Author: grahampk

Up until recently this album has been harmlessly gathering dust in a forgotten pile (the almost prefect cue for fellow members to suggest it should go back there!). I still have no recollection of where it came from, but apart from the last few weeks, it hasn’t seen a turntable in around 30 years.

For most people, I guess Graham Parker has been resting in the equivalent of the “where are they now and who were they in the first place category”, for around 30 years now. However last few months has seen him receiving a sudden flood (in Parker terms) of coverage  via an appearance in the movie, ‘This is Forty’, along with a BBC4 documentary,  featuring a reunion with ‘the Rumour’ after 30 years apart.

In the ‘Don’t ask me questions’ (last and best track from this album) film, people like Springsteen and Black Francis queue up to sing his praises and bemoan the wider public for not recognising his talent. Moreover, Parker comes over as a genuinely nice guy, quite happy with his lot. If you can imagine Derek Smalls (the Lord of the Bass) filming a documentary of his post ‘Spinal Tap’ career, you get fairly close. Bad career moves, timing and record deals seemed to have all conspired against Parker.

Watching early footage of his performances, the tracks from this album come over as edgy, acerbic and positively dangerous for a 1976 ‘pub rocker’. Finally inspired, I dusted off the album and tried it again.

The album itself feels much mellower than his live performances and it seems the cover could be of a completely different artist than the image he seemed to project on his early ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ performances. To take an angry young man in his mid-20s and make the album cover look like the final album by washed up 50 year old country music star, takes quite a skill. To be honest, cover art seems to have been a weakness through Parker’s career, including such low points as ‘Carp fishing on Valium’, along with his recent reunion with ‘the Rumour’, on ‘Three Chords Good’ (I think Bungle and Zippy should consult a lawyer).

As for the album itself  listening properly was a bit of a revelation. Simply 12 good songs lumped together and trying to do nothing more than achieve that. He benefited from having an experienced band assembled for him and giving him an energetic but pretty loose, bar room sound from the off.  Some of side one borders on the thin line between joyful and twee, but side 2 signals the type of Parker sound I had been expecting from his live footage. Sounding like Costello before he had arrived on the scene, there are touches of Van Morrison along the way. In addition to ‘….Questions’, the title track and‚ ‘You got to be kidding’ stand out for me.

I’m now on to  his second album and still enjoying it after a few listens. I’ll not sure if I’ll go any further, but I’m glad I gave him a chance after all these years.

Tom Listened: Once again sacrificing his record for the dreaded ‘take away slot’, Grahams Parker and Pollock suffered a little from dinner chatter and monosodium glutamate blues. It was also about two years ago that we listened to it! Dredging the memory banks, I seem to recall an album of two halves – the angrier Elvis Costello type compositions sounding much better (punchy and vibrant) to the more workmanlike filler (?) that populated the centre of the album. I too had caught some footage of Graham Parker on one of those BBC retrospectives recently and thought he sounded worth checking out…and I guess I have now, and liking about half of what I heard I think that’s probably enough for the time being.

Mind you, if the album had a reasonable cover, one that made you think that the people releasing it cared at all about the product, I would probably be feeling differently about it – which is stupid but (sadly) true.

Nick listened: I’m gonna have to be honest and say that I can’t remember a thing about this apart from the… ahem… artwork. It was on during takeaway, and it was months ago. It did sound a bit like Elvis Costello, I suppose. I seem to remember saying on the night that if this guy had been around 15 years before he’d probably have been a behind-the-scenes dude rather than an on-the-sleeve dude.

Had illness not prevented my attendance at the previous round, this would have been my selection for that week. However, the motivation on that occasion would have been more around, “get one in by this lot, before anyone else does”.

When Nick set his ‘turning point’ theme, I looked around for records which marked a moment of  personal or listening significance and found a few turning points that led to equivalent of “no through roads”, as far as DRC is concerned. For example, the moment when you realise that it is probably a good idea to dispense with listening to prog rock, would mean all sorts of horrors could have been inflicted on fellow members.

But as turning points go, this revelation was more  like the slow turning circle of a ocean going super tanker, as it took me well over a year from release until I began to embrace the Smiths and their music. As some of the offerings detailed on this site show, at 18, I considered myself fairly eclectic in my choices and hadn’t yet tired of U2, enjoyed the acerbic prettiness of the Bunnymen, felt I was being ‘edgy’ by listening to R.E.M., and still managed to sneak along to see Marillion.

I wasn’t prepared to submit to the cultish observance to the Smiths which I saw around me. Neither was I prepared to listen to a music press touting them as the most important thing to have happened that decade. I constructed arguments  around why it was important to ignore them because of references (very misunderstood) to the Moors murders and a lead singer who seemed both too weird and cannot sing (‘…..but you should hear him play piano!’. Apologies, but could not resist).

Time is a great healer and by the end of 1985 a string of fantastic singles by the band had worn me down and I finally reached for my polo neck jumper and knelt at the temple of Mozza and Marr. The introspective and insecure subject matter of the lyrics began to fascinate me and I quickly discovered that the Smiths had some of the catchiest and most beautiful guitar based indie/pop rock that I had ever heard. My delay in submission simply allowed me to gorge on the subsequent compilations and singles I had ignored for over a year.

