Bad Brains - Bad Brains

When I bought this album, I don't think I'd actually heard Bad Brains. I was in London to see Deftones play Wembley Arena with A Perfect Circle, and it was about a week before I started university. I remember being in Selectadisc and deciding to buy this album, along with a few other bits (I'd also got my original copy of The Aeroplane Flies High boxset that day). I'd read many, many things about Bad Brains; Kerrang! had definitely included them in their "100 most influential bands" issue that I'd been using as a reference guide for at least two years already (and still have somewhere in the house). I was getting into punk via the way of hardcore (mostly thanks to Gorilla Biscuits, which was really thanks to Rival Schools and Quicksand), so it seemed like a good purchase.

Other factors that day almost certainly included: Hugh was with me and likely suggested it - he did the same thing to our friend Rich about five years later, although I doubt Rich enjoyed Bad Brains as much as I did; I was amused by the sticker on the sleeve saying "limited edition black vinyl"; I had dreadlocks, so it was assumed I liked Bad Brains often; and finally I knew it was a classic album - that cover was very familiar from the off.

A month or so after buying this, I bought a cheap cd copy of the Bad Brains best-of, Banned in DC, so I'm a little more familiar with that than I am this album - I didn't take my turntable to university initially, so only had a few listens to this album before going away. The overlap between the two albums is huge, which is a testament to how strong the album is. A year or so later I got the Bad Brains tribute album, Never Give In, which I then probably played even more. I enjoyed Snapcase's take on I, but the real star of that show was, unexpectedly, Moby's cover of Sailin' On, which he stretches out over four times the original length and completely reimagines.

In fact, I'm such a fan of that Moby cover that I find it hard to think about Bad Brains without thinking about Moby doing a slow version of one of their songs. This is probably an indication of my general feelings towards Bad Brains. In principle, I like their thrashy hardcore, and they definitely have some excellent songs. However, the shitty production makes it hard to enjoy them. I get that they were pioneers, and that I doubt anyone had any ideal how this sort of music should sound on record, which is a shame. The guitars on Supertouch/Shitfit are such an unexpected highlight then, because after so many songs something clear and crisp finally happens, and it sounds excellent.

If I'm somewhat on the fence about Bad Brains' hardcore, then I'm very much of on the "not interested" side when it comes to their reggae moments - Jah Calling, Leaving Babylon and I Luv I Jah are not for me. I get why they're there, but I'd enjoy the album more without them. Take them away and the hardcore songs that are left are almost all classics and excellent songs, if poorly recorded. I imagine some people will disagree with me here, but I'd get a lot more out of this album if it had been recorded maybe ten years later. Songs like Supertouch/Shitfit and Right Brigade shine, but only just about.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 15
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 19/09/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Snapcase - Lookinglasself

This year, for the first time in eight years, I didn't go to a record shop on Record Store Day. Around that time every year, there's a lot of chat about RSD - some positive, some negative - and I won't be drawn to one side or the other; I can see the arguments on both sides.

I had planned to go to Truck Store at an ungodly hour on the Saturday morning. I'd even bought breakfast supplies on my lunch break. But as the Friday went on, I found myself increasingly not looking forward to sitting outside my local record shop for four hours, cold and bored. I'd described it to a friend earlier that day as a "self-inflicted torture", and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it wasn't/isn't a pleasant experience and that I really didn't want to do it. So I decided not to; I slept in and it was lovely.

There are a few reasons why I decided against going: Firstly, I always feel like the odd-one-out in that queue - everyone else has a huge list of records they're excited about buying, whereas I had three records I wanted. Furthermore, the records I'm after are rarely the ones that sell out straight away. Very few of the ones I've bought in the past have been difficult to find in the coming weeks (and sometime end up reduced later in the year). Everybody else in the queue would be excited about Bowie and Prince and The Smiths and I'd be that guy who got up early to buy The Dirty Three and Snapcase. The more I thought about it, the more I realised I'm not who this event is aimed at and that's ok.

JT from Banquet had been on the news a few days beforehand talking about the importance of RSD, saying how it's great that it gets people in who wouldn't normally visit a record shop, and that is really great. I spend a lot of time and money in record shops and I'm in favour of anything that means they stay open. But as a result of that, RSD isn't tailored around people like me. The list of releases this year (and last year, to an extent) had very little for me on. There are always a few "that could be interesting" releases, but RSD isn't a day to buy a record by a band you don't know well - it's too expensive for that. This year there were three releases I really wanted in my record collection and, in the case of this record, I was pretty sure I'd be the only person who'd be interested in buying it (and right I was - on the Monday it was still sat there in the racks).

