Monday 29 March 2010

4. Journeys To Glory - Spandau Ballet



Purchased : (by my sister) August 1981 ; acquired on permanent loan 1989

Tracks : To Cut A Long Story Short / Reformation / Mandolin / Musclebound / Age Of Blows / The Freeze / Confused / Toys


I first caught Spandau Ballet on Top of the Pops in November 1980 when Dave Lee Travis introduced them as "something a bit different". By then I realised that anything that the Hairy Cornflake didn't "get" was likely to be good and I wasn't disappointed. I was hooked by that synth riff and intrigued by the way they looked. Shortly afterwards the whole New Romantic thing broke cover and great records started racing up the charts and I was in heaven. Musically it was exactly my thing although the glad rags were never an option for me.


In the latter part of 1980 Littleborough Post Office started selling ex-jukebox singles for 50p so I had built up a singles collection by the following summer which included the first two Spandau hits. Bored during the summer holidays my sister Helen started playing them, soon decided they were her favourite group and beat me to buying the album. Soon afterwards she decided she preferred cassettes to vinyl and when she left home for good in 1989 she left behind the old Dansette and, perhaps more cognisant of the coming triumph of the CD than me, didn't buy herself anything to play her meagre vinyl collection. So I've inherited this one on effectively permanent loan still adorned by her sticker of ownership which was no doubt a reminder to me more than anyone else.


It's fair to say this album has divided opinions. I remember Betty Page in "Sounds" giving it five stars and using purple prose that was the equal of their main cheerleader Robert Elms (the title is taken from one of his essays). On the other hand Tony Wilson always slammed the New Romantic era as the worst time in music (because it didn't happen in Manchester perhaps ?) and when Q celebrated 25 years of embarrassing albums this was their nomination for 1981.

It kicks off with that hypnotic first single "To Cut A Long Story Short" which sets the template for much of what follows - a rock solid dance beat from drummer John Keeble, rhythm guitar helping out the rudimentary bass of the teenage Martin Kemp, a synth to play the melody and Tony Hadley's imperious vocals. In a year's time he would be much criticised in the wake of the flop single "She Loved Like Diamond" but here he's impressive; a bit of Bowie, a bit of Morrison, a bit of Lanza but really like no one else before or since. The song itself isn't typical NR fare; a young soldier suffering perhaps from shell shock turns to prostitution after being discharged and is subsequently arrested and questioned. Hadley's agonised 10-second hold on "mind" is the last word of the song before low synth notes suggest an unhappy ending.

Next up is "Reformation" seemingly an important song since they named their ( largely vanity) record label after it. The lyrics are fairly opaque but there's a reference to "A sun that burst through a cloudy scene " which suggests Gary Kemp sees himself as Martin Luther laying waste to the Rome of rockism. Thirty years on this seems ludicrous but the key driver of New Romanticism was ambition. This is actually the most synth-dependent track and has a lengthy instrumental passage where Keeble is allowed some drum fills while the attractive Oriental melody is picked out on the keys.

"Mandolin" goes straight to the heart of NR's obsession with old Europe although Kemp displays a wobbly knowledge of history by attributing the instrument to Venice rather than Naples. Hadley shows his versatility by switching to a husky whisper as he lauds the instrument for soundtracking past amorous encounters before giving way to a major key instrumental chorus. The reference to incest suggests familiarity with the Borgia saga and gives the song a darker hue.

"Musclebound" (released in shorter form as the third single) was criticised by Simple Minds' Jim Kerr for "romanticising dangerous ideas" but it's hard to agree. The song seems merely descriptive of hard manual labour in a historical context. It's untypical in that there seem to be no synths at all and it has the only vocal chorus on the LP. After the last chorus there's a long instrumental coda (on the single this was replaced by a mandolin solo absent here ) dominated by Keeble's increasingly oppressive drums ( reminding me that producer Richard Burgess was a drummer himself ) until only they are left. Then the drums themselves fade into some unidentifiable industrial noise.

Side Two then refers to type with "Age of Blows" a synth-led instrumental save for Hadley's wordless accompaniment on the final chorus. The melody suggests heroism but as a history graduate I know of no age so-named so one presumes Kemp is mythologising himself again. The track doesn't break any new ground but presumably helped fill the floor at Blitz in its day.