As for the album itself, I am so familiar with it, a judgement on how it sounds today is difficult to arrive at. ‘Reel Around the Fountain’, ‘The Hand that Rocks the Cradle’ and ‘Suffer Little Children’ still haunt with the combination of subversive lyrics and fantastic melodies. Quirkiness and energy still pours from ‘You’ve Got Everything Now’ and ‘Miserable Lie’. If you can’t sing along to all the words of ‘Hand in Glove’ or ‘What Difference Does it Make’, then you haven’t explored the treasures the ‘The Smiths’ has to offer and certainly never went to a student disco in the 1980’s.

Tom Listened: I have a theory, of which I am ever more certain with each passing meeting of the Record Club, that a predisposition (or not) towards a certain type of music or band is almost wholly contextual. Sure there is some music that is just plain awful (Black Lace, Pink Floyd) but for most bands that have released an album or two that have come to be considered as ‘classics’ it’s rare, if the volume is turned up and prejudices are put to one side, that the true quality of the work doesn’t begin to shine on through.

I have to thank Graham for enlightening me to The Smiths in general and their first album in particular. As a teenager desperate to avoid the cliques in the sixth form common room, I dismissed The Smiths as mopey and dull and way too affected – just like my ‘friends’ who listened to them. When my tastes in music began to broaden at university I listened to the eponymous first album a couple of times but I didn’t really want to like it and was almost relieved to find it mopey, dull and too affected. Although only removed by a few years, the ‘thin trebly jangle pop’ of The Smiths seemed a million miles away from the thrillingly visceral music I was exploring at the time – MBV, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dino Jr etc and I was happy to hand back the cassette I had borrowed and say ‘thanks, but no thanks’.

But, as is so often the case, fast forward 20 years, let much water pass under the bridge and listen again, carefully and with an open mind and, sure it is still as trebly, jangly and affected as ever but there is also so much to enjoy here – Morrisey’s singing and lyrics are quite astonishing, Marr’s guitar work accomplished and innovative and the rhythm section is surely one of the most underappreciated bass and drum pairings in popular music.

I have subsequently dug out my CD of the Queen is Dead that has barely been listened to since I picked it up in a sale 10 years ago and it’s just great…as it’s supposed to be…and now I’ve allowed myself to like it, it’s as though my music collection has just gained another album! Silly me.

Nick listened: The Smiths aren’t my band, the way that some other bands are. I feel no sense of ownership or kinship or belonging to their cult, particularly. I’m too young to have caught them in their (brief, prolific) heyday, and by the time I was a teenager exploring music they were a relic, something my older brother had listened to and that, thus, I would ignore, because who wants to follow the path already trodden? So I consigned them to a mental dustbin, labelled “miserablist parody”, and carried on with other music.

I eventually bought The Queen Is Dead when I was at university, treated it almost like a coursework assignment, and, like Adorno or Debord or Barthes, admired it and absorbed its ideas and structures, but never considered that I could fall in love with it. I only explored Meat Is Murder beyond that, because the old CD version had “How Soon Is Now?” on it, which I really liked, but I didn’t really bother absorbing the rest of the record.

Until about 18 months ago when the remastered box set, which collects all four studio albums and the four early compilations together, was ludicrously cheap – like £25. So other than the big singles and such, I only really heard The Smiths outside of The Queen Is Dead very recently. My feelings for them haven’t changed much, though; I still admire them more than care for them, as much as I may enjoy the way Morrissey writes lyrics and twists melodies and song structures over Marr & co’s instrumental backing as if he’d never heard a song by another rock band before. I think, from “This Charming Man” and all the daffodil-waving and fey-ness, that I’d expected their debut album to be limp, brief, and easily blown away in a gust of wind, but actually, like The Queen Is Dead, it’s surprisingly muscular and powerful beneath the surface. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Tom’s choice of theme inspired me to take the plunge and purchase this album shortly after our last meeting. Up until recently, ‘Legend’ ticked the box as my sole source of Marley and reggae in general. A comfortable but lazy position to take and one listen to this, put it straight to the top of the pile of existing records I had thought about bringing along.

I found it instantly irresistible and have probably have been over-playing it since it was first unwrapped. I’ve never been attracted by the cover art on this album but now I’m passed that I can just get on with a wonderful groove that starts right from the opening track, ‘Coming in from the cold’.

My non-existent knowledge of reggae means I’m unlikely to contrast and compare very much on this one. But as his final studio release prior to his death in 1981, reportedly this was his most religious/spiritual offering combined with a band knowing exactly what they were doing.

Whether it just because I’ve got access to better audio equipment these days, but the detail on this album (of course best heard on cd) , of single instruments and percussion  is stunning and I find myself anticipating single piano notes etc. throughout the album.

The best known tracks are left towards the end of the album and fellow owners of Legend will know them well. The upbeat dance feel of ‘Could you be Loved’, softens you up for the spiritual body blow that follows with the beauty of ‘Redemption Song’.

Not the album I had originally anticipated bringing, but seeing as Rob brought along two that I had originally considered, just as well.

