''HELP! I just can't stop buying music!''

Just like an Imperial Aquisition Beam (link to the original IAB coming soon), I appear to be unstoppably sucking in anything that catches my metaphorical 'musical eye'. Unfortunately, just like any self-respecting black hole, there is a hard-to-detect OUTflow of material to balance this influx. In my case, it's cash. Although you can see from these pictures of my latest aquisitions that I wait until stuff is cheap before buying it, it's still a considerable outpouring of my meagre earnings. (My paper round gets me between 8 and 18 pounds per week depending on load, around 2 and a half pounds per week arrives via the dependable source of Grandparentage, and whatever else I can scrape together from my lunch-and-travel allowance...)
So, what do you think? Worth the cash? I will also be putting up, in my usual egocentric way, a load of images of the CDs I got at christmas and on my birthday, plus all of them which I bought in-between Jan 1st and 25th... (all the stuff you see here was bought after the 25th).
OH FUCK.
As I've sitting here trying to get the computer to work and let me continue my research into Fjords, I never noticed the time slip away. I wanted to continue recording the 'Essential Albums of the Nineties' series on Radio One. I had my cassette in the machine and everything. *sigh* that makes two in a row, goddamit. It's all Mr. Maddy's fault, if everyone's favourite Satan Substitute hadn't given me an unneccessary bollocking today I would have remembered to set my watch alarm.
So, on with the pics. Here we have two CD-albums and three tape singles causing me to scrape the bottom of the money barrel:

AIR: Moon Safari (1998, 9 quid)
'Moon Safari', by the French Band known as 'Air'. There's a big 'Virgin Chart £8.99' sticker on the front, along with a smaller 'Brit Awards 1999 nominee' label. Graphic; sort of abstract colour patches on white paper, with an effect of some stuff overlaid on top in black. That stuff being the band logo and album name in the top left, and lineart portraits of the two band members on the right.

Air's debut album is a right corker. I was pretty much overjoyed seeing it at this price, as it had previously been around £14.99 - the only reason I had become interested in buying it (as opposed to semi-pirating it from a music library) was that it was involved in a '2 CDs for 20 pounds' offer. Then this particular reduction happened.
If you haven't previously heard anything from this French duo, consider making a special request on a pop radio station. I'm pretty sure that at least the 'Sexy Boy' single must have spread worldwide by now. Tracks to look out for:
* La Femme D'Argent (an instrumental piece)
* Sexy Boy (a big-selling single, which I bought on cassette)
* All I Need (a fairly popular club track, which I thought was someone else's till I got the album)
* Kelly, Watch the Stars! (another big single)
* New Star in the Sky (B-side on Sexy Boy)
Air are a mainly.. well.. how can I put it? Ambient synthy band with a large dash of pop energy. Try them.

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LIGHTNING SEEDS: Jollification (1994, 8 quid)
'Jollification', by Ian Broudie's one-man band - the 'Lightning Seeds'. Has Sony Music 'Nice Price' and Woolworths '4 for 3 or £7.99 each' stickers on it, along with a typical big self-promotional 'this has lots of top singles!' label. Graphic; lots of multicoloured strawberries floating in the sky, one with children's faces replacing the seeds. Plain capital-arial title at the top.

I have been a Lightning Seeds fan for a very long time, since I can't remember. Not that 'they' have been going that long. (Note; much like Simply Red, and until recently Pulp, the Lightning Seeds is a band composed of one man - Ian Broudie - with semi-permanent session musicians in tow, who are kept on for maybe one album and a few independent singles before being swapped around).
I think the first track I heard on the radio was either 'Life of Riley' or 'Pure' - but as neither feature on this album, I'll skip over that. Jollification is sort of a second or maybe third (??) album from Broudie, and I've had an 'illegal' copy of it on crap quality cassette tape for a long time. Like a lot of my copied tapes, I've been looking to get legal CDs of them since getting a (crap) job, and am doing quite well so far. This is a particular catch, because my original tape is all-but recorded over my a dumb brother, and because of the high hits-to-tracks ratio (4:10).. and the 100% good-track ratio!
Tracks to look out for:
* Perfect (a brilliant chill-out tune and a 'perfect' start to the album)
* Lucky You (energetic rock-pop tune.. the typical spurned lover stuff, but who cares?
* Change (ditto, but more of a generic adoration thing.. the single version, which I have, has a live version of Lucky You and an instrumental of Life of Riley)
* Marvellous (surprising, sort of abstract pop track. Has a really long intro. A mashed up version currently backs the Renault Megane Scenic adverts.)
* My Best Day (non-single.. Broudie duets with Alison Moyet! and a neat tune anyhow.)
I would recommend anyone to get this. Classical music lovers will dig the strings, and even heavy metal punkas need a brain cooler now and then. And it will grow quickly on both of them and anyone else. You'll find yourself unwittingly whistling these tracks through the day - and loving it.

