I have no idea where or when I picked this up, but it was certainly a deliberate replacement for the LP plus 12" I bought from the record stall in Folkestone Market round about the time of release. This CD is a 2001 reissue, with a plethora of additions to the original album. I've long admired Pete Wylie, self-styled Part Time Rock Star, Full Time Legend, and will defend his ability to write a classic pop song to anyone. He is also capable of writing some ...er, less than cla

This is the Velvets' third album and their first without founding member John Cale, who had been replaced by Doug Yule. I don't recall buying this (but I assume by the usual route - cheap in charity shop / boot fair), nor ever previously listening to it. It's a much gentler album than the debut (the only other one I know), with all the songs written by Lou Reed. Opener Candy Says is a decent song, although I don't find Doug Yule's delivery convincing, and it's followed by the

I've seen Theo Travis perform under a number of guises. Firstly guesting with In Cahoots and Hatfield And The North at the Mean Fiddler in London in 2005, as sax player for Gong in 2009, and more recently in his current day job with Soft Machine. But the best performance of all was upstairs in Pizza Express in Maidstone, in a small dining crowd, purchasing this CD from the man himself after the show. I didn't get it autographed, mostly because I didn't want to and because his

I've no idea where or when I picked this up. It's Richard Thompson's first solo outing following the personal and professional break up with Linda Thompson, and falls fairly and squarely into the folk-rock genre, accompanied as he is by several Fairport friends, as well as John Kirkpatrick on accordion and concertina, which play a big part in this album's sound. Sadly, there isn't too much to get excited about. Nothing's awful, but really strong songs are few and far between.

Back in the olden days, when CDs were expensive, and video rental was a thing, a couple of video shops also rented out CDs (£1 for 3 days as I recall). It's from one of these that I first encountered this album in the early 1990s, and when I saw it cheap, eventually snapped it up. Dark isn't the word for this album. Dealing with the seamier side of his psyche, and not pulling his punches, Matt Johnson provides heartfelt music with uncompromising lyrics on the dysfunctional si

While I lost patience with Bongo and The Hedge at the point where they seemed to have a messianic complex, I'd always had it in my head that there was much to be enjoyed in their early albums, and I'll certainly defend the live Under A Blood Red sky as a fine listen. So, for a quid at a boot fair, the band's debut album seemed a fair prospect. Reader, prepare for disappointment. It kicks off just fine. I Will Follow is a powerful, solid rock opening which promises much. Sadly

I don't normally do best of/greatest hits albums, but having waited too long to find The Cure's debut album going cheap, I took advantage of this one, full of the early singles, for a quid in a charity shop. It's a fine document of the band's first few singles, with an opening run of 'classics that were never hits), all minimal and fantastic - Boys Don't Cry, 10:15 Saturday Night, Boys Don't Cry (got to No 22) and Jumping Someone Else's Train. From the second album, there's p

This was Sylvian's first solo album for 12 years, which followed some abortive collaborations with Ryuchi Sakamoto. I have it in my head that I bought this in a second hand CD shop in Belgium, although that may be an entirely fabricated memory. The album opens with the lovely, languid, but possibly overlong I Surrender (the last thing of Sylvian's to trouble the Top 40 singles chart), followed by the brief Dobro #1, a short song with just Sylvian and Bill Frisell on dobro, de

Sugar was Bob Mould's second band (after Husker Du), but one where he clearly led, writing all the material and producing. I wasn't aware of the band (nor of Mould) until after the band finished, but they were a fantastic discovery. The band have reformed in 2026, and will play US gigs in the autumn. Let's hope for some UK dates to follow. This mini-album (six tracks, just over half an hour) followed six months after their debut, Copper Blue, and has a darker, heavier sound t

This is another one picked up at the weekend in Harborough Market, an addition to the Yes albums of the 1970s which I grew up with. Many regard this one highly, and very few rankings of Yes albums have anything outside the 1970-76 period in their top five. While there are nine songs on the album, in reality there are only four band songs, and five (one from each band member) solo compositions/indulgences. So, the main courses first - opener Roundabout became a live favourite,