Its followed by the second single "The Freeze" which may be a play on the word "frieze" as Kemp seems to be describing the effect a piece of art has on him although in that context the line "the question is where do you pay" is hilariously bathetic. Alternatively it's about a lover keeping him from home in the manner of the girl in "Year of the Cat" although the line about "the artist pretending it's art" is then meaningless. Whichever it's a decent enough song although the repeated chorus at the end is just padding.

"Confused" is a signpost back to their previous incarnation as power-pop outfit The Makers much as The Cure's "Three Imaginary Boys" and Tubeway Army's "Replicas" had punk tracks on them. The lyrics about being unable to make sense of "the news" or "the papers" and including "What the hell it is" and "oh I betcha" are Mod Revival rather than New Romantic and I recall one journalist in Melody Maker noting the similarity between Kemp's manifesto and the claims of Secret Affair's Ian Page a year or so earlier. That said it's buffed up well with its circular guitar figures close to New Order's "Ceremony" and some Giorgio Moroder synths in the coda.

The album finishes strongly with the slower-paced "Toys" which makes most sense if the title refers to ahem, male genitalia. Hadley is at his most commanding here and it's probably the most musically adventurous track the guitars threatening to turn it into "I'm Mandy Fly Me" at the end of each verse. The end is excellent with Hadley soaring over the synths which nevertheless gradually replace him then battle it out with crashing rock drums in a final climax.

I still think it's a very good album. If some of the above seems a bit too critical it's probably due to lingering disappointment at what they did subsequently. Spandau won't feature again on this blog as the only other records of theirs I have are the next two singles (and "Paint Me Down" is only there because Helen left it behind) and the untypical "Through The Barricades". Helen had "Diamond" on tape and I wasn't sufficiently impressed and I actively loathed "True". So this was a one-off from a group who decided to pursue other avenues - journeys to mediocrity in fact.




Saturday 27 March 2010

3. Black Sea - XTC



Purchased : August 1981



Tracks : Respectable Street / Generals And Majors / Living Through Another Cuba / Love At First Sight / Rocket From A Bottle / No Language In Our Lungs / Towers Of London / Paper And Iron / Burning With Optimism's Flames / Sgt Rock / Travels In Nihilon



This one was bought with reward money for my better than expected O Level results (9 in case you're interested). It and the next entry are the only records in my collection which came from Littleborough's own shortlived record shop. I don't recall it before 1980 or after 1981; otherwise we only had Mr Lumb the electrical hardware seller and his eclectic selection (as in hadn't got a clue) and his shop didn't see the decade out either . I don't think I ever bought an LP from him (Fivepenny Piece not being my thing really) but he was good for Ex-Top 40 singles in his 50p bargain box. I bought quite a lot of those including Teardrop Explodes' "Passionate Friend" which was still climbing the charts when he put it in there.



I was quite spoiled for choice and probably spent half an hour in there before finally plumping for "Black Sea" probably because I hadn't got all its singles taped from the radio. It was their fourth album, released, like "Organisation", in the autumn of 1980 and perhaps represents their commercial peak. Although the follow up "English Settlement" got higher in the LP charts, this is their only LP that boasts three Top 40 singles; most of them didn't produce any.



The cover shows the then-four members of the band posed as for a picture on board a tall ship wearing antique diving suits. Drummer Terry Chambers's suit is a different colour from the others. The band's name is formed above them by an albatross, the mast of the ship and a weather balloon painted with a new moon crescent. The sky is stormy. None of this is explained by the album's contents which don't feature any nautical themes. Perhaps it's in response to "Going Underground" and they're going under water instead.

It has to be said that this is not the most varied LP in my collection so to avoid repeating myself I will say that every track has a heavy drum sound upfront, sinuous bass mixed correspondingly low and lashings of angular post-punk guitar (though again Simon Reynolds denies their claims seeing them as a skinny-tie New Wave band comparable to The Cars). Steve Lillywhite’s production ensures that drummer Terry Chambers is the dominant musician here much as Mel Gaynor would take centre stage on Simple Minds’ “Sparkle In The Rain”.

