One From The Vaults - A Godawful Small Affair: Twenty-Six "Blackstar"

The following was originally published on 17 January 2016, a few days after the death of David Bowie.  I am surprised by how much of the album review I stand by, but for context I have provided an additional sentence on my continued relationship with Bowie's music.  Don't expect (little) wonders, darlings; turns out I'm still feeling the loss a little too hard to take this any further.

"BLACKSTAR" (2016)

THE COVER: I wish I could present this without further comment, but for the sake of continuity it's worth noting that the vinyl version is actually black on black.  It's so black, it's like, "how much more black could this be?"  The answer is none.  None more black.



A confession: I did not expect to be writing this.  I assumed "The Next Day" was a retirement album, one last jolly before liberating obscurity.  Then unexpectedly - and perhaps now in context, suspiciously - a new, extremely confusing ten minute single was released.

We now know that the new, less conventionally-structured songs on this album owe much to Bowie's decision to work with musicians who were more familiar with jazz than pop, meaning that the natural constraints of rock music are lifted, and the listener is offered a more challenging yet equally rewarding experience.

I didn't listen to "Blackstar" the song more than once before the album came out, figuring I didn't have to; buying the album was my default position, what I had heard was at least enough to convince me it was more interesting than, say, "Tonight", so there really wasn't much point.

What I can say about it is that I thought it was essentially throwaway pretension on the first listen and got that quite wrong; it's a grower that has at least three genuinely great moments in, moments earned by the journey that gets you there and that justify the sheer length of the piece, which remains an anomaly in rock or pop music.  I also find it helps to think of it as three separate movements; indeed its closest touchpoint in the oeuvre is probably "Sweet Thing"/"Candidate"/"Sweet Thing (Reprise)" from "Diamond Dogs".

So track one's in the bag.  What else have we got?  Well, "'Tis a Pity She Was A Whore" is my particular favourite - but then it would be; whilst much of the album takes obvious cues from Bowie's unfairly maligned nineties output (the unrestrained saxophony of "Black Tie White Noise", the pummelling intensity of "1. Outside", the joyous, scrambling beats of "Earthling"), this is a track you could easily drop onto any of those albums.

"Lazarus", now lent new context (we're getting to that), "Dollar Days" and closer "I Can't Give Everything Away" are the more classically Bowie tracks, in so far as he has a classic sound; they ring with the confidence of "Heathen" and "Reality", but shorn of the more traditional cladding of those albums they fly with the abandon of the new, sounding as vital as any of his material has.

The one slight here - the "TVC15" of the album, if you will - is "Girl Loves Me", which is partially sung in a combination of invented languages.  It has been criticised in some areas of the press for containing swearing, about which I really couldn't care less; I just think it's a slightly less interesting and more repetitive trudge through the musical themes of the album.  Much like "TVC15" though, I bet Bowie was well pleased with it.

All in all the album was far more exciting and forward-looking than you would expect of any 69-year old's artistic output, and left us all wondering was next, and what, if anything, was there left to achieve?  That's the funny thing about life, though: as long as you're still alive, there's always one thing left to do.




And so this time we really do come to a rather final halt; no new albums will there be, no rumoured demoes will I countenance, no further entries for Extra Credit, no peachy prayers, no return for the Thin White Duke.

Which means I should probably try and have a stab at putting my personal admiration for David Bowie into a few inadequate words.  Where do I start with this one?

Firstly I would say that I haven't ever seen so many people that I care about be so perturbed by the passing of a stranger.  I think the reaction to Michael Jackson's death was probably fired by more people, as he was the larger international star, but in terms of people that I specifically share relationships with this was a real hammerblow.

Obviously people react to this in different ways; I and my contemporaries Tim and Ben are blogging.  Another friend put on a tribute night that amped up the attendees to the point the police were called.  Many have taken to social media to express a dislike of cancer.  Whilst I may feel the latter sentiment can go assumed and unexpressed, it's a valid way of assimilating the news, and yet more proof of its wide reach.

