Ultravox - Passing Strangers

The follow up to Sleepwalk which surprisingly failed to chart? the follow up to this was the all time eighties classic Vienna.
Really liked this track so was suprised it wasn't a hit, love the little instrumental bit at 2.23, The B side Face to face was recorded live at that musical hotbed St Albans!

01 Passing Strangers
02 Face To Face

Psychedelic Furs - Heaven

Not really a fan of the Furs but this is a pleasant enough ditty, the first of only 2 chart hits for them reaching no.29 in the UK, I'm sure everyone knows their other hit :)

01 Heaven
02 Heartbeat (Remix)

Eurovision Final

Well that's over for another year and as usual I failed to pick the winner, my choice Rumania got regular votes from most countries but only finished third.
It was a tale of two nineteen year olds, Germany's Lena won the event for some reason? singing in English with a sort of Bjork / Kate Nash accent.
Whereas Britain's Josh Dubovie had a disasterous night and finished last with only ten points, although I didn't rate the song it certainly wasn't the worst.
Another embarrassment for the UK was that Welshman Jon Lilygreen finished above us representing Cyprus, as did London based Filipa Azavedo singing for Portugal.

Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

Recorded live at the Budokan Japan in 1978 and sounding pretty good even now.
I think I had a problem with putting labels on bands around this time, anything that sounded good I'd call punk but as it turns out Cheap Trick were more of a "hair" band or soft rock but I've seen this on a punk compilation so maybe it's not just me.

The B side Clock strikes ten is also a live track although the label says it's from Cheap Tricks studio album "In Color"? I think it's another Budokan track, and just to be pedantic the label says it's 3.40 long but from the needle hitting the first groove till the last is only 3.30 so maybe they put the wrong version on?

01 I Want You To Want Me
02 Clock Strikes Ten

Elvis Costello And The Attractions - (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea

The second Elvis C track to hit the charts from 1978, taken from the excellent album "This Years Model" the B side was also on the album.

01 (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
02 You Belong To Me

I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea but some times you had to,
this was one of the more memorable occasions :)

Derek And The Dominos - Layla

Classic guitar riff from 1970 from Eric Clapton's band at the time.
I like this shortened single version at less than 3 minutes it has the best bit of the 7 minute album version.

01 Layla
02 Bell Bottom Blues

Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic

Excellent tune from Sir Bob and the Rats, last of their run of top 20 hits.
Another cheap market purchase replacing my long ago sold original, the cover is a bit tatty as well.
Still a great pair of songs though :)

01 Banana Republic
02 Man At The Top

Echo And The Bunnymen - Do It Clean

According to the info I've read these 2 tracks were left off the Binnymen's debut album Crocodiles originally because Warner Bros director Rob Dickins thought that they contained obscenities, the cassette version had them but the vinyl didn't?
Several months later the tracks were included as a limited edition single with the vinyl album, which is where I assume this came from.
Interesting when looking up the value of this "rarity", Musicstack in the US has it listed at a wide range of prices from $1.92 to $5120.87!!
I think it was well worth the 10p I paid for it at a boot sale last year :)
The B side gives a writing credit to Julian Cope as well as Ian McCulloch.

01 Do It Clean
02 Read It In Books

Slipknot

Another rock R.I.P sadly, Slipknot bass player Paul Gray found dead in his hotel room, only 38 years old :(

Eurovision

I have a confession ... I love Eurovision!!
Yeah I know it's tacky etc but it's good fun, a lot of the records are a pile of pants (usually the UK ones) and some of the acts are still stuck in the dark ages but in recent years there has been some reasonably good songs, not the winners as despite the voting rule changes the judging still tends to be biased with all the Balkan countries voting for each other and the many ex Russian states doing the same.
Possibly the reason I'm liking it more is the number of acts performing in English, nearly all of them in the last couple of years.
Here's my favourites from the last 3 contests, none of them won but I liked them so that's all that matters to me :) hope you agree?