The LP begins with deliberate crackles and Andy Partridge singing in a broken weary voice about hedgerows and curtains to a lone piano and then the guitars and drums kick in and we’re off down “Respectable Street” a scathing account of suburban Swindon, pitched halfway between Manfred Mann’s “Semi-Detatched Suburban” and The Jam’s savage “Mr Clean”, where the caravans “never move from their front garden”. As with “Too Much Too Young” earlier that year there’s a direct reference to contraception (where Colin Moulding’s sarky whoo-oo backing vocals come in ) although this disappeared when the song was re-recorded for release as the fourth (unsuccessful) single in 1981. There’s also a bit of product placement for Sony entertainment centres. There’s a bit of a let down in the last verse with the line “bang the wall for me to turn down” which nails the observer as whiney teenager and conjures up the spectre of Limp Bizkit.

We’re then straight into lead-off single “Generals And Majors” the first of two Colin Moulding compositions. He is the McCartney/Matlock melodic yin to Partridge’s more abrasive Lennon/Lydon yang and this is the only song on the LP based on a chiming guitar riff. The subject matter of the song (and the next) is the growing Cold War paranoia of the last year of the Carter presidency and the fear that military preparations generate their own momentum towards war – “Generals and majors always seem so unhappy ‘less they got a war” . There’s a warm middle eight where the drums give way to a male voice choir humming softly as Moulding slips in the line “Your World War Three is drawing near”, an acoustic guitar solo and military whistling to complete an impressive pop package which deserved better than a number 32 slot. Perhaps it was the sight of Richard Branson hamming it up in the video that upset people.

“Living Through Another Cuba” is a more uncompromising take on the same subject. Built around a repeated chant of the title Partridge offers a scattergun commentary on Cold War tensions though the first line is troubling –“It’s 1961 again and we are piggy in the middle” . Well for a start, the Cuban Missile Crisis was actually 1962 and as the USA’s most hawkish ally in NATO the second part is scarcely more accurate. Better is “He loves me he loves me not he’s pulling fins from an atomb bomb” which takes us back towards “Enola Gay” .The music gets more adventurous as the track progresses with disconcerting missile sound effects , pre-Pigbag percussion breaks and dub effects (which remind that Partridge had recently released a solo album of sorts re-working some earlier material in dub which his mother possibly bought). Towards the end Partridge shouts “Cuba,Cuba-Cu-ba-ba ba-ba as the playground taunt Na-na –na –na underlining the essential childishness at the bottom of M.A.D. theory.

Eschewing international politics we next get Moulding’s second song “Love At First Sight” an arch account of teen lust following on from his earlier “Life Begins At The Hop” . We’re very close to peak-period Blur here; this could easily sit next to “Boys And Girls”. That said, it’s a rather slight song tarnished by the ugly Mr Punch-voiced “What they want is” interjections on the chorus.

“Rocket From A Bottle” benefits from the addition of Dave Gregory’s piano interlocking with the bass to give the song a powerful momentum. Partridge’s groans at the beginning make sense when you hear the playful innuendo of the lyric “I’ve been up with the larks, I’ve been shooting off sparks”. There are some discreet synths and phasing effects here too. Whether Partridge’s tale of infatuated abandon is entirely genuine is questionable but there’s an infectious sense of fun here ( including the use of the “Hard Day’s Night” guitar chord to conclude).

That disappears with the rather dreary “No Language In Our Lungs” a puzzling treatise on verbal inadequacy which plods and drags after its bright intro recalling “Brass In Pocket” . Halfway through it improves with a slightly more urgent middle eight incorporating some Andy Summers-like guitar skanking (highly ironic given the similarity in topic to the much-loved “De Doo Doo Doo De Da Da Da” ) and “Lazy Sunday” background chatter.

The less rewarding Side Two begins with the second single “Towers Of London” a tribute to the Irish navvies who built the engineering triumphs of the Victorian age which begins with the sound of a rail being tapped. Partridge is clearly sincere here as he contrasts the leisured classes “walking pretty ladies by “ with “the bridge that doesn’t go in the direction of Dublin”. The only fault is that, at 5.20 it’s far too long.