Secondly I would say that part of the reason his death has such resonance, and particularly in close proximity to releasing an album this eclectic and future focused, is that there is a genuine fear that there won't ever be another artist like David Bowie; someone who is left largely to his own devices by the recording industry to the extent that he is able to repeatedly inspire consecutive generations of people by adjusting his focus, rather than being encouraged to stick to a familiar formula that can be marketed in a set way.

Frankly, I personally think that this is the case, due to the changes in the industry since the sixties; the immediate post-Beatles landscape legitimised experimental and chameleonic acts, but the return of the rock dinosaurs post-Live Aid, the culture of big band reformation and how it has almost split the industry into two parts, not to mention the Internet, which has freed artists to be heard but also freed them from any hope of making any bloody money out of it, limits the possibility of this happening again.

But then again, I'm getting old.  I wouldn't know the new Bowie if I saw it, as I'd be too busy deriding it for not being the old one.

Finally, it's made me realise how inextricably Bowie's music has been woven into my life, and how many of my significant memories are tied in to it, including of course seeing him in person at Phoenix 1996 (full-on Outside era noise with some classics thrown in for good effect) and Glastonbury 2000 (all-out greatest hits, with a particular focus on "Station To Station" for no apparent reason).

Then there's the first dance at my wedding ("Let's Dance", obviously); the time I performed "Starman" in Karaoke Bar Champion on the outskirts of Golden Gai in Shinjuku, Tokyo; the many Bowie covers of popular beat combo The Eighteenth/Desperate Living, including but not limited to "Jump They Say" and "Heroes"; singing harmonies on "Space Oddity" with my mother shortly before leaving home; or any of a hundred heated debates at Orme Watch HQ.

..And since then, he said, in a single piece of additional, original writing: listening to "Aladdin Sane" three times in a row with my new girlfriend due to drunkenness and distractions, giddy with the first flushes of a big, big love; re-listening to the Glastonbury 2000 set earlier this year and remembering how the between-song banter shaped the vocabularies of two of my most enduring friendships; and simply frugging out and cutting a fine rug at Mirror Moves' Battle of a Billion Bowies...  His music is still dropping in now and then to define moments of my life and make new memories, which might be the best tribute I can possibly pay.

Essentially in closing, I apologise for my hypocrisy.  For years I have said that we shouldn't be sad when an ageing celebrity who's had what appears to be an excellent life dies.  However: now I am sad.  But good lord, what a legacy to celebrate, and I'm glad I got a chance to do it in some small way.

(NEVER REALLY) THE END

One From The Vaults: Mark And Lard/"Fuzzy Logic"

Ah, the graveyard shift.  Perfectly positioned for insomniac students of all ages, the ten to midnight slot, Mondays to Thursdays on BBC Radio One will forever be associated with two northern English scamps - at least by people of a certain age; they may be broadcasting live snuff porno in that slot now for all I know, or worse than that, bloody Zane Lowe.

From 1993 to 1997, Mark and Lard were contemporary tastemakers to the young and the restless, a pair of hip older brothers with an extensive and varied record collection and an initially impenetrable sense of humour.  DJs Mark Radcliffe and Marc "Lard" Riley, the latter of whom was a former victim of Mark E. Smith (all Marks today, eh?), built a safe space for the musically curious with their casual delivery and championing of the unlikely.

Aside from playing the latest indie hits - and what a fertile period it was for that, let's face it - they would also spin some older selections, helping me to draw a line through music and connect the influences to my latest favourites and slowly warming me to the idea that newer wasn't necessarily better.

There were also the live sessions, which I and many others would capture on a spare TDK D90 for posterity: Marion and Mansun spring to mind, as getting their sessions on tape tripled the amount of music I had to listen to by them, but there was also Nick Cave breaking the epic slaughter of "O'Malley's Bar" into three parts, either The Tindersticks or Babybird appearing what seemed like every single night and of course the mighty Salad, whose performance of "Kiss My Love" was nearly derailed by some impromptu animal noises by an errant backing vocalist.

(Whilst I remembered these, I also did a bit of research at http://www.scrawnandlard.co.uk/sesions.htm, which is well worth a look - and if anyone's got a recording of that excellent looking "Now I Got Worry" era Jon Spencer Blues Explosion session, please do get in touch!)