Rob listened: It’s hard not to enjoy ‘Uprising’. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could take against it at all. I have no great insight to offer. I’m resisting the urge to start farting on about how sunshiney this album is. I guess it’s potentially interesting to consider the dissonance between the way Marley presumably intended his music to be received, socially conscious, even revolutionary, and the common perception of these songs as the soundtrack to life on some idyllic (imaginary) Caribbean paradise. But i’m not that interesting.

I admire reggae immensely for it’s apparent reliance on extreme repetition. I hope one day to have listened to enough to be able to discern countless sub-genres, influences and radical expressive forms within it, but for now i’ll settle for it all sounding a bit samey and a bit good to my stupid ears.

Tom listened: Like Graham, my journey into the music of Bob Marley was ostensibly through Legend (although I do recall being appalled at the age of 10 that his ‘cover’ of  No Woman, No Cry was so rubbish in comparison to the definitive version by….you guessed it…Boney M of course).

Subsequently I have explored some of Marley’s back catalogue and I like all the albums I own, possibly preferring Rastaman Vibration (to Natty Dread and Burnin) due to the lack of Legends tracks on it, giving it a feel of a level playing field rather than having a couple of tracks that I know inside out already.

I have never been tempted by Uprising – I usually work on the assumption that an artist that has been around for a while is usually a spent force by the time they record their last album. There are some obvious exceptions to this rule but in Marley’s case the critics have tended to favour the run from Catch a Fire through to Exodus and I have been happy to be guided by their judgement. However, Uprising sounded pretty fine to me and, as far as I could tell, there was no particular drop in quality between it and Marley’s earlier records. Obviously, the two Legend tracks are amazing but there were plenty of others on this album that made just enough impact during the single listen to make me think that, given enough time, Uprising could easily hold its own amongst Marley’s more recognised classics.

Nick listened: Me being me, I never bought Legend and instead went and bought a handful of Markey’s studio albums while I was at university instead. One of them was this, and it’s great. Brilliant choice, and not one I would have considered as a ‘swan song’; I kind of know it’s last in Bob’s discography, but just don’t think of it that way.

Clearly on a roll now, I offered up my 3^rd debut album since I couldn’t find one to bring along for the relevant theme night.

I guess when you reflect on the fact you own a record in LP, CD and digital format, there must be something about it that has motivated such purchasing activity. My only problem with this album is not really understanding why, I keep being drawn to pulling it out for a listen on a regular basis since its release in 1984.

It straddles a number of genres ranging across pop/soft-rock/jazz/soul/AOR and more. Certainly in 1984 it didn’t fit with indie tinged range of things I was listening to and seeing live. Maybe it was a London thing, as at the same time as this came out we were venturing “up West” as it were, to small clubs to see people like Carmel perform.

Perhaps we thought we were more sophisticated by dabbling with such styles and putting pop and indie to one side, for a while? More simply it could have been I was 18 and fancied Sade Adu.

It doesn’t sound as smart and cool as it did in 1984, but Sade still smolders in her strangely detached way, all these years later. Sometimes feel this should be available on prescription to all X-factor wannabees, just to show if you have the basis of a good voice, you don’t need to travel through half a dozen notes to sing one well.

Unfortunately, not long after its release, the album seemed to become absorbed by yuppie culture and dinner party soundtracks, leading me to reject it for a few years. But it keeps gnawing away at me over the years for a run out. Perhaps its simply nostalgia that shouldn’t be inflicted on others (I suspect some will agree), but there is something comforting about the style that doesn’t try too hard, is melodic and hooky enough to keep you interested and of course there is always pictures of Sade to look at!

If you were around at the time you you couldn’t ignore the three hit singles and ‘Your Love is King’, ‘Smooth Operator’ and ‘When Am I Going to Make a Living’ remain amongst the best tracks. Only six studio albums since 1984, more than 50 million albums sold worldwide and repeatedly well received output, suggests judicious use of her talents. Strangely, I have never felt inclined to purchase her later works. Perhaps this album fills a personal niche, and for me that’s value enough.

Helpfully the first line on the Wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sade_(band)) cautions you not to confuse Sade with Slade. I wonder how many romantic plans with dimmed lights and a glass of wine have been ruined by Noddy Holder?

Nick listened: “Smooth Operator” is one of those songs that seems, to me, to be burnt into the world’s cultural consciousness, an indelible melody etched into our shared memory. Other than that, the first time I was really aware of Sade in any meaningful sense was circa 2000 when she released an album and was lavished with praise; suddenly I became aware of quite how successful she’d been in the 80s, and how… laid back about the time between album releases. Having gorged on Kaputt last year, and explored some Roxy Music and Prefab Sprout, smooth, sophisticated 80s sounds aren’t as alien to me as they would have been a few years ago. But even so, as beautifully-played (how do young musicians learn to play like this?!) and sung and produced and arranged as this was, there seemed something a little… bloodless… somehow, about it, to me at least. It may be that half the people I know who’ve made music aesthetically similar don’t have voices anywhere near as accomplished as Sade’s, and my brain therefore decodes / unpacks them as somehow riskier, more broken, more human, or it may be that the whole package here is just so smooth and aspirational as to seem unreal and therefore, to me, if not to millions of others, not worth thinking about anymore than I think about driving a Bentley. (Conversely the unrealness of My Bloody Valentine does appeal, but it’s a very different sort of unreal.) But a good listen nonetheless, and a surprising and excellent choice for our little club to pontificate on.