With the next track “Paper And Iron” we start again to discern the influence of “Closer” (albeit Side One is more relevant here) as the drum pattern recalls that of “Colony”. But other influences are at work here too. The lyrics are a blend of Paul Weller’s “Pretty Green” and “Man At The Corner Shop” while the jagged guitars and declamatory vocals strongly suggest Gang of Four circa “At Home He’s A Tourist”

“Burning With Optimism’s Flames” is another track which purports to be about feeling happy in love but is less convincing particularly when Partridge runs out of space at the end of each verse and mutters the rest of the lyric at speed.

The penultimate track “Sgt Rock” was the surprise big hit as a single reaching no 16 in February 1981. One guy on Amazon refers to it as an “appalling sexist novelty” but he’s missing the point. Partridge is drawing on his own interests as a comic collector but singing in character as a lovesick adolescent naively imagining he can draw life lessons from the military superhero (and, no doubt, the omnipresent Charles Atlas ads – “if I could only be tough like him”) in his magazines . It’s easy to imagine Gervais and Merchant basing Gavin on this song. The futility of his approach is clear from the middle eight “Sometimes relationships don’t go as planned” underlined by a sardonic trombone.

The last track “Travels In Nihilon” could hardly make the “Closer” connection more obvious. Like “Atrocity Exhibition” it takes its title from a dystopian novel ( Alan Sillitoe 1971) and follows the same musical template of drum clatter and guitar squall. Although I haven’t read it, Sillitoe’s novel is apparently a comic satire of a society based on anarchic principles and in this light Partridge’s lyrics read like a denunciation of punk -“there’s no youth culture only masks they let you rent” concluding with the pro-disco “burn out faster than strobe light”. It’s powerful stuff but unfortunately so tuneless it’s a very difficult listen and goes on for far too long.

XTC will feature again in this survey though not for a while. I still concur with my initial thoughts that “Black Sea” is very impressive in places but played end to end it’s quite heavy going.





Wednesday 24 March 2010

2. Organisation - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark





Acquired : 23 December 1980


Tracks : Enola Gay / 2nd Thought / VCL X1 / Motion and Heart / Statues / The Misunderstanding / The More I See You / Promise / Stanlow


First note the date. This is the first of a string of LPs that arrived on my birthday as presents from my sister Helen. By 1980 our interests had begun to diverge as we became less reliant on each other for company . This made buying presents for each other more problematic and Helen asked me for a list of books and records I might like for a joint Christmas/birthday present although she herself was quite happy to receive total surprise gifts from me until she finally left home in 1989. Since then a utilitarian exchange of tokens has sufficed. You may also have noticed that more than a year has passed since Tubular Bells arrived, the main reason being that my pocket money simply didn't stretch to both LPs and the activities described in my other blog , The Clarke Chronicler's Walks.


So on to OMD. We are in the post-punk era here although Simon Reynolds denies OMD a place in his pantheon dismissing them in one sentence as “ highly melodic, slightly wet and increasingly pretentious” (the band behind the next entry fare even worse). Let’s have a few more pages on tiresome shock merchants Throbbing Gristle instead shall we ? As "Messages" was my favourite single of 1980 (until 1992 my favourite of all time) and "Enola Gay" not far behind OMD were first on the list so Helen made the right choice. I was a bit taken aback by the bleak landscape on the cover and small shadowy picture of the duo on the reverse (Humphreys' features are invisible). Why so dark when those singles had been so bright and breezy ? A clue lies in the sleeve credit for one Peter Saville. The rest of the story lies within.

We kick off with “Enola Gay” the only single it spawned and in this context untypical. A bit of electronic percussion then a two-note fire alarm on synth that lasts for the duration of the song before bass and drums kick in along with that glorious triumphalist keyboard melody that serves as the main chorus (a recurring feature in OMD’s work to have instrumental choruses the template being Kraftwerk’s “The Model”). It evokes that black and white photograph of Colonel Tibbets cheerily waving from the cockpit of the plane he re-christened after his mother before setting off to obliterate Hiroshima.Andy McCluskey then subverts the musical message with his wry observations “you should have stayed at home yesterday” and the all too obvious “it shouldn’t ever have to end this way”. Another blast of the chorus then Tibbets is flying back “conditions normal and you’re coming home”. This time however the chorus is a repeat of the verse’s minor key melody- is the enormity sinking in to our intrepid hero’s head ? McCluskey then delivers the killer line of the song (and possibly his entire career) “Is Mother proud of Little Boy today ?” This is a question (in the personal context) we would love to know the answer to ; Tibbets himself died unrepentant in 2007. After McCluskey’s warning “this kiss you give, it’s never ever gonna fade away” Malcolm Holmes delivers a couple of huge bass drum cracks to stand in for the explosion before that chorus returns replicating the fanfare reception at Tinian base in 1945. But McCluskey hasn’t finished yet and runs through the whole song again at a slightly faster tempo his words now underlined by synth before appropriately closing at the words “fade away”