There were contests both real and ridiculous, an intriguingly pretentious section with a featured musician reading poetry or prose (and usually plugging a latest release at the same time), the rising of cinematic curmudgeon and unconvincing greaser Mark Kermode, parody songs by the bucketload, "Fanfare" by Eric Matthews and the show where they had an extra pip for the re-calibration of Greenwich Mean Time, but Lard lost it, which on paper doesn't make any bloody sense at all now I think about it but it's staying in nonetheless.

Success actually did come a-knockin', and the writing was slowly appearing on the wall for the late night wonderland as the unlikely pair gradually, and presumably at least partially accidently, grabbed a heaping handful of the zeitgeist, and as such were sucked in to the Radio 1 Breakfast Show upon Chris Evans' final throwing of toys from pram in 1997. 

This was not a fantastic move - in part as their humour had to be toned down for a pre-watershed audience, in further part due to the musical restrictions placed upon them, and in yet another part due to Evans' gleeful scuttling of the ship - but it did lead them to a more comfortable early afternoon slot, where they gave this now-employed member of society a whole bunch more chuckles at lunchtime, and found time to play the odd graveyard smash, before their tearful break-up in 2004.

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS "Fuzzy Logic" (Creation, 1996)

FOUND: I can't pretend to have been on board since their first release - the "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (In Space)" EP - but Mark and Lard brought the lead single from this album, "Hometown Unicorn", to my attention.  An extremely short snippet of the video was also shown on The Big Breakfast; Jesus, remember that show?  The hell was that all about?

The album was purchased instead of dinner from Bedford's Our Price, during the wait between Media Studies and Computer Studies lessons and soon after the death of my cat Fizzy, after a typographical mix-up in the NME caused me to think there was a track on the album called "Fizzy Birds".  Well, "I" is next to "U" on the keyboard, so I suppose it's forgivable.

THE SELL: "Britpop" was a bit of a misnomer, referring as it usually did to English bands making their traditional regional music, usually split into Northern and Southern camps.  Very few interlopers were allowed at the party; arguably, more Swedish bands got swept up in the palaver than did the other British countries.

Super Furry Animals were one of two medium-profile Welsh bands (the other being Gorky's Zygotic Mynci) who were co-opted into the empty party, despite making psychedelic-flavoured music with lyrics written in Welsh, rather than the English used the country's last alternative export, the Manic Street Preachers.  For this, their first album on the uber-cool Creation Records, they did deign to sing in English, inarguably bringing them more crossover appeal.

THREE KINGS: Otherworldly and with a hint of sinister overtones, first single "Hometown Unicorn" sounded like nothing else that was being done at the time.  Three more singles were released from the album, most of which were great, but I remember the noisy mayhem of "Frisbee" and the extended chug of "Hangin' With Howard Marks" more fondly.

WORST TRACK: I was never keen on "Something For The Weekend", though apparently I am simply wrong about that, as a rerecorded version was issued as a single and promptly broke the band into the top twenty for the first time.

ALSO TRY: Follow-up album "Radiator" lacked pace, though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing (though "Demons" went on for about ten hours), which leads me to prefer third album "Guerilla", which expands the instrumentation and use of electronics to produce a hugely inventive album.  However, SFA achieved perfection with the "Ice Hockey Hair" EP; there is no greater crystallisation of their range of styles than said four-track artefact.  Go and get it.  Now.

BUT AVOID: Every album since their return to the Welsh language on "Mwng" has left me cold, with "Rings Around The World" being the last I bought.  It would be improper of me not to add that the odd good single has still been produced since, so I am always open-minded with regards to their new material.

MAGIC MOMENT: Not so much a moment, but this was THE album to have amongst my peer group towards the end of 1996, and 'twas I who cottoned to it first.  On such things the world once revolved.

One From The Vaults (Not As Such But We're Counting It)

The best intentions of armchair journalists and internet storytellers everywhere are often skittled by life's more pressing concerns. 

Your dear author has recently suffered an unfortunate spate of health problems whilst working at a furious pace and studying for professional qualifications.  This also put paid to the Engine Blood team - it's one of those times where a hive mind is a disadvantage.

