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?

Adam and the Ants - 'Kings of the Wild Frontier'

What a cracking album. Even 30 years after its release, it still has a vitality, freshness and a uniqueness to it that makes it sound as thought it's been beamed in from another planet. I'm not saying that this is an epoch-defining album in the way that, say, Sgt Pepper's has become - it isn't - but as a piece of conceptual pop-art, it's pretty great.

Of course, I'm totally biased. This is the first album I ever bought, and so has a special place in my heart. I can remember going to WH Smiths in Salisbury with my dad and buying it, and the little round price sticker that I carefully peeled off (£2.99). I can remember playing it over and over on my parents' little Dansette-style record player - well, of course I did, it was the the only album I had.

As I just flipped the record over and played the start of side two, the tribal drumming at the start of the track 'Kings of the Wild Frontier' kicked in. My 18 month old son looked delighted and started jumping up and down, and whirling like a dervish, so maybe this record really does stand the test of time.