Once it has we’re in very different territory. No other track offers such easy melodic delights or focussed lyricism. We’re into a much more personal introverted world where the main themes are solitude, pessimism and betrayal. This is heralded by doomy bell-like synths before an insistent bass takes us into “2nd Thought”. The synths here are only producing long screechy chords so McCluskey’s constrained by having to carry the melody alone. It starts with the intriguing line “And all the order in our lives left some time ago” normally something that would be celebrated in rock but McCluskey is morose and vaguely regretful. He continues “Me at home and you out there” and you remember the times and where OMD are from. Is this the lament of a house husband the cry of Chrissie Boy as his wife brings home the bacon ? “

McCluskey has said that the vocals on the track “VCL XI” (named from a valve on the back of Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity” are just phonetic gibberish and so far it has failed to attract the attention of the obsessives who have debunked Michael Stipe’s similar claims for early REM material. I think I can detect the line “It’s getting hard” but the track is most notable for the layering of electronic percussion and xylophone melodies. Some melodic synth lines appear but they are quickly curtailed never allowed to steer us back to our comfort zone. The crisp brittle sound is also a good illustration of the debt Mike Howlett owes to another producer with the same initials but more of that shortly.

“Motion And Heart” was considered as a follow up to Enola Gay but discounted. It’s the first indication of the interest in French culture that would blossom with a memorable pair of singles a year later. Its Gallic swing vaguely recalls “Chanson D’Amour” (and Fad Gadget’s “Fireside Favourites” listening to it now) and there’s a hint of Gordon Kaye in McCluskey’s vocal. Lyrically it’s hard to decode covering extremes of wealth “From make do and mend to the new Paris trend” and politics “From laissez-faire to the knock on the door” and personal betrayal “The things you said and I called you my friend”. Possibly it’s a tribute to French cinema as there’s a mention of “the scenery” but I wouldn’t put any money on it.

Side One closes with “Statues” where the debt to side two of one-time labelmates Joy Division's “Closer” (released a few months earlier ) becomes most overt. The synth rhythm here replicates Sumner’s rhythm guitar on “Decades” and the glacial synths are pure Martin Hannett. I’m not sure OMD have ever confirmed it is about Ian Curtis but significantly it’s the only song written mainly in the past tense. The plain sentiments of “I’ve tried to care and understand” recall “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “If I could leave and sleep tonight” has unmistakable implications. McCluskey once expressed incredulity about then-New Order’s solemn reputation “as they’re just a bunch of pissheads from Stockport” and this gives extra resonance to the last pay-off line “I can’t imagine how this ever came to be”. As he repeats this in a lower key it's quite beautiful and deserves to be better known.

Side Two kicks off with some ambient synth noises suggesting wintry winds interrupted first by a questioning synth line then heavy drums and synthesised xylophones moving up and down the scales. “The Misunderstanding” is the only track that sounds angry and McCluskey is singing an octave higher teetering on hysteria at times. It’s all in the first person plural and there are few clues as to on whose behalf he’s protesting. Someone is not listening to their truth and as the song progresses there are hints of interrogation and incarceration. There are no less than eight pleases before “can we go home”. After which there’s a false ending before the track dissolves into ghostly babbling and those screechy synths again.

The most bizarre track is a cover of “The More I See You” a song most associated with pre-Beatles pop star Chris Montez. Apparently this happened almost by accident with McCluskey ad libbing the lyrics over the backing track for a different song and deciding to keep them there. His lugubrious vocal sounds slightly slowed down which is balanced by the jaunty one-note synth lines that start up in the second part of each verse. It’s still an uncomfortable listen though.