In terms of time management, there isn't any; everything's had to binned, excepting the odd Transpennine pub crawl and unheralded appearance at the Liverpool Music Awards Nominee Announcement Happening (brief review: one free glass of wine and a truly atrocious ukulele combo).

We hope to restore normal service for a brief while in a bit.  Until then, a friend of mine has been kind enough to republish an article I did about an obscure infomercial prevalent on certain satellite channels a few years ago.

Read it thence: http://timworthington.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/timelifes-ultimate-rock-ballads-special.html.  Lose yourself in a world of soft metal, a time before bloody Glee bloody ruined bloody everything.  And remember: REO Speedwagon are the best band ever.

One From The Vaults: Our Price/"Odelay"

Had I been moved to examine music in the mid-nineties a couple of years earlier, I might have remarked that there were only a few larger record shop brands left.  The rate of decay in the high street is now so large that attrition has taken care of every single instantly recognisable brand in that bracket but for HMV, and who knows how long that will limp on? 

This startling demise has been blamed, variously, on the rush to embrace the sale of electronic doo-dads, the supply chain problems caused by Woolworths' collapse, the rise of online retailers (arrogantly dismissed by former HMV chiefs, with disastrous results) and supermarkets increasingly offering the goods at prices so low that the high street can't afford to undercut it.  The upshot of this is that I'm sure most musically-minded people of my age who lived in a small town has tales of a chain sorely missed.

I don't think my town of Bedford was alone in having a branch of Our Price as its major music-specific outlet.  The retail chain with the iconic red logo started up in the seventies but really took hold in the eighties, with spin-offs including specific stores for VHS sales, eventually numbering hundreds of locations and sometimes several in the same area.

When I reached my teenaged years, there was a certain stigma about buying records at Woolworths or WH Smiths, as if you were somehow circumventing the music industry - I suppose that's a bit like buying a CD at Tesco these days - so Our Price was the place for more widely-available CDs, favourable over the less predictable stocking and incorrect alphabetising of Andy's Records.  This was an argument that paid no mind to WH Smith actually owning the Our Price brand, but hey - we were young, and it was the nineties.

The Bedford store was a triumph of function over space, as the thin store was crammed with stock.  Not so the Milton Keynes branch - that was a two-floor monster, seeming to showcase every major-label release and a good deal of smaller ones.  Jobs, when they came up, were the holy grail for to a certain section of young adults, with empty pockets largely from the purchase of records, who recognised the chance to kill two birds with one stone.  I was unable to get a job there, as it's not like they were short of choice.

The rot set in in the late nineties, not just for the chain at large but for the Bedford branch in particular.  On the same street, a newly-opened MVC with a comparatively huge size was battling for sales, whilst WH Smith sold the stores and the Virgin Megastore chain to the Virgin group in 1998, who set about a vicious rebranding.  Hence one day we had a "VShop" instead, which eventually turned into a mobile phone shop.  With Andy's in similarly bad shape, and collectors' favourite Sounds Good To Me Too also gone, young pretender MVC was the last high street record store standing - and even that focused almost entirely on DVDs.

Our Price were by no means the last chain to get the plug pulled on them, but are probably the one I miss the most.  For records you could get outside of specialist shops, Our Price was my default destination, unless a trip to London and their sprawling HMV and Tower Records stores was in my near future.  The high street has seemed somehow less colourful without it - though Vodafone's colours are exactly the same, so...  Erm... (Quick, cut to the review!)

BECK "Odelay" (Geffen, 1996)

FOUND: Through super-cool single "Where It's At" on MTV Europe and the radio.  Purchased in a controversial "cash-for-voucher" deal involving Wolf People frontman Jack Sharp, whereby an unwanted Our Price voucher was purchased from said gent and used to procure the album.  I was buying it anyway so everyone was happy.

THE SELL: Beck was catapulted to fame with the track "Loser", which struck a sympathetic chord with the fashionably-jaded MTV Generation, though to be honest I'm still not too keen on the track myself.  Signed to Geffen, who had a proven track record of giving more alternative artists the freedom to express themselves and a half-decent wage, he was given an excellent platform to present himself.