Tom Listened: I suppose we all go through that phase, usually in our mid to late teens, when we come to realise that our parents are not quite the all conquering super-heroes we always assumed they were (in my case their loss of status was only slight), when they reveal themselves as ‘as fallible as the rest of us’ human beings. I distinctly remember an incident in my adolescence that epitomised this realisation – the point when my pop music hating father returned from a long car journey extolling the virtues of this ‘amazing’ new artist he had discovered being played on the radio whilst he was driving – Sade. Now, the problem was not with Sade’s music at all, it was in my father’s reluctance to listen to any of the music we liked at the time (Beatles, Stones, early Elton John, Queen, Police) with anything other than sniffy dismissiveness at its ‘vacuous, trivial nature’ whilst then extolling such smooth, undemanding, seemingly light fare as Diamond Life. My brother and I just couldn’t compute this and so we dismissed the music of Sade without really considering its worth in just the same way as our father did with our favourite records.

I’m pretty sure that I had never listened to Diamond Life all the way through before Graham played it to us, but I had heard Smooth Operator and Your Love is King like a squillion times and, despite not having listened to them for ages, they still felt ubiquitous and slightly overfamiliar. I preferred the tracks on the album that I had not previously heard and it was not difficult to see why this album was such a big seller and also why my father would have liked it back in the mid 80s. For me, a little like Nick, it felt just a bit too smooth and polished to fully appeal and I didn’t get a sense of Sade as a person (although she’s got a wonderful voice) – in direct contrast to The Blue Nile, I felt as though she was detached from the material she was singing on Diamond Life and therefore I found it hard to connect with the record. So were Ben and I right to turn our backs on our father’s latest love 27 years ago? The jury’s still out, but I suspect it will be a verdict we never entirely find out!

Rob listened: I remember Sade as a mysterious and alluring character when I was growing up. Her songs never quite fit the pop mould they were apparently being squeezed into and, as far as I could tell, she was no ordinary pop singer, no Alison Moyet or Rick Astley. Although all three certainly had wonderful voices, I can’t recall Sade having a public profile as most pop stars were required to. Whilst I never felt the singles from Diamond Life were for me, I definitely did feel that they were something ‘other’. Fast forward 16 years and I found myself sufficiently intrigued and enticed by the reviews of ‘Lovers Rock’ to go out and buy it, although I recall pathetically claiming I’d picked it up as I thought my wife might like it, before keeping it in my car for the next 6 months. It’s a great record, with through lines from ‘A Love Supreme’ all the way to The XX.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying I enjoyed listening to Diamond Life for what I reckon must have been the first time. Thanks Graham.

In absence of any theme I found  myself playing yet another choice which, had I been more inspired, I could have brought along to our debut album night.

Rather than any knowledge of trip-hop and the Bristol scene, it was my fondness for Harry Palmer that underpinned my instant connection with this album in 1994. For those that have never seen the Ipcress File (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Jw6_Xgszk and there can’t be too many), the whole feel of the film and the soundtrack seemed to run through the album the first time I heard it.

Needless to say I was sold first time. It wasn’t until  years later I discovered the 60’s Spy inspired short film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7mO__TIAzAn) made by the band, which led to their signing.

A stunning and award/poll winning debut album. Its equal commercial success probably led to it frequently being brought out as dinner party “muzak” and we discussed this on the night. Familiarity breeds a degree of contempt on my part and I had put this album to one side for far too long. Hearing it on a good audio set-up was a real treat and I was rediscovering whole chunks of the album. Having spun it a few times in the car the week before it sounded like a completely different album (but it could be I’ve got a crap cd/amp in the car!). Years may have passed but it is still so strong and the hooks so memorable.

If I was forced into picking stand out tracks  ‘Mysterons’, ‘Sour Times’ and ‘Glory Box’ would have to be up there, though the album just seems to hang together wonderfully. Must remind myself to run through their later work which has been gathering dust for too long.

Tom Listened: I think I bought Dummy the week it came out. I immediately fell for its mixture of cool, dark songs and slightly menacing, unsettling atmospheres….and then, as the album became more and more ubiquitous and appeared plonking away at a (frankly insultingly) low volume level in the background of more and more TV programmes and adverts, I kind of grew tired of it and it cruelly ceased to find its way onto my turntable. But having listened to it again now, after an embarrassingly long time apart, I have come to realise that none of this was the album’s fault. Dummy was so poorly treated and misunderstood by all those people who thought it sounded pleasant enough to stick on quietly in the background of..whatever…as a set of ten nice torch songs with sweet melodies and hip aesthetics. Because Dummy was meant to be played loud and to be listened to properly and absorbed and lived within and, if you do that, it is so obviously a very different beast, a dark, mysterious, discombobulating and totally unique listening experience that is much more out there than a cursory listen would suggest. Thank you Graham for re-aquainting us.

