"I became evangelical
about this album"
Dexys Midnight Runners – Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
This was one of the first albums I bought. I was twelve years old in Norfolk in 1980, immersed in ska and Two Tone, and Geno was coming out of tinny radios all summer. The opening song starts with one of those tinny radios being tuned through stations before reaching Rat Race and then abruptly turned off. “Big Jimmy! Yeah? For god’s sake Burn It Down!” Horns! Oscar Wilde! Brendan Behan! Edna O’Brien! And that was it really. I became evangelical about the record; and 42 years on I still recommend it to people who think of Dexys as only dungaree wearing scruff bags. But in their first iteration, Kevin Rowland gave more than a nod to his love of ‘60s soul. There’s an instrumental (The Teams That Meet In Caffs), a spoken word track (Love Part One), the singles (Geno and There, There My Dear) and a song about staying away from Leeds. I’ve spent over fortyyears with this record and if I was so inclined, I’d have it buried with me as an offering to the gods.
Various Artists – Out On The Floor Tonight
Northern Soul records are by their nature, obscure. Artists you’d never heard of making stupendously soulful records that you could dance to. I was too young for the whole Northern Soul all-nighter thing and anyway, I lived 200 miles from Wigan Casino. As a teen the closest I got to the ‘scene’ was the Norwood Rooms in Norwich with a mulleted soul aficionado called Kirk on the decks. A genre of music made up of 7” singles that eventually made their way onto compilation LPs. I can’t remember when or how I acquired Out On The Floor Tonight, but I do remember that it soon became one of my most listened to records in the early eighties. It has the original Tainted Love by Gloria Jones and tracks by Frank Beverly and the Butlers, The Carstairs, Eloise Laws and The Crow. They’re all on this fantastic record which is in mono (of course). Now That’s What I Call Northern Soul.
The Jam – All Mod Cons
When I was thirteen, my sister had a boyfriend called Dean. Dean was cool. And handsome. One of the other mums called him a young Richard Gere (which is odd because Richard Gere was quite young at the time). Dean had stuff. He wore the latest clothes, had money in his pocket and hung around with all the other Ace Faces in our school. He also had a great record collection. I had heard and liked Absolute Beginners and Dean let me borrow his entire box of Jam records to see if I liked the rest of their stuff. It became another musical ‘moment’ and I set out on a mission to buy all their records. Top of the list was All Mod Cons. Lyrically, Weller took The Jam’s songs to another level and it’s hard to believe he was just 21. The album has beautifully constructed songs (Fly, In The Crowd, the Beatlesy It’s Too Bad and the hidden track, English Rose) and ends with one of the greatest singles of the era – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (‘…a Jesus Saves poster painted by an atheist nutter’). “The best band in the fucking world.” Indeed.
Stiff Little Fingers – Now Then
1982 was quite a year. Weller had split up The Jam, Thatcher sent British troops to the Falklands, fourteen year-old me had a girlfriend called Sally, and a ticket for my first gig. Stiff Little Fingers were touring their latest, and what turned out to be their last, studio album – Now Then. SLF had evolved from a fairly crude punk outfit to a reggae influenced New Wave band over the course of four albums. Ace Face Dean (see above) promised my mum he would look after me if things got “a bit tasty” at the gig at the UEA. The band started with Falling Down (the opening track of Now Then) and despite singer Jake Burns insisting to the ageing Mohicans at the front that they wouldn’t play it, they encored with Alternative Ulster. It got tasty. Dean was nowhere to be seen. I walked home on my own with sweat drying cold on my skin, my ears ringing and a gap of possibility opening in my tiny little world. Proper rite of passage stuff. Now Then…what comes next…
Colour By Numbers – Culture Club
That moment on Top of the Pops. Boy George singing Do You Really Want To Hurt Me. It’s difficult to not overstate the cultural impact. A man with the voice of an angel in full make up and braids – a soon to be tabloid mainstay (“I prefer a cup of tea to sex”). I just loved his voice and daringly (music tribalism was a serious business in the ‘80s) I bought Colour By Numbers - it remains one of the great pop records. And that voice. THAT voice. Nowhere does it shine more than on the ballad Victims and the jazzy That’s The Way (I’m Only Trying To Help You). You’ll know Karma Chameleon of course and the Motown infused Church of the Poisoned Mind but there are no duffers on this record.
"That moment on
Top of the Pops"
Prince - Sign O’ The Times
Prince was at the height of his powers when he released this sprawling double album. Was there anything he couldn’t do musically? No, as it turns out. The invention on this album is staggering (If I was Your Girlfriend, The Ballad of Dorothy Parker) as was Prince’s ability to jump around musical styles with ease. The title track is a rare piece of social commentary. There’s the almost nursery rhyme feel of Starfish and Coffee, the luxurious soul of Slow Love, through to the funk workout of It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night. The record ends with Adore. Yes, I do.
"I couldn't quite get
my bearings"
The Posies – Frosting On The Beater
The ‘90s was an odd decade for music. There was the whole Britpop thing of course but I couldn’t quite get my bearings. I had an Oasis phase, a Blur phase (they won by the way) and a grunge phase (Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice In Chains and the like). Out of that Seattle scene came a band influenced by Kurt Cobain, Brian Wilson, Lennon and McCartney, and Andy Partridge. Frosting On The Beater was released in 1993 and it was one of my first CD purchases. It has loud grungy guitars but with the sensibility of pop. It’s as if the band were on a mission to convince fans of the genre that there was a place for brilliant melodies in their alternative universe. And they succeeded.
Jeff Buckley – Grace
All of the albums I’ve selected were released before the turn of the century. I’ve loved lots of records released since 2000 but maybe I need another ten years or so to properly evaluate the impact they’ve had on me. I first heard Grace around 1995 – a couple of years after it was released. I really liked it but didn’t fully appreciate it. Jeff Buckley was an extraordinary performer with an extraordinary voice. You often hear people talk about his vocal range and he used all the octaves available to him. Grace has the best opening three tracks of any record I’ve ever heard. They’re astonishing. Lover, You Should Have Come Over is one of the greatest songs ever written and his cover of Hallelujah has become a standard; but there are oddities. Corpus Christi Carol does little but show off his incredible voice, and Lilac Wine sits slightly askew, but Grace is still a bonafide masterpiece.
Bio
Carl Yaxley is in denial about his age, but appreciates that it’s given him a lot of time to listen to great music. He’s a broadcast journalist and football stadium producer, and lives in Hertfordshire with his wife, two kids, and Charlie Dog. He’s @fandang on Twitter.
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