This album helped cast off his mantle of one-hit wonder, spawning about twenty singles and establishing him as a household name (in relative terms, anyway).  He was also tokenised as one of the few American acts who were 'allowed' to be saluted during the Britpop era, as an example of a US act offering something a bit different from the post-grunge malaise.

THREE KINGS: Without wishing to be predictable, super-cool single "Where It's At" and the dynamic and unusual "The New Pollution" have to be in the top three.  The album is eclectic enough that most people would probably be able to choose different favourites, but I'd have to plump for the schizophrenic barn-burner "Novocaine" myself.

WORST TRACK: The comparatively uninteresting "Sissyneck" was a properly odd choice for a single, even it was about the eighth released from the album.  However, this writer doesn't listen to "Ramshackle" much, as it was the first song he heard after getting the news that his grandfather was dead.

ALSO TRY: The next album proper ("Mutations" doesn't count, as it is rubbish) "Midnite Vultures" is a cod soul experiment that largely hits the mark, and later on "Guero" is almost the spiritual successor to "Odelay", mixing excellent pop tunes with more eclectic fare.

BUT AVOID: I hear "Mutations" is rubbish!  Perhaps a little harsh, as it has a few decent tunes, but the while thing is so mumbly and plucky that it's hard to make it out through the fog.  The albums before "Odelay" are also hit and miss, to put it very kindly, and "Sea Change" is immensely depressing.

MAGIC MOMENT: At Glastonbury 1997, in unbelievably boggy conditions, Beck encores with "High 5", clad in a white rhinestone suit.  Unlike every other band that weekend, he does not get mud thrown at him.

One From The Vaults: Compilation Albums/"New Wave"

When I was a lot younger, and we're talking single figures here, I had a scattergun approach to music.  I liked the pop I heard on Radio 1, your Kylie Minogues, Michael Jacksons and what have you, plus sundry things from my parents' record and tape collections, so there's your Bowie putting in an early appearance, alongside such diverse delights as Erasure, Led Zeppelin, Alexander O'Neal and Guns And Roses.

Sometime towards the end of the Eighties, I seem to remember making a conscious decision to get more music; I could be wrong, as I often am when recollecting things from that far back, but that's how my brain has chosen to represent this process to me today so I'm sticking with it.  Ergo, I went to the go-to purveyors of compilation albums at the time, that being the good folks at Now That's What I Call Music.

There are much better websites around that chronicle that particular series, so I won't go too far into it; only to note that I had entries 13 through 17, though not 15, for reasons that entirely escape me.  Looking back at the tracklistings, it seems that Side B of Now 17 probably comprises my first exposure to weapons-grade indie, being a largely Madchester-derived selection - interesting what you can find out when you put your mind to it.

My memory does not record why I didn't go any further with any of the artists on these tapes, but I think a combination of a child's low budget and miniscule attention span probably accounts for me not having Redhead Kingpin And The FBI's album, if indeed there is such a thing, despite "Do The Right Thing" clearly being fantastic - ditto Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" and The Rebel MC's magnum opus, "Street Tuff" - but let's move on before this turns into a list of pop rap gems I quite liked in 1990.

Despite being the catalyst for my full blown love of music, Nirvana - we'll get to them, oh yes we will - actually contracted my musical range for a year or so, with me quickly turning from someone who would eagerly consume anything musical regardless of genre, to someone who listened to Nirvana, and maybe some bands that sounded like Nirvana, and ideally were on the same label as Nirvana.  Funnily enough, most of these acceptable alternatives were culled from the legendary and much coveted compilation "Sub Pop 200", or the cut-down vinyl version "Sub Pop Rock City" - two of the best finds me and my friends unearthed.

I mentioned "Loaded", a perfectly innocent Virgin Records rock and indie compilation, named for the Primal Scream song that was included therein, in my last post, and I think that one tape deserves a lot of credit for unlocking some interesting directions for me to pursue.  By the time I got it, I had managed to crawl away from Nirvana at least as far as Suede, who had "Animal Nitrate" on the collection, and having no further musical direction at that point it made sense to get a set of songs by bands whom, I was forced to assume, were probably a bit like Suede.

