808 State - 808 88:98

The best of 808 State 1988-98.
Ten years of great music including the classics Pacific, In yer face, Cubik and Lift plus the collabaration with MC Tunes.

01 - Pacific 707
02 - Cubik
03 - Cobra Bora
04 - In Yer Face
05 - The Only Rhyme That Bites (Extended Mix)
06 - Olympic (Flutey Mix)
07 - Ooops
08 - Lift (Ex El Mix)
09 - One In Ten
10 - Plan 9 (Lp Mix)
11 - 10 X 10 (Gorgeous Mix)
12 - Bombadin (Quica Mix)
13 - Bond
14 - Azura
15 - Lopez
16 - Crash
17 - Pacific 808 98

Thoughts

Back online for a couple of days at least, got cut off at the start of the week :(
Strange experience having to talk to the wife and watch telly hehe.
But managed to convince my cable company the net was vital if they wanted paying so got a few extra days :)

Various Artists - Oversell

This compilation from 1979 was only available after collecting tokens from the Record Mirror and sending off for it, and hopefully being around when the postie tried to cram it into your letterbox :)
A bit of a mix musically as all the artists were on the Virgin label, some excellent Punk/New Wave from the Skids, Members, Records and my own favourite "Gut feeling" by Devo which has one of the greatest intros ever, as well as some good reggae and even some great prog rock from Tangerine Dream.
I hadn't played it since the early eighties so I've just played it over and over for hours, great stuff.

Members - Soho-A-Go-Go
Records - Paint Your Face
Fingerprintz - Night Nurse
Gladiators - Get Ready
Tangerine Dream - Excerpt From Cloudburst Flight

Skids - Integral Plot
Devo - Gut Feeling
Culture - They Love In This Time
Supercharge - I Think I'm Gonna Fall In Love
Twinkle Brothers - King Pharoh
Julie Covington - Barbara's Song

Various Artists - Debut 03

These albums/magazines came out in the mid eighties and would have been a good collection, as it turns out I only bought 2 and the other wasn't as good (and is long gone).
Not sure how many were actually released (this is number 3) but I'm guessing it didn't have a very long run?
Nice collection of mixed songs with my highlights being the King Kurt and Bourgie Bourgie tracks and the strange but brilliant Blancmange track.
A few other well known artists thrown in such as the Bluebells and Prefab Sprout, as far as I know the Belouis Some track was the only one to hit the chart.

Bourgie Bourgie - Breaking Point
Friends Again - Moon 3
Bluebells - Everybody's Somebody's Fool
Folk Devils - Chewing The Flesh
Prefab Sprout - Spinning Belinda
Belouis Some - Some People

Shriekback - Suck
King Kurt - Riders In The Sky
Fashion - Hurricane
Red Guitars - Within Four Walls
Blancmange - Vishnu

Gallagher And Lyle - Breakaway

Slushy stuff :)
But I suppose most of you might admit to having a record like this in your collection which you bought when you were young and in love and the lyrics seemed to be written just for you hehe :)
A few years later Billy Bragg and the Smiths were writing songs "just for me" but I wasn't as choosy when I was a kid.
Anyway it's not a bad album with a couple of hit singles, and the second side is much rockier than the "slushy" first side.

A Side
Breakaway
Stay Young
I Wanna Stay With You
Heart On My Sleeve
Fifteen Summers

B Side
Sign Of The Times
If I Needed Someone
Storm In My Soul
Rockwriter
Northern Girl

An Opinion

In these days of overblown CD's full of filler and bonus tracks I remember why I used to love the old vinyl albums, working on that principle of "less is more" most of my favourite albums were usually less than 10 tracks and I could remember every track as the entire album could be played in less 30-40 minutes leading you to play the thing over and over.
Most CD's I play tend to be 12+ tracks (usually a lot more) and last for well over an hour so you end up skipping the filler tracks and just playing those tracks you know or a few that have grabbed your attention when you do have the spare time to listen to the whole thing.
Not sure how I stand on it as if I paid the full price for a new CD and got half an hour of music I'd probably feel ripped off, of course if a new CD was only about half the current price I'd probably be tempted to get out and buy a few more brand new ones like I used to with the old vinyls instead of waiting for them to turn up in a cheapie store or market or just downloading them.

The Motels - The Motels

Saw the Motels one night on the Old Grey Whistle Test performing Dressing Up and Total Control.
Total Control blew me away and is still a fave of mine so I went and bought the album.
Probably the best of the Motels albums.

Anticipating
Kix
Total Control
Love Don't Help
Closets And Bullets

Atomic Cafe
Celia
Porn Reggae
Dressing Up
Counting

Christians - Hooverville

I think I prefer Forgotten Town but this is probably their next best song.
What a great voice Gary Christian has, they should have been bigger.

Hooverville (And They Promised Us The World)
No Reason
The Losing Game

Motors - Forget About You

Early on the Motors did some really good pop songs, this is one of them, Here is the red vinyl 12'' Version.
The sticker on the front says "The vinyl is red, the label is blue, it's the Motors new single, forget about you".
The B Side of this is listed as 3 tracks but as they all run into one another without a noticeable break.

Something that used to irritate a bit about the 12" versions around in this era was the amount that had the same version as the 7", the main track here is only 2.50 long, although not as bad as the 12" version I had of "Oh bondage up yours" where the combined time of both tracks was less than 5 minutes!! but it was on blue vinyl and I later sold it for ten times what I paid for it so I shouldn't complain :)

Forget About You
Picturama + The Middle Bit + Soul Surrender

Red Box - Lean On Me

I bought 3 Red Box singles (Chenko, For America and this one) but then for some reason missed anything else they did?
This remix version is a bit overblown and I prefer the standard version, but worth a listen if you've never heard it. Got the 7" of this somewhere.

Lean On Me (Ah-Li-Ayo) Dogmatix
Stinging Bee Catmatix
Lean On Me (Ah-Li-Ayo)

The Records - Rock And Roll Love Letter

Don't really know too much about the Records, this was the only single I bought and that was years after they were around so I somehow missed them at the time. This one's good though :)

Rock And Roll Love Letter
Wives And Mothers Of Tomorrow
Starry Eyes (Live)