Rob listened: What a strange, unique record, an archetype for a set of one. ‘Dummy’ sounds fully realised now. We know it’s every dip and swerve. On reflection, it always did. It seemed to emerge complete, flawless, a marvel. However, i’m not sure it ever was absorbed into the culture. I’m not sure anything this perfectly formed, so other, ever could be. It’s easy to imagine that it was much imitated, but it wasn’t. Who could? Only Portishead themselves. Now, almost 20 years later, after a long time dormant and particularly cast in the contrasting light of ‘Third’, another stunning album, ‘Dummy’ sounds even more magnificent.

Nick Listened: There isn’t much to say that has not been said. I lent a copy of this to someone when I was at university and never got it back, so I bought another copy. I didn’t mind that much; it’s brilliant. I hadn’t listened to it in years though, and was very happy to revisit. Interestingly I bought their second album recently and thoroughly enjoyed that too; it seemed to rather float past people at the time.

On New Year’s Day I was looking  for something to play which would do two jobs. One, it would appropriately mark the end of the festive season and the return of hum-drum, secondly it would make me feel slightly younger while I dealt with the reality of another birthday clocking up. Having picked this out the pile I instantly felt it was deserving a spin at DRC.

In 1985 I was deeply cynical about the furore surrounding this band and the fawning of the music press just added to my caution. I was happy with my ‘jangle-pop’ world at the time and didn’t see the need to venture outside of it. It was possibly up to a year after release that I finally picked up this album. First listen on a fairly ropey hi-fi led me to wonder whether it was meant to sound like this or whether I had purchased a dodgy copy.

With time I learnt to turn it up to ‘11’ and just lose yourself in the sonic mayhem that thinly hides some great pop tunes underneath. At the time I had heard bands like the Cocteau’s using over-driven and distorted guitars with echoing percussion, but nothing compare to what I found on this album.

We talked on the night about albums that would worry you if you heard them being played in your child’s bedroom. Well unless you know it, I would venture that this is probably as disturbing a listen for bystanders as it was 27 years ago. I can’t help feeling that the psy-ops music assault on General Noriega would have been over in a lot less than 10 days if this had been on a constant loop (the full list of requests for the playlist remains an interesting combination http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/DOCUMENT/950206.htm).

Had I been more familiar with the Spector ‘wall of sound’ and the Velvet Underground in 1985 I might not have been quite so impressed but I’m still humming (or at least my ears are) to the sound of ‘Just like Honey’, ‘Never Understand’ and the ‘Hardest Walk’ all these years later.

I began my introduction by saying I was unsure as how important an album this was. I have read much to say it was, but I never really engaged with the legacy as I was hooked on the originators for at least 3 albums or so. I’ve seen Star Wars, but I’ve never listened to My Bloody Valentine properly!

Nick listened: Even though I must’ve bought Psychocandy fifteen years ago, I came to it after already being familiar with its influences (Spector, Velvets) and its legacy (Ride, My Bloody Valentine), which no-doubt coloured my opinion of it. Unsurprisingly (to Tom), I’m not overly endeared of it; perhaps it’s Bobby Gillespie’s inept drumming (rhythm is not a sophisticated component of this record, even if the “Be My Baby” beat is clearly key!) as much as the shrill, cacophonous racket of the guitars, pasted like nuclear fallout over the top of a selection of otherwise perfectly serviceable pop melodies. I adore “Just Like Honey”, and can recognise that the songs beneath the scree elsewhere would be great, too, if they weren’t presented amidst such an unlistenable racket. I like my noise to be beautiful…

Rob listened: ‘Psychocandy’ is absolutely one of the most formative albums of my music-loving life. It taught me that you sometimes had to stick around and dig a little to get to the real beauty in a song. It also taught me that said beauty might not necessarily be a sweet vocal melody or an epic guitar solo but may in fact be the sound of a guitar being made to imitate the slicing of sheet metal. ‘Never Understand’ and its predecessor single ‘Upside Down’ were always my favourite Mary Chain tracks and, looking back, they seem to be the ones which most perfectly blended driving pop songs with absolutely furious noise. It was great to hear the album again after many, many years and particularly to realise just how caustic those guitars still are. many have followed but I’m not sure any have ever delivered barbed wire kisses quite like the Reid brothers.

Tom Listened: Like Graham and Rob, my admiration for Psychocandy is nostalgic…but like Nick, I too find it hard to get through that wall of noise thing these days. Funnily enough I only became aware of the Phil Spector ‘wall of noise’ having first heard Psychocandy and so got a bit of a shock when Be My Baby didn’t turn out to have a screeching, trebbly wall of wailing guitars lacerating its sweet melody! Because, there’s no denying it, sonically Psychocandy is an open wound of an album, probably the rawest album ever made (?) and so it feels exciting and dangerous and cool despite, or perhaps because of, the pain. I still vividly remember hours spent trudging the streets of Sheffield accompanied by the Reid brothers’ cacophony thinking how cool I was to be listening to this on my tinny old Sony Walkman.

Hearing this at record club for the first time in a long while, it does sound terribly amateurish, perhaps one of the progenitors of the 90s lo-fi scene; the melodies are as sweet as ever but these days my ears are perhaps a little too old for the sonic assault that is Psychocandy. That said, I recall it taking a while to adjust to the onslaught first time around so maybe I’ll give it a few more listens to see whether it will re-reveal itself in all its former glory.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. How would I choose  just one album from 2012 for the end of year meeting? Well, with only two to pick between, this was not too tricky.

