Wham! - 'Fantastic'

Christ.

There's a card in Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies pack (you're at a web-enabled device, go and look it up) that says something like 'Take the most embarassing detail and magnify it'. When I started this blog, I knew there were some iffy records on the shelf, and some embarassing stories to go with them, so let's magnify and embarassing detail, shall we?

This reminds me of going to the Downton Memorial Hall discos with my mate Andy. I guess it would have been the last year of school, so this album had already been out for a few years. We were really into the shole psychobilly thing - The Meteors, King Kurt, swamp rock, The Cramps, enormous rock-hard hairsprayed quiffs and huge baggy combats. But like a lot of early teenagers, I guess we hadn't fully committed to it, because I know damn well we were listening to Wham!

I know that because I remember walking home with him after a Memorial Hall disco one night (it must have been summer, because I remember it was still light), and we were having a go at duetting 'Wham! Rap (Enjoy What You Do?)'. I thought we'd given it a pretty good go, but when we got to the end, he said 'you know Zak, there are these things called lyrics - the songs actually have right words. You should check them out'.

Happily I can't remember what I'd been rapping, but that's been a trademark of my music apprecistion over the years - misheard lyrics like you can't imagine. And yes, I'm aware of the irony of a vocalist/MC/rapper who doesn't listen to other peoples' lyrics.

Still, what's even more embarassing is I'm certain I didn't buy this at that time - it's a sneaky retro purchase. Let's just say it hasn't dated very, shall we?

Chameleons UK - 'Script of the Bridge'

This is yet another record that I bought from a thrift store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. The observant among you will have immediately noticed the fact that the band are called 'Chameleons UK', no doubt because there was already a band called Chameleons practising their art in the US.

I almost certainly bought this because it reminded me of my brother. When I saw the cover, it was him that I thought of, taken back to his front room in Salisbury, with a vague recollection of him talking about the mellow guitar work on this album. Maybe I was homesick when I bought it.

I didn't know anything about the band then, and surprisingly to me, I don't now. This is definitely the first time that I've played this, as I expecting some sort of chilled out, Ry Cooder-esque exploration of smoky, slide guitars and sweeping atmospherics. Instead, it's a slightly rowdy new wave racket with faintly new romantic pretensions.

My brother has always had ropey taste in music.

Brian Eno - 'Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks'

Like the Eno ambient album a few days ago, again I've no idea when I got this. It might have been a charity shop find - the cover's a bit torn, as you can see.

I've probably only played this a few times. Looking at the credits, it turns out this is an accompanying soundtrack to a collage of films from the moon missions. I'm at a loss as to quite how the slide guitar on a few of tracks evokes the majesty of space travel.

Perhaps the most notable thing about this album is that Daniel Lanois is credited as playing and arranging elements of it. The year after this was released, Eno and Lanois produced U2's 'The Unforgettable Fire', and you can certainly pick up elements of that production here, notably the layers of keyboard washes. This isn't really music, it's sound to fill a space and create a mood, which is the sort of ambient music I really love. But put it on as a background for pudding at a dinner party, as I once did, and everyone rolls their eyes and says 'Uh-oh, it's all gone a bit Gong'. Philistines.

Catalogue Number: EGLP53

Tracks: Under Stars. The Secret Place. Matta. Signals. An End (Ascent). Under Stars II. Drift. Silver Morning. Deep Blue Day. Weightless. Always Returning. Stars.