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THE OFFSPRING: Pretty Fly [for a white guy] (1999, 1 quid)
'Pretty Fly (for a white guy)' by 'The Offspring'. A paper-cased tape single with a mad-arsed lineart graphic. Nuff said.

Don't pull my chain asking me what this is. If you haven't heard it by now, you're most probably dead! The video is quite kewl, and for a single measly pound I can't argue with the price :-). The actual track is noticably different from the radio edit (but doesnt suffer because of this), and the B-side "Geek Mix" is mildly amusing.
Track to look out for: The geek mix. Or recreating the radio version by splicing both A and B side together.
The Offspring have been known to me for about five years (or whenever it was 'Ixnay on the Hombre' came out), but only through chinese-whispers through the classroom. Until this single reared it's ugly head I thought they were some kind of gansta rappers!
However, *today* (one day after originally writing this file) I found out that they are also responsible for the utterly kickarse 'Staring at the Sun'. This choon featured as a minute-long clip on some video my brother downloaded from a Squaresoft (makers of Final Fantasy) fan-site, and we were getting severe brainache trying to work out what band it was. I guess the Omega Crew (the makers of the Squaresoft tribute video) have had access to the Americana album for quite a while longer than most people have known about it! Personal friends of the band, maybe?

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PLACEBO: Every You, Every Me (1999, 1 quid plus 50 of your english pence)
'Every you every me' by 'Placebo'. A very plain paper cover, simply a view of a mobile home in an overgrown field with the title at the top in some kind of capitalised Arial.

Placebo are good, no doubt about that. Sometimes they're on a lower side of good, where they're bearly tolerable - but all the same, you can listen to it. Other times, such as here, they are flying high like the kids from Fame, guaranteed to live forever (even as a footnote) in the convolouted annals of pop history. Every You Every Me is just an excellent tune, the remix (the third track of the tape... C-side? :-) is good too (and l-o-n-g), and the 2nd track, a remix of former hit Nancy Boy is quite formidable also.
Tracks to look out for: All of them. But especially the E.Y.E.M. remix.

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STRAW: The Aeroplane Song (1999, 1 quid)
'The aeroplane song' by 'Straw'. this is wierd! :-) A tape that dares to be different. It is in a very cheap box, with silvery effect on the inlay paper, and a black-cased tape! There is a virgin chart 99p sticker on the case, and graphics-wise the band logo takes up most of the inlay real estate, with the single title running across the top of it.

Straw - I know sod-all about them except they are a new band from Bristol or Bolton or somewhere Godforsaken like that. 'The Aeroplane Song' is a curious little ditty... 'Oh today.. I bought an aeroplane - i flew away...', sorta wafty and more than a little surreal. Especially if, like me, your first exposure to it was it's music video on The Box cable music channel about two months ago.. :-D
Anyhow, I liked it enough to consider it worth shelling out ninety-nine pence for a cassette containing the tune in question and an even stranger B-side entitled 'snowblind'. The wierdest thing about it was that it is the first single I have heard of for a long time to have not gotten any radio airplay before getting into the charts! (albeit at a lowly no.38)
Track to look out for: Anything else by this band. They may go on to big things, or they may sink without trace. Let's hope not, though. There's not enough difference any more! :)

Well, there you have it.
I have terminal can't-stop-buying-music syndrome suddenly and irrevocably embedded in my mind (you'll see this even more when I include everything I've bought since christmas.. :-D)

Anyone who knows how to remove it and save me a large wodge of cash will be entitled to half of the savings!

You all have a nice day now.

From MSP

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