Unconsciously I managed to begin and end 2012 with Mark Lanegan. Round 20 saw him appear with the Screaming Trees and started me wondering why I never followed his solo career. This album was released around the same time and I began looking in to his extensive solo and collaborative career pre and post the demise of his former band.

I’ve still to properly evaluate the rest of his releases but something about this album just grabbed me from the moment I first heard it. His vocal style has now evolved in to something so rich that listening to it is like curling up in your favourite (if you have one) blanket.

On ‘Blues Funeral’ he seems to steer away from purer Blues/Country sounds I’ve heard on his other solo work and produces, what some might say, is a scattergun of styles. For me it just shows how he can apply his vocal style across so many genres. Fitting disco, grunge, electro, blues, Spaghetti Western and U2’esque moments  all on one album, might be too much for some. He seems to get away with it because of the consistency of his vocals and lyrics brings it all together. He might have just been lazy but he never overstretches his delivery style across any of the tracks.

While his lyrics deal with his normal fare of hangmen, bells tolling, whiskey stained glasses etc., e.t.c………., there is just something about his vocals that keeps you listening and inspires hope across the gloom and menace he is painting.

My two picks from the album would have to be ‘St Louis Elegy’ (with the added tension that it could break in to Bon Jovi’s ‘Blaze of Glory’ at any moment) along with ‘Harborview Hospital’ (hinting that at some future point it may become socially acceptable to listen to the ‘Joshua Tree’ in public).

Nick listened: As was revealed back when Graham played Dust, I’m a fan of Screaming Trees (especially Dust), and I’m passingly familiar with Lanegan’s post-Trees work, too – most pointedly his albums in collaboration with Isobel Campbell (formerly of Belle & Sebastian) and with Queens Of The Stone Age.

I was intrigued by this album when it came out back at the start of the year, but somehow not enough to buy it – I heard bits and bobs in record shops and on 6music, and thought it sounded interesting. In contrast to Graham’s perception of an eclectic album, it came across to me as very consistent; as well as his oak-smoked, whiskey-aged, granite-hewn voice, Lanegan uses an almost monochromatic sound palette here, synthesisers and drum machines binding together his genre-excursions so they feel very much of a kind. I enjoyed Blues Funeral, but it suffered a little from the company it kept – Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius, and Julia Holter all blew me away, whilst this was just a good listen.

Rob listened: Really pleased to see this land on Tom’s special DRC meeting table. I’d played it on Spotify a couple of times earlier in the year and found it both more immediate and more varied than earlier Lanegan records I have. I love Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Mudhoney, Tindersticks, Lee Hazlewood and a number of other points of navigation which point to Lanagan Land. In theory he ought to sit in a sweet spot between all of these, but in practice I always find him good to listen to but ultimately a little underwhelming. I guess I was more whelmed by this, with its buzzing, krautish undertow and a more direct and brutish approach than some of his more country-inflected efforts. Glad to be reminded of a record which had become lost in the mists of 2012.

Tom Listened: Although I was initially reminded of Tom Waits at his least weird when I first heard Blues Funeral – the voice is ‘getting there’, although Lanegan may need a New Year’s resolution to up his cigarette quota if he is ever to catch up with the great man – on reflection I think latter day Springsteen may be closer to the mark. Having bought my first Springsteen album this year (Tunnel of Love) and listening to it today, I was struck at how Springsteen’s conventional approach to producing an album (as in, ‘collect 12 really good songs together that on first hearing sound pleasant enough but over repeated listens reveal themselves as much more than you initially thought but are ultimately just 12 really good songs rather than some sort of major artistic statement’), is probably mirrored by Lanegan’s album from this year. A pleasant enough listen then, certainly preferable (for me) than Dust and possibly one of those that would go on to reveal riches beyond what was initially obvious, although I don’t think track 10 would ever sound like the Beach Boys no matter how many times I listened!

Reflecting local weather and transport issues, the last 2 rounds of “da Club”
have been subject to some early finishes and late arrivals. I missed most of Round 40, however in the brief period I was there, views were being aired whether themes were being well observed. Despite not being there long enough to play it, for once I had actually been compliant myself. Seeking more “discipline” amongst the members, an awkward theme for round 41 was born.

I consciously avoided and found myself irritated by Depeche Mode for the first 10 years of their career. But when Violator came out in 1991, I was intrigued by the singles and the positive reviews. This was my original thought for the round (as the title does sound like something you might select from a specialist magazine for those interested in the darker side of discipline). However, I plumped for their next album instead. Clearly (ahem…), the observance of discipline takes a good deal of faith and devotion.

Looking back it seemed to slip a lot of people’s attention that the “Mode” had already broken America with this album going to no1 in US, a year or two before the “brit pop” pretenders tried the same. A lot of better informed people than me put this albums sound down to the emergence of grunge, but I don’t really see it myself. There are some “gutty guitar” moments (for reference see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgAKNy23RSA) and a few bits of distortion, but for me it’s more about dark, pounding beats.

It’s a brave move on some of the tracks for Dave Gahan to take his vocals to such prominence. But even on the gospel orientated ‘Condemnation’, he just about gets away with it. It takes a moment to remind yourself you are still listening to the same band that were on “Swap Shop” in 1981 with (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyG4NtpdO-Q).

