I’ve put this on with no idea what to expect. I’ve no recollection of buying it, but suspect it was charity shop / boot fair. I was aware...

It would have been September 1979, working behind the bar of the Station Hotel in Sheffield, on a quiet Thursday evening, that I popped...

Judging by the state of the CD booklet, this one was a quid at a boot fair, but the CD’s just fine. I’m not sure what I can write about...

“And a blues CD on the Hallmark label, that’s bound to be good”, as said Nigel Blackwell on HMHB’s 24 Hour Garage People. It’s not on the...

By autumn 1978 I thought The Jam were also rans. Two average albums with a couple of decent songs on, and a couple of minor hits. I saw...

In the 1990s, a friend lent me a cassette (ask your grandparents, kids!) with some songs by this South London pair on, and I enjoyed the...

I’d been aware of Polly Harvey since Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call album, and her work was recommended by people whose opinion I...

I’m surprised to find that this compilation is the only Gang Of Four CD on the shelves, because I had the first two albums on vinyl, and...

For the first time in this exercise, my picky CD player declines to recognise a CD, so this is being accessed by the magical medium of...

I’d known of Egg when at school, as a proto-prog precursor to Hatfield and the North, and knew their Civil Surface album, recorded as a...

The current ‘random choice’ mechanism from the shelves is to look for artists who only have one CD representing them on the shelves, and...

I think I picked this up in a sale, just with a feeling that I ought to know Cale’s work far better than just the first Velvet...

No idea where I got this, but I’d have been aware of Adderley through his work with Miles Davis. It’s a live recording of a 1966...

A quid at a boot fair, I knew of Bedford from his work with Kevin Ayers, Mike Oldfield and his avant-garde classical works on the early...

I don't recall buying this, I suspect it's one of my daughter's that she put out for the charity shop, and I thought I'd give it a...

I first heard Richard Dawson on Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone, when his previous album 2020 was featured and wasn’t sure at first. After...

This one seems to always appear up at the top of the ‘Top 100 albums ever’ sort of lists, and I’ve even seen it at number one. Yet it...

Subtitled Experimental German Rock and Electronic Musik 1972-83, this 2CD set was a (requested) Christmas present about ten years ago....

I was aware of Zappa throughout my youth, and even remember Dancin’ Fool on Radio 1 during university days, but he hadn’t really made an...

In the 1970s, this was what us serious boys listened to, put off Bowie and glam by homophobia (Men wearing make up? They’ll be sporting...