In that sense I was totally wrong, but here's a fact for you: of the eighteen bands on that album, there are only five that I don't now have albums by (http://www.discogs.com/Various-Loaded/master/125161 - answers on a postcard, no prizes will be given), so we can definitely say this had a big effect on young Master Hirons' development.

There's still a goodly amount of compilation albums being released, more often it seems along various themes, but I'm not sure if they really serve that much of a purpose in the Internet age, when a program like Spotify seems to occupy a similar niche.  But consider this a tip of the hat to anyone still taking the plunge - it broadened my horizons, and it could do the same for you.

THE AUTEURS "New Wave" (Hut, 1993)

FOUND: Represented by "Showgirl" on the Virgin compilation "Loaded".  We return to this again so soon!  However, to my eternal shame, I was not responsible for bringing the album into our household; rather, it was my father who spotted the potential, whilst I was still saving up for a Lemonheads album on the strength of bloody "Mrs Robinson".

THE SELL: Songwriter, singer and guitarist Luke Haines did a much better job of describing his career in his excellent book "Bad Vibes" and its disappointing follow-up "Post-Everything", so anything I say here seems somewhat empty.  But for the record, a potted history: Mr Haines plied his trade with an ill-fated band called The Servants before unleashing his full talents upon the world.

"New Wave" seems to have been one last stab at putting at an album he could be proud of, and The Auteurs themselves were him, his girlfriend and Some Bloke on drums - a pattern that would repeat, with added cello, throughout the group's existence.

THREE KINGS: "Showgirl" has everything a song needs: catchy hooks, great lyrics, gaps and an excellent middle eight.  On Side B, as we used to call it, "Valet Parking" is just a superb offering; few songs are as well put together as that.  But if it's tender melancholy you seek, look no further than the sheer heartbreak of "Junk Shop Clothes".

WORST TRACK: I'm sure most people who are familiar with this album will be shouting "Don't Trust The Stars" at their screens right now, but I've a soft spot for that one.  If I had to pick, I'd probably go with "Idiot Brother", which goes on a bit.

ALSO TRY: "After Murder Park".  Again, Haines himself describes the torrid gestation of The Auteurs' third album better than I ever could, so I'll just say two things: Steve Albini produces it, and "Married To A Lazy Lover" is the second best song of the 1990s.  Case closed.

BUT AVOID: Hmm.  Cheating a bit I suppose, but some of the artistic excesses of his later solo work are worth missing out on.  If I've got to stay on The Auteurs though - and I like a challenge, so I think I will - there was a later album, "How I Learned To Love The Bootboys", that slinked out around 1999 with little fanfare.  Now, me, I love it - "School" and "Lights Out" are right up there with the best of anyone's songs - but if you had to leave one out, I wouldn't blame you for picking that one.

 MAGIC MOMENT: Live at the ICA in 2001 (couldn't pinpoint the exact date), Luke Haines is promoting his recently-released soundtrack for the execrable film of "Christy Malry's Own Double Entry".  "And now for some film music of a different kind", he says, and the band launch into "Showgirl".

One From The Vaults: Introduction/"Copper Blue"

 Hello, my international chums!  You may notice there's been more activity than usual here in the last few weeks, as an odd set of conditions have allowed for some more publishing.  Here's a slight departure from our usual strands, established to look largely at the albums of this writer's youth.  Given that "Engine Blood" and "A Godawful Small Affair" aren't even getting done on time, and "We Game To Please" has all but disappeared, we may not see too many of these; still, I'm game for a try.  So: 1, 2, a-1, 2, 3...

These days I don't buy that many albums, and if I do, they're by an established act that I am unlikely to be disappointed by, either because they are likely to continue evolving (Bowie, Bobby Conn) or reliably deliver in their chosen furrow (Guitar Wolf, Billy Childish).  Either way, it's a familiar name on the label that draws my ever-greying pound these days.

In some cases, the name is so familiar that I already own it; yes, I speak of the new church of the "remaster", ever more omnipresent in these days where bands refuse to die.  Despite my usual world-weariness, I am inevitably tempted to part with a second wedge of cash for a very slightly expanded selection of tracks that even I can't really justify.