‘In your room’ has always been the stand out track for me, with a feeling that it just sums up the claustrophobic sound they were trying to achieve. To lighten proceedings, the gospel theme returns on ‘Get right with me’ and just before the end the there is the softer ‘One Caress’, with nothing but vocals and strings.

Electro/techno or whatever doesn’t feature highly in my listening, but these two albums have always filled a niche. I’ve never felt the need to go looking for the 4 albums that followed, always concerned that they wouldn’t stand up against this one.

Rob listened: I’ve never felt a great deal for Depeche Mode. Their fans always seemed a little too earnest, their music a little too pedestrian, never really transcending. Even within these extremely narrow boundaries, i’m at the opposite end of the Depeche spectrum from Graham. Their singles compilations are divided between 81-85 and 86-98 and, looking down the track listings, there’s nothing on the second album I feel like I have time to hear again, whereas there is something a little delicious about the moment the drum machine kicks into ‘New Life’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ is good enough for any 80s revival night. As for ‘Songs of Faith and Devotion’, well, I came in half way through and didn’t really manage to get a grip of it. I picked up the darkness, but it sounded like a band trying to be dark. I know Dave Gahan has been through difficult times and perhaps the rest of the band have too, but I didn’t get anything from this listen that really captured how that might have been. I guess i’m just not a believer.

Tom Listened: I would echo pretty much everything that Rob has written only to add that I quite liked it! But, as he has hinted, I couldn’t lose the feeling that there was something intangibly soulless about this record. No idea what it was that caused me to feel this way but, if I’m honest, this is how I’ve always felt about Depeche Mode and this feeling is probably too ingrained to be overturned, even through the strange and magical alchemy that is DRC. So, whilst I found it enjoyable to listen to, it didn’t leave a lasting impression on me – I guess me and the Mode will continue to be occasional acquaintances rather than soul mates!

Nick listened: I’m broadly with Rob here, even though I own Violator, and like it well enough – there’s just something a little too try-hard synth-goth about early 90s Depeche Mode. I didn’t mind it, but I pretty much never play Violator, and felt no need to get to know this any better.

Having recently re-discovered I owned a  copy this album, it would have been a much better choice for my 1982 album of the previous round. No theme this week meant I was free to bring it along anyway. Rhythmically I thought this might mark a departure from my normal fare and allow us to ponder on an artist who has covered such a wide range of bases in his career.

From proggy/eccentric/worldy/political/pop it is pretty hard to find a file to put Mr Gabriel under.

From distant memory, I acquired this album in 1982 after a series of swaps, which to the best of my recollection, included Men at Work and Genesis. I think I came out the winner. I have never sought out any Gabriel era Genesis, but I’m pretty confident it sounds nothing like this!

I took to it pretty quickly as basically it sounded weirder than much of what else I was listening to, and had a spooky cover. Certainly the video for ‘Shock the Monkey’ was disturbing enough to get my interest at the time. It was pretty easy to please a 16 year old in those days!

I pretty much left the album alone for many years until I finally saw Alan Parker’s film, Birdy. The soundtrack recycles some of the tracks on this album and immediately triggered renewed interest in the album.

While, like many, I enjoyed the videos like Sledgehammer from 1986’s ‘So’, it has always been the darker atmospherics of this album that have held my interests. Heavily indulging African and Latin rhythms, sounds and atmospherics throughout, it is not an easy listen and sometimes a little too melodramatic in places. Overall I guess that is why some of the tracks work so well on the movie soundtrack.

‘Rhythm of the Heat’ is a brutal opener with African percussion and along with ‘Lay your Hands on Me’, and my personal favourite ‘Wallflower’, they are my stand out tracks from the album. Some very ‘heavy’ subject matter lies behind many of these tracks but seeing as I have misunderstood most of it for 20+ years, it is not essential to enjoying the album as a whole.

Tom Listened: Although I have never been a huge fan of Peter Gabriel, I had a ‘phase’ around the time of Sledgehammer and my copy of So languishes somewhere in my record collection, unlistened to and unloved for many years now…I am sure it sounds as good today as it did back in the 80s though. Must give it a go. Whilst So is the only Gabriel album I still own, my brother and I definitely had some of his self-titled albums back in the day but their whereabouts are a mystery to me now. I don’t think we had 4 but perhaps we did and I just never got round to getting to know it properly. I certainly enjoyed those albums back then and listening to Graham’s offering the other evening brought back why – Gabriel’s music is an interesting mix of influences, thoughtful and thought provoking, perhaps a little too earnest at times but, to my mind, well worth a listen. As Graham has pointed out above, Peter Gabriel is a bit of an enigma – hard to pigeonhole, one senses he is elusive and private and operates way outside the mainstream whilst still being widely admired and respected. Must be doing something right!

Nick listened: Peter Gabriel is one of those artists who I’ve had on my mental checklist of people to investigate for what seems like forever – my first exposure was Sledgehammer, which I loved as a kid (didn’t everyone?), and whilst I know he as in Genesis, the Genesis he was in are, as far as I can ascertain, a very different beast to the one that did tha awful song about being crap at dancing. I really enjoyed Security, and nosed for it at the weekend when I was in a record shop – alas they didn’t have it, and I was left ruing all the times I thought about buying remasters of his albums for a fiver each and out it off because I thought they’d always be there.

