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Club Country

Now and again, with something of a heavy heart, I'll watch and listen to some YouTube clips featuring the late Billy Mackenzie: with Associates performing 'Party Fears Two' on Top of the Pops; with Yello on 'The Rhythm Divine', the song he wrote for Shirley Bassey; 'Wild and Lonely' performed solo; his spine-tingling version of 'Wild is the Wind'... and so on.

'Party Fears Two' was the first song if his that caught my ear. I hated it at first and it was only after I'd heard it on the radio a dozen or more times that I acquired a taste for it. Having done so, it didn't take anything like as long for me to grow to love the follow-up, 'Club Country'. Simple nostalgia led me to buy the latter on 7" when I found a copy in a charity shop a few years ago.

On the B-side is an instrumental track 'A.G. It's You Again', a remixed version of  'Arrogance Gave Him Up' - a reminder that, while Billy's singing was magnificent, there was a good deal more to (the) Associates than just his voice.


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