A waste of talent and electricity, was John Peel's verdict of ELP's debut Isle of Wight concert, following the formation of the prog supergroup from members of The Nice, King Crimson and Atomic Rooster. Nevertheless, the band were an important part of my early teenage experience and grounding in the art of prog. And on seeing the CD for a couple of quid in Harborough Market, I decided to revisit their debut album. It kicks off with the bombastic The Barbarian (which coinciden

I don't always check the condition of a CD before buying it, and sometimes this works against me. So, imagine my annoyance at opening this (bought from nice man' CD stall at Harborough Market) and discovering a CDR of two different albums. However the real CD was beneath this, and I wouldn't have bought it if I'd opened it and checked, so it worked this time. I first heard this album back in the 1970s, after borrowing it from a friend, and quite enjoying it while feeling it w

Five years on from the debut album which painted the Stone Roses as the saviours of rock'n'roll, with the weight of expectation on their shoulders, the band released this album. It was bought by the bucketload, and 30 years later is available for very little at your local charity shop, which is where I picked it up. So, did the Roses save rock'n'roll? Well, I think we all know the answer to that. Was this album the disappointment many feel the band served up? I think that dep

Mark E Smith was never precious about the band's back catalogue, especially if there was a few quid in it for him, so there's an alarming number of live Fall CDs out there. 74, according to Steve Pringle's superb The Fall In Fives website. And while I'm expressing gratitude and admiration for Steve's work, before buying a live Fall CD, it's always worth consulting the Fall Bible - Steve's book, "You Must Get Them All", which details every known release (at time of publication

Gary Dwyer's family announced his passing yesterday. Gary was the drummer for The Teardrop Explodes for the whole of their recording career, as well as working later with Julian Cope and Terry Hall (in The Colour Field. I never met Gary, nor was I ever part of that scene, but the warmth of tributes and memories coming out of Liverpool today has been touching. This is the second and final 'official' Teardrop Explodes album, bought long ago, and hardly listened to. On initial r

This is the second album from a 5CD Original Album Series which I picked up many years ago, consisting of their first four studio albums and a live one. It's their second album, and to my untrained ears, sounds much more coherent than their debut Inflammable Material, which I felt was 20 minutes of great and 20 minutes of filler. Jake Burns' voice is very much an acquired taste, and I'll admit I struggle at times with the roughness of it, but the songs here seem to have been

Steely Dan's second album is probably one of the ones I visit the least, and one which didn't really make as much of an impact when I completed my Dan collection by borrowing this from a friend of a friend while at university. I probably picked this up in a charity shop, but I don't recall when or where. It's not a bad album, but there aren't more than a couple of tracks you'd call Dan greats (most 'best of' compilations contain Show Biz Kids and one of Bodhisattva or My Old

I seem to have missed Springsteen. I haven't heard much by him, probably just the hits, but hadn't disliked anything by him. When he first came to the fore in the mid-1970s, I wasn't in the market for another American rock star, being submerged in English prog. Later, in the 1980s, when he became The Boss, I was so far up my post-punk miserablist arse that I wasn't interested. In fact, this was an album bought for a quid as an "I supposed I ought to listen to this..." purchas

William Orbit, musician and producer, died yesterday. I can't claim to have been any kind of a fan, but picked up a couple of his Strange Cargo albums along the way. I wasn't particularly impressed with the first one, and don't believe I've listened to this one before. This starts off fairly dull with Orbit's usual dance/ambient crossover, most of which feels fairly low effort until the lovely laidback Harry Flowers. There's a couple of plodding dance tracks but things take a

By 1971, Soft Machine, while still retaining the core of Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt, was a very different beast from the whimsical psychedelic pop group they'd started five years earlier with Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers. Now, they're a full blown jazz group, releasing their first solely instrumental album, with Wyatt's presence completely absent as singer or composer. I bought this as part of a five CD set of Soft Machine albums, many moons ago, one of a series which has