Rob listened: You know how when you get older things that were dreadfully despised when you were young seem to become fashionable, only for you to reaIise that you just got old and started to like old-people things? No? I’m thinking primarily here of golf and Peter Gabriel. Anyway, I was really pleased to see this pop out of Graham’s special Record Club bag just a couple of days after I’d read this rather convincing case for ‘So’ on The Quietus, a record that seemed so unashamedly grown-up to me when it was first released and about which still somehow hung sufficient wafting wisps of perceived former prog-rock atrocities that I’d mentally filed it somewhere far, far away, equidistant between Marillion and Luther Vandross, if such a thing were possible. So, as I was saying, I was pleased to see and hear this, although it seemed to suffer the Curse of the Curry and its details now elude me. I like Peter Gabriel. He seems like a decent chap, clearly very committed to what he’s doing, unashamed to be creative, political and intellectual and, oh what’s the use? I still can’t remember what it sounded like.

My choices were more functional than inspired.  Drawing 1982 and 2007 was not helpful as in 1982 I was sixteen and had little ‘taste’, whereas in 2007 I only bought 2 records released that year (and didn’t think the team would put up with 24 tracks from Led Zep’s ‘Mothership’).

Had it been 83-84 (geddit?), the field would have opened up much more widely, but 82 was always going to be a different offering from an artist/s I had brought along before. However, in recent developments, a half-term clearout of our loft has led to the discovery of another box of LP’s which contained potential choices. In amongst others that can only be described as “corkers” I know Rob can’t wait to hear Marillion’s 1983 ‘Real to Reel’ live album!

After playing ‘Sons and Fascination’ in Round 29, I thought I would bring this along as it fills the slot between that album and where it all went wrong (at least in my opinion) in 1984 with ‘Sparkle in the Rain’. There are a few hints on this album as to where they are going, but mainly they seemed to be applying a more ‘poppy’ polish to the sound on their previous album. In fact some of the synth and baselines on this album had me thinking more ‘New Romantic’ than ‘New Wave’ and I’m sure Kajagoogoo must have had a listen.

If you turned the drums on the title track up to “11”, you are not that far away from the “de-dum, de-dum, de-crash bang wallop of ‘Waterfront’. My favourites remain ‘The King is White and in the Crowd’ along with the only instrumental, ‘Someone up there likes you’. Both tracks typical of a haunting and sophisticated sound, shortly to be totally dispensed with.

With the nights’ strongest linkage between artists and years, I threw in ‘Nothin’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMcK_HJXuE from 2007’s Robert Plant and Alison Krauss collaboration on ‘Raising Sand’. The track is a cover of a Townes Van Zandtsong and apart from some of the “pickin’ and fiddlin’” sounds pretty alien to the rest of the album.

Tom Listened: Having set the ‘Year of Release Lucky Dip’ theme, I have to admit to a pang of guilt when Graham (having, by his own admission, struggled to find something to bring from 1982) suddenly exclaimed that he could have brought The Nightfly by Donald Fagan…an album that is currently languishing in the side door of my car! It would have certainly have given the evening a different feel – slick ‘yacht rock’, as opposed to the new wave transitioning into stadium rock of New Gold Dream.

I was really impressed with Sons and Fascination, less so with NGD, probably because it was easier to hear echoes of the Simple Minds we all know and hate. Still much more palatable to me than what was to come afterwards, Simple Minds on New Gold Dream sounded like a band that were in the process of cashing in their chips – they had decided on their game plan and had begun making music that was (probably) less innovative and creative and (definitely) more commercially attractive than what had come before. It was interesting to hear the progression but, for me, I suspect Sons and Fascination will be the last album in their chronology I would be interested in picking up.

Rob listened: Graham drew the short straw in more ways than one. Not only was he allocated what seemed to be one of his most heavily mined years, but he also got to play his eventual choice during takeaway hour. I’m not sure how much we all listened. I liked some of what I heard, recognised some of it, and the transitional phase represented by NGD is easy to discern.

I have a certain sympathy with Simple Minds. It’s easy to look back after decades of hearing their most famous songs pumped out of the radio like so much aural styrofoam and conclude that they cynically moved into making hollow stadium rock. I can’t imagine they did. Back in the early 80s, along with U2 and others I’ve blanked from my memory, the shift towards making a bigger sound, writing bigger songs to attempt to fill bigger spaces, physically and emotionally (and yes, financially) must have been at least as much an artistic endeavour as a business one. I’m not convinced they could have known where they were going, how it would be received or, years later, how hollow it would sound.

Nick listened: Rob’s right that this suffered by timing – whatever’s on when the food arrives tends to get short shrift, whether it deserves it or not. After exposure to Sons and Fascination, Real to Real Cacophany, and Empires and Dance this year – my first foray into Simple Minds beyond big radio hits – New Gold Dream (wtf are the numbers about?) definitely sounded like a transitional record. I didn’t recognise much, if anything, from it, and doubt I’ll investigate it, or them, any further beyond this point.