Rod Stewart and Mike Oldfield. The Clash & Third World get a look in next to a piece referred to as 'Kraftwerk The Movie'. No such film exists as far as I know but instead ties to an article written in the style of a film script. 

The lead piece on Keef relates to him taking to the stage in New York after his trial following his legendary drugs bust in Canada, which ultimately triggered him finally kicking heroin. I used to have a poster of photos of Keef from 1962 through to around 1990 and it always seemed to be that his appearance changed significantly around this time; it was almost as if the heroin had been slowing down his ageing process. There's a gallery here where you can judge for yourself. 

Richards has also claimed that he never had a cold during his heroin years, and that governments knew full well it was the cure for the common cold but didn't want to admit it. It can be assumed then that Eddie & The Hot Rods weren't users as p3 reveals they were cancelling a short run of Scottish dates as various members of the band had flu. 

I was pleased to see an ad for Our Price inside the front cover, having worked there over a couple of stints a decade or so later. I was there when they were a fully-fledged national chain and opened their 300th store; in November 1978 they had 10, all with 01 telephone numbers. Alongside a Top 60 rundown ('Grease' at #1), the ad prominently features the Fabulous Poodles. From flicking through this pile of issues they, along with several other bands I'm not familiar with, crop up quite a lot although my route to them was via seeing their singer (Tony de Meur when he was a Poodle; Ronnie Golden when I saw him; his website reveals more on his various personas) provide the musical backing for 'Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen' (downloadable here).

Johnny Rotten may have worn a customised 'I Hate Pink Floyd' t-shirt but Melody Maker were happy to give keyboardist Rick Wright a platform to discuss his recent solo album while also dropping hints about a new project Floyd were about to start work on: "I can't say what it is .... it's Roger's baby, his thing ....it is a very strong idea .... a very involved thing and we're doing a film as well. It's a film based on the idea of the music that Roger has written for the album". The elongated recording process of the resulting album, The Wall, would see Wright leave the band albeit remaining as a session musician for the record and as a hired hand on the subsequent tour.

Paul Weller reviews the singles, name-dropping that he's a "personal friend of the band" before saying that Blondie's 'Hanging On the Telephone' just "doesn't do a lot for me". That's certainly not the only new release he dismisses, but the fact that he says on three occasions that he prefers the b-side shows he was pretty thorough. 

His appearance in the office doesn't prevent All Mod Cons from getting almost as good a kicking as the man who was down in the tube station at midnight; "If Paul Weller were to be a little less enthusiastic, a little less concerned with churning out singles like a bottle factory, and a little more selective in his approach, The Jam would not be in danger of becoming tiresome".

All the way through to its merger into the NME, Melody Maker was the go-to magazine for musicians wanted ads. Assorted tales exist of careers that owe their existence to those pages. Given he was born a few weeks after the ad to the right was placed, it's a fair guess that Mike Skinner didn't take almost a quarter of a century to go from a manager-less hopeful 'ready to roll' to the man behind Original Pirate Material. Whether Iver's Sledgehammer found themselves a vocalist, or Fanni from the Stillettos took any worthwhile calls from drummers may never be known. At a different level, a Mr Luigi was seeking a synth player to accompany a drummer on Friday & Saturday evenings, from nine until one pm in an Italian restaurant. Given that reads to me as a 16 hour shift I'm hoping the money was extremely good.

But my favourite ad has to be this one. I'm not entirely convinced this would be acceptable under current-day equal opportunities legislation. Is the 'warning' paragraph a description of their predecessor? Though it should be noted that to be (r)ejected you'd have to be all of those things and it's a pretty niche list. So if you're still determined you know what to do.