Teenager of the Year

For my money this is a heavily front-loaded record: had I bought it on vinyl, disc two would be near-pristine, and disc one would be in need of a clean by now. Owning it on cassette, as I did at first, was irksome, as there was a lot of rewinding involved. I suspect my current CD copy has been with me since '98 or '99.

It's not a disc that's picked up all that much mileage as my Frank Black fixation was already beginning to wind down by then. I hadn't enjoyed The Cult of Ray or Frank Black and the Catholics. Even so, I still kept buying his records into the middle of the next decade, with Dog in the Sand and Devil's Workshop being the ones from those years that stuck with me. Much as I loved Pixies once upon a time, their post-reformation material hasn't drawn me back in.

Back to Teenager...: it gets off to a flying start, with songs one, two and three all over within five and a half thrilling minutes. 'Thalassocracy', in particular, still gets me going, even now. And I enjoy the slightly more leisurely ten-and-a-half minutes that follows, comprising 'Calistan', 'The Vanishing Spies' and 'Speedy Marie' every bit as much. After about track eight (or maybe ten, depending on my mood), the hits become fewer and further between, and I begin to lose interest.

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All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...

In Heat

Having acquired the soubriquet "the walrus of love", Barry White thereafter became something of a figure of fun, something that misled me (and presumably others) into disregarding his music. Only within the last few years have I begun to pay it more attention. After picking up a copy of his '74 album Can't Get Enough last summer, which I loved, I sought out some of the music by his protegés Love Unlimited. From a Discogs seller I ordered well-used copies of Under the Influence of... ('73) and In Heat ('74) for only £6.25. The only unappealing thing about In Heat is its awful title. The songs and the singing are strong; the arrangements rich & warmly enveloping. As one would expect from White, the thematic focus is firmly fixed on amatory matters. The opening number 'Move Me No Mountain' (the only one on the record not written by White) offers a refreshing rebuttal to the kind of lyrical hyperbole in songs like 'Ain't No Mountain High E...

Bananas Are Not Created Equal

I knew Jay Berliner's name from his contributions to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady , so when I saw this curiously-titled LP at the local charity shop I was intrigued, and bought it even though I had no idea what kind of music it might contain. This was after the days when one could still buy records there for a pound apiece, but I don't think I paid more than a fiver for it. The music turned out to be an all-instrumental blend of funk, soul & jazz. Berliner's virtuoso lead guitar is only one of many attractions here. The band of first-rate session musicians behind him are all uniformly excellent too, and, crucially, sound like they're having a blast. Cornell Dupree's supporting guitar work, while less showy than Berliner's, is beautifully-judged, and the rhythm section is terrific. Arranger/conductor Wade Marcus was no slouch either, judging from the way everything comes together. Two of the funk...

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