Late on we have Paul Humphreys coming frontstage with “Promise” his only sole composition and lead (possibly any) vocal. Coincidentally or not this is the only track that brings to mind their recent tourmate Gary Numan. Humphrey’s whiney tones are quite close to Numan and the stilted lyrics and slightly needling synth riffs also bear the influence. A love song of sorts it’s the only one with a real and harmonised chorus (which momentarily threatens to soar) bearing the opposite message to “24 Hours From Tulsa” - “To be by your side I travel all night”.

After two rather odd socks the album closes with the epic “Stanlow” which at least initially refers to the giant oil refinery which rises out of the Mersey salt marsh and which, lit up at night, can give the impression of an unknown city when viewed from the M56. It begans with the sound of a diesel pump recorded in situ (presaging the metal bangers of 1983-1984 particularly Depeche Mode whose “Pipeline” is an obvious successor) then a lone synth sounds a sustained slightly warmer-sounding chord and McCluskey as soft as he can comes in with the word “Eternally” (where have we heard that before ?) and extols the permanence of the structure. When he sings “We set you down to care for us” there’s a very contemporary relevance; twenty years later we were briefly reminded just how much we depended on that care. After the last direct reference to the plant a bass synth and drum machine reminiscent of contemporary sensation “Vienna” lift the song from its funereal tempo and it switches focus to a girl observed from a distance. Perhaps she works there; McCluskey had close relatives who did. By the last line “we always knew that her heart was never there” we are, with hindsight, bridging to the next album and “Joan of Arc” , a point emphasised by the mellotron sounds which remain as everything else slows to a halt and the pump returns with its black promise.

Thursday 18 March 2010

1. Tubular Bells - Mike Oldfield




Purchased : 23 June 1979





Having just said that I don't have much technical knowledge this is hardly the easiest way to begin !





So let's start with some history. We had no record player in the house until the autumn of 1976 when my sister bought a mono dansette with the interest earned on some three-year savings certificates my dad had set up for us in 1973 when a wealthy aunt died and left him a tidy sum of money. He let us know in advance that the windfall was on its way so the first LP I bought arrived before the player did. From the paper shop near my gran's it was a compilation of early 70s pop hits called something like Pepsi Party. Crushing disappointment ensued when it turned out to be just cheap near-instrumental muzak. Second purchase just before Christmas -and still my one and only classical purchase - was Holst's "The Planets" (inspired by a latent interest in astronomy) from the corner shop. This at least was the genuine article but wasn't a good pressing. Third purchase was one of those Top Of The pops albums with a sexist cover promising the hits of December 1976 led by Abba's "Money Money Money" which I adored. Oh dear, whoever was singing she didn't sound much like Annifirid ! I concentrated on singles for a while after that and those three lps ended up in jumble sales.





So we come to Mike Oldfield. My interest in this stems from the use of the first few minutes of it in a rather ambitious passion play at school in 1977 as produced by our chainsmoking, hippychick drama teacher Miss Ligman. My middle class with an older brother friend quickly identified this haunting captivating music for me - I knew Oldfield from the "In Dulce Jubilo/On Horseback" single only - and I wanted to possess it. I think this was the beginning of a realisation that there was a significant corpus of music out there beyond what passed through the singles charts. The snag being price for my father was not particularly generous with pocket money and I never was much good at saving up. So over the next two years my periodic visits to nearby Rochdale always included a visit to Bradleys Records which, this being Callaghan's seventies, inevitably showed the record had moved further out of my financial reach. Hearing the 1974 single excerpt on Jimmy Saville's Old Record Club whetted the appetite furtherThen in 1979 a friend (quite possibly the same one ) unlocked the door by mentioning Bostock's in the Manchester Arndale Centre which sold current LPs at discount price (I think by importing them from countries like Greece).



So when the second round of savings certificates matured that's where I headed and sure enough "Tubular Bells" was there at an affordable £3.69 so it finally arrived along with, regrettably, a pile of cheap horror novels by the likes of Guy N Smith and Pierce Nace (that one was about a castrated man training giant praying mantises to eat women's breasts IIRC) which I certainly haven't retained !