I'm a huge fan of Snapcase and Lookinglasself was the first album of theirs I owned (although I was introduced to them through the much more accessible, and excellent, End Transmission). I found the cd 14 years ago in a second-hand record shop in Bristol that definitely no longer exists - it was underneath a roundabout junction and I only found it because they were blasting out metal from some speakers. I was in town for a university open day and was going to buy more in there, but it was the day before I got paid and I hit the bottom of my bank account (they had a Cave In record I picked up for my friend Hugh, but did mean I couldn't buy the Nine Inch Nails 12" singles they had - I'm a good friend). However, I did get that first Snapcase album.

Lookinglasself is a much harder listen than End Transmission, but so are their other two proper albums. It's a great album though - short but has no messing around and surprisingly long songs for a short hardcore album. It was a shock on first listen, but I was glad to push through with it. Of the first three, I consider Lookinglasself to be my favourite, but then End Transmission sits far above it. When I saw that it was being reissued on vinyl for RSD, I wanted a copy more for nostalgia than anything else. If I want to listen to Snapcase, I almost always go for End Transmission, and I suspect I always will do. But it's nice to have an album I'm very fond of on vinyl too. Plus, I feel if no one buys the heavy and obscure records on RSD then it will eventually tend entirely towards mainstream music.

I'm not anti-RSD. In fact, I thoroughly support the idea, but I support it it as a person who shops in independent record shops more than as a person who collects records (which of course I am, but there is a distinction there). I have many records I've bought on previous RSDs - some of them are my most prized-possessions (and others are ones I regretted almost straight away) - and most crucially, I will definitely queue up any year where there are records I feel it is worth losing sleep over. This year, however, was not one of those years.

It's hard to break traditions - me going to a record shop on RSD predates RSD even being a thing in the UK - but it's important to do so, otherwise they become even harder to break. I've broken the spell RSD had over me, which is great because now I can dip in as casually as I like.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 9
Cost: £29 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 24/04/17
Colour: Blue
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Fugazi - Repeater

Repeater was my second Fugazi purchase, having bought the self-titled mini-album a few months beforehand. As much as I love the first one, I've always considered Repeater my favourite. There are a few moments in particular where the songs are so perfect in a way that I don't see as much on the other records. I think they all have some real highlights, but the highs here are huge and plentiful.

Three of my favourite Fugazi songs are on this record - Repeater (with the count-off in the chorus), Blueprint (with the huge outro) and Shut the Door (which broods like no other song they'd written before). On top of that, there are just little flicks of brilliance throughout - the transition between the speed of Greed into the riff in Two Beats Off, for example, is lovely.

I bought this record second hand in the market that used to be set up in the square at university every so often. I also bought a Pop Will Eat Itself record, making quite the strange pairing. The sleeve is in very good condition for a second hand record, except a few fingerprints on the picture sleeve, and a tiny knifed edge to it. I played the album a lot back in the day, so much so, I asked for a copy of the cd one Christmas as I wanted to have a digital copy too (plus, three extra songs - although I usually stop it on Shut the Door).

Just to dwell on Shut the Door for a moment - I don't remember it catching my ear as quickly as Repeater or Blueprint did, but eventually it bowled me over, almost in reverse - the outro caught my attention first, but I came to love the verses and chorus too - the simplicity of the verses contrasted so well against the thrashy chorus. Ian sings in a way I'd not heard before - really sung like a regular singer, not just a punk singer (if you'll excuse the distinction). The verses are also so brief that you want more of them, much like you'd normally feel about the chorus. They could have easily finished it on the bass line towards the end, but then they bring back the chorus riff with those perfect lines "Shut the door so I can leave / Shut the door". What a great way to end the record.

Format: 12", picture sleeve, insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £6 second hand
Bought: Lancaster University Square
When: 12/02/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters

I've been listening to The Twilight Sad for nearly ten years, and I still don't feel like I know their albums that well. I love their albums, but they're so dense and difficult that I've found that I've never really broken my way into any of them. That's not a criticism; in fact I think it's actually a part of their charm. I've seen them play this album in full, and I still don't feel I know it that well.