2007 Sopho Khalvashi (Georgia) - Visionary Dream - (Video Deleted for some reason?)
2008 Sebastien Tellier (France) - Divine
2009 Yohanna (Iceland) - Is It True

 I haven't had time to listen to all this years entries but hopefully there are a few good ones again, it all starts again tonight with the first of 2 semi finals before Saturday's big event which is in Oslo this year.

Bjork - Telegram

I've been a fan of Bjork since the Sugarcubes days and discovered some of her earlier stuff later (if that makes sense), I have (or had) most of the commercial CD's and loved them all but put off buying this one for a while as it's a remix album.
One of the Bjork websites had a large collection of remixes available for free download and some were good and many weren't so good so I didn't know what to expect from this.
As it turned out I finally bought this and I'm so glad I did, I think it's superb.
Most of the tracks have been totally transformed with a variety of styles.
I was worried that one of my all time favourite tracks "Isobel" would be ruined but they've done a really great job of keeping the feel of the original while adding just enough to make it even better, some of the other tracks are unrecognisable until you hear the lyrics .. which isn't a bad thing.

01 - Possibly Maybe (Lucy Mix)
02 - Hyperballad (Brodsky Quartet Version)
03 - Enjoy (Further Over The Edge Mix)
04 - My Spine
05 - I Miss You (Dobie Rub Part One Sunshine Mix)
06 - Isobel (Deodato Mix)
07 - You've Been Flirting Again (Flirt Is A Promise Mix)
08 - Cover Me (Dilinja Mix)
09 - Army Of Me (Massey Mix)
10 - Headphones (Tricky Mix)

Pendulum

This one's been on repeat in the car for the last couple of weeks, high bass in a small tin box sounds brilliant.
Pendulum's new single Watercolour, a shining light in a sea of chart dross.

This is the best vid I could find on YouTube and it has an annoying advert at the start and is a short verion of the tune at only 3.33 compared to my 5 minute version but you'll get the feel of it :)

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

This 1996 album won awards although personally It's my least liked of their albums so far, but I can't blame them for going more commercial.
Luckily they returned to form with their next album.

01 - Elvis Impersonator Blackpool Pier
02 - A Design For Life
03 - Kevin Carter
04 - Enola Alone
05 - Everything Must Go
06 - Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky
07 - The Girl Who Wanted To Be God
08 - Removables
09 - Australia
10 - Interiors (Song For Willem De Kooning)
11 - Further Away
12 - No Surface All Feeling

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible

Album 3 released in 94 the last one as a four piece before Richie Edwards mysterious disappearance. This one took a while to grow on me although "Archives of pain" is still a big favourite of mine.

01 - Yes
02 - Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart
03 - Of Walking Abortion
04 - She Is Suffering
05 - Archives Of Pain
06 - Revol
07 - 4st 7lb
08 - Mausoleum
09 - Faster
10 - This Is Yesterday
11 - Die In The Summertime
12 - The Intense Humming Of Evil
13 - P C P

Manic Street Preachers - Gold Against The Soul

The second album from 1993, just the ten tracks but another top class album.

01 - Sleepflower
02 - From Despair To Where
03 - La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)
04 - Yourself
05 - Life Becoming A Landslide
06 - Drug Drug Druggy
07 - Roses In The Hospital
08 - Nostalgic Pushead
09 - Symphony Of Tourette
10 - Gold Against The Soul

Manic Street Preachers - Generation Terrorists

After a couple of minor hits in the early nineties this 1992 album and the 6 singles taken from it brought the Manics to most people's attention.
Still one of their most famous tracks "motorcycle emptiness" is the star turn with others like "slash n burn" and "you love us" also familiar to most.
A great debut album.

01 - Slash N Burn
02 - Nat West Barclays Midlands Lloyds
03 - Born To End
04 - Motorcycle Emptiness
05 - You Love Us
06 - Love's Sweet Exile
07 - Little Baby Nothing
08 - Repeat (Stars And Stripes)
09 - Tennessee
10 - Another Invented Disease
11 - Stay Beautiful
12 - So Dead
13 - Repeat (UK)
14 - Spectators Of Suicide
15 - Damn Dog
16 - Crucifix Kiss
17 - Methadone Pretty
18 - Condemned To Rock N Roll