I think it's a symptom of reaching a certain age that one is doomed to attempt to recapture the feeling of their youth by re-embracing its popular culture, since the places you used to go are less accessible or affordable now, and the people you used to go there with are often more distant.  Either that or I'm a sap who clearly doesn't like money very much, as I keep seeming to fling it over counters for things I technically already own.

I always think I'm not going to fall for it as well; I generally couldn't care less about the accompanying book, which often sheds no new light on anything, and invariably features some washed-up old NME hacks rewriting history.  The album I already have, and my cloth ears (they're gingham, folks!) mean any changes in audio quality are entirely lost on me. 

But there's always some curate's egg, some obscure doodad that appeals to the collector in me; the need to complete something kicks in, and suddenly I've spent the housekeeping on a shiny new old thing.  At least I can sell the old copy, right?  No.  Just...  No.  And it goes on like this, with no signs of stopping.

It's also utterly pointless as, other than a temporary shunning of my grunge albums during Britpop, I like to think I've kept a reasonably open channel to my past at most times, whereas some of my peers seem more embarrassed by their youthful pop splurges - and whilst I will have to recognise that for every "Nevermind" there's a "Nuisance", and even more sadly as some bands began to desperately consume themselves, for every "Dog Man Star" there's an "A New Morning", I'll always feel an affection for a certain period in my musical development. 

So let's see if I can impart that to you, dear reader, as we tackle first what even was at the time was considered an old, familiar face suddenly breathing new life.

SUGAR "Copper Blue" (Creation, 1992)

FOUND: Represented by "If I Can't Change Your Mind" on the Virgin compilation "Loaded".  We may return to this again, containing as it did my first tracks by (deep breath) The Auteurs, The Cult, Dinosaur Jr, Belly, Morrissey, Faith No More and The Frank And Walters.  First AND last, in the case of the latter.  After acquiring a second track, "Changes", on the "Greetings From Uncle Sam" compilation, the album was bought on cassette from an indoor market in Aberystwyth.

THE SELL: Husker Du were pretty big news in the eighties hardcore scene (the punk one, not the dance one, obviously), powered by the volatile creative partnership between Bob Mould and Grant Hart.  After their inevitably poisonous split, Bob fell on hard times commercially, only to rally with this and become an unlikely cult icon for a second successive decade.

However, this is more than a Bob Mould solo album, and had he not been so ably abetted by...  Er...  Thingy and Whosits on the other instruments, it wouldn't have been a viable project.  The sound is so full and dominant that it utterly absorbs the listener in a way few albums can, and whilst it is best played at a volume that makes a mockery of the human senses, there's some real pop gems amongst the noisier offerings.

THREE KINGS: Skull-crushing opener "The Act We Act", howling lament "The Slim" and stone cold pop-rock classic "If I Can't Change Your Mind".  In the case of the latter, seek ye also the BBC session version, which is a snarling wolverine compared to the fuzzy kitty of the album version.  You won't have to look far; it's on the remaster.  Hey, I'll lend it to you if you want?

WORST TRACK: "Fortune Teller".  I don't even know why if I'm honest; it's not bad or anything.  If there is a criticism of it, then maybe we can say it lacks hooks compared to the others.

ALSO TRY: The "Beaster" EP was made up with tracks recorded at the same time as "Copper Blue", but by no means are they rejects - largely a more harrowing affair than the poppier selection on the album, but no less worth your time.  And as luck would have it, it's just been remastered!

BUT AVOID: "File Under Easy Listening", Sugar's second album proper.  Hamstrung by an on-again, off-again recording pattern, this never got close to their previous heights.  Would it surprise you by now to know that it's been - wait for it - remastered?  Even I'm not falling for that one...

Hang on - second disk with exclusive live recordings, you say?  To Amazon, post haste!

MAGIC MOMENT: The Flaming Lips, Cambridge Junction, July 9th 2002 - Bob Mould plays a very odd solo multimedia show which is lost on most of the crowd, then redeems himself and wins back the audience with "Man On The Moon".  Sadly, but appropriately, it is the last song.