I was introduced to the band by my old housemate Nicky, but then bought the Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did EP which contained reworked versions of nearly half these songs. I then bought the limited Killed My Parents and Hit the Road cd, which featured live versions of some of these songs (and a cover of Modern Romance by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which works incredibly well). I eventually got the album on a trip to Avalance Records in Edinburgh the Monday after a stag weekend. Despite knowing versions of a lot of the songs, I was still treated to a heavy wall of dense sound; at times both welcoming and unwelcoming. There are a couple of definite highlights, but I can never really remember which songs they actually are. Looking at the lyrics online, I think Cold Days From the Birdhouse and Mapped By What Surrounded Them are the ones I always really look forward to on this album.

The first time I saw the band was quite an experience - they were supporting Mogwai in Brixton Academy and the singer paced the stage side-on to the crowd the whole time, almost entranced by his own microphone. I thought they were great; Sarah was unimpressed and has never become a fan. I think there's something about their particular style of shoegaze that people either love or hate.

In 2014, the debut album was reissued on vinyl for Record Store Day, along with a bonus disc of demos from the time. I'd bought the first two albums on cd for some reason, so was pleased to get this one on vinyl, and the demos were a great addition. That was my first RSD at Truck Store, having moved to Oxford a week beforehand, and it was a particularly strong year - there were a bunch of must-haves and this was definitely one of them for a lot of people.

The package is nice, with the second LP in a separate sleeve kept together in a plastic wallet and with an appropriately stripped down version of the artwork. The songs all have obtuse titles, much like on the split demo cassette with Frightened Rabbit from three years beforehand. They're great to hear and most of these demos are non-album songs, which is nice. Untitled #4 and 2d are particularly good songs.

Format: Double 12", two sleeves, picture sleeve, 24"x24" poster
Tracks: 17
Cost: £27 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 19/04/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Hundred Reasons - Ideas Above Our Station [10 Year Anniversary]

Time has proved that Ideas Above Our Station is the classic album we all thought it was back in 2002. 15 years later, I still get excited when I hear those guitars at the start of I'll Find You and the whole album is great. The singles were huge - we knew that before the album even came out - but the other songs are all excellent too. In 2012, it seemed the world agreed that it was a classic album, so the band toured playing it in full, and Banquet put together this lovingly-extended 10-year anniversary edition. Needless to say, I ordered it as soon as it was announced.

Five years ago, I wrote a blog post about the album, having bought a copy on vinyl in 2005 for an ridiculously-cheap £1. At the time, I was looking forward to seeing them play the album that summer, and I was lucky enough to see them play it again that December with Hell Is For Heroes playing their equally-classic album, The Neon Handshake. I had a great time at both shows (and realised that despite listening to both albums excessively over the previous 10-years, I had no idea what any of the words really were).

Various delays hit this release, and it eventually showed up in December 2013. I was more than happy to forgive Banquet for the delay as I was just very pleased to have all the extra songs. The album itself takes up the first disc, but then we are treated to two more LPs of other songs from that era. It was billed as being all the early songs, but Different, the song we all fell in love with a demo of, was missing (as well as EP One and some others from compilations and splits early in their career, so maybe it was more strictly "all the songs from that era"). The lack of Different aside, it is an excellent set of additional material, featuring early b-sides and demos. I wasn't at all of aware of their "Singles Club" releases back in the day, so I'd thoroughly missed out on those.

A few of these songs I already have on 7"s, most notably the incredible Remmus from EP Two and No. 5, a b-side to If I Could, and a song I've loved since seeing them play it in Southampton Guildhall many, many years ago. Because I only had those early singles on 7", I'd missed out on the extra b-sides in nearly every case (the exception being If I Could which I ended up with a copy of cd1 of through a strangely bad deal with Hugh - I'd bought a copy of Pitchshifter's newest single, Eight Days, for a surprisingly expensive £5 - he really wanted it, and I thought the b-side was a bit rubbish, so agreed to swap it for the If I Could cd single, effectively paying £5 for it. Neither were really worth £5, but I do love No. 5).

Remmus was such a huge song and such a success (at least in the circles I moved in) that it always seemed like a shame it wasn't on the album - they could easily have included it and no one would have complained (sometimes relying too heavily on early EPs is sign of a weak album, but that clearly isn't the case - in a lot of ways, it's a ballsy move to not include it). I played that 7" a lot back in the day, so those guitars at the start almost mean as much to me as the ones at the start of If I Could. The chorus was such good fun to throw yourself around to at their shows. Soap Box Rally was a huge song too. The original recording of Shine isn't hugely different to the version that ended up on the album, at least to my ears.

Check Before Leaving and Lamps Collapsing are from the Singles Club series and both are good - the first is strong with interesting guitars, and the second at the heavier end of HR, like EP One or some