My diary entry for that day records "Found the LP a bit disappointing" which we'll explore further but for now proves that deferred gratification doesn't always deliver the goods. Notwithstanding this, as the only "real" LP in my collection for over a year it got a fair amount of play before gradually retreating to gather dust at the back of the rack. I would guess that yesterday was the first time it encountered a stylus since the early 80s.



So I am returning to it with reasonably fresh ears. That opening theme (the one everyone knows from "The Exorcist") is still wonderful and I have a greater understanding of what each instrument is doing now. Then it gradually gets superceded by other melodies, instruments and finally voices for another 35 minutes. It's beyond me to describe what happens in technical terms, there's a decent stab at this on wikipedia and Marcello will get round to it before the year's out at current rate of progress. I can only offer personal impressions and it seems to me the key is Oldfield's age. For all Oldfield's virtuosity this is still the work of a teenager and you can feel the hormonal eruptions in the sudden brief blasts of irrational raging hard rock that punctuate the otherwise serene melodies of the first side. There's also the puerile humour of the notes on the sleeve about "old tin boxes". And then the petulant response to Richard Branson's request for a vocal track the "Piltdown Man" section on Side Two where Oldfield (clearly influenced by Beefheart) contributes a variety of unpleasant vocal noises for around 5 minutes.( I think this more than anything accounted for my initial disappointment though I also felt let down by the melody from the re-recorded single being less tidily presented on the original). Of course all this resonated strongly with people of similar age and background to Oldfield and it found its way into thousands of bedsits and dorms; it is the only possible soundtrack to contemplate (and maybe something else ending in -ate) that arse-scratching tennis girl. This constituency alone can't account for all its sales; TB like its contemporary , "Dark Side Of The Moon" ,crossed over because it was accessible; there's no drum solos (in fact little drumming at all) or farty Tony Banks keyboard improvisations here. Oldfield's roots in folk ensure there's always a melody line just around the corner and the last couple of minutes are nothing more than a re-arrangement of an old sea shanty as if in acknowledgement of a debt.

There is of course a considerable back story to this LP. How a young Richard Branon took a chance on this petulant prodigy unable even to promote his work in the usual way and launched a still-expanding business empire on the results. It is THE album of the seventies the bridge between sixties idealism and eighties materialism in the most direct way possible. Of course as the poster boy for what we can loosely term "prog rock" Oldfield was an obvious target when the reaction against musical virtuosity kicked in three years later. When one considers that he was two years younger than Joe Strummer he had to be taken down by the hip young gunslingers if their version of the decade was to prevail. To judge from his recent Q interview he's still angry about this over 30 years later despite the positive re-evaluation he enjoyed in the early nineties.

So who do we know was listening ? Paul Hardcastle clearly as Oldfield had to be added to the composer credits for "19". New Order's "Elegia" also bears a heavy debt to TB. And Side Two introduces the bagpipe guitar sound that Stuart Adamson would bring to two groups just a few years later. The "Sailors Hornpipe" epilogue instantly brings to mind the Waterboys in their "Irish phase". But it's in those warehouses off the M25 that his place in our musical history was finally cemented. You could tack The Beloved's "Sun Rising" on to the end of TB and not notice the join.

Intro

I will start by acknowledging that this one owes much to being a keen follower of Tom Ewing's Popular blog on the number one singles and, more hesitantly, Marcello Carlin's Then Play Long on the number one albums. I say hesitantly because the latter often irritates the hell out of me with his Danny Baker-esque intimidation-by-allusion style, right-on politics and most of all the rarity of his acknowledging that anyone else (bar his wife) has anything worthwhile to contribute. On the other side of the coin he's undoubtedly well read, has a fabulous memory and as a signer for avenues of further exploration he's unbeatable.

I'm only going to cover the albums I own in the order I bought them although this will get very approximate as time goes on. I should warn that I like a bargain so rarely buy albums when they first come out and therefore the order will defy any logic and keep you guessing what's coming next. For anyone familiar with Then Play Long my posts will be much shorter primarily because I have only a rudimentary knowledge of musical theory so you won't find any mention of diminished chords, modality or syncopation here outside the comments section. But also I am genuinely keen to hear other opinions and want to leave space for that.

OK - I'll sign off and go and dig out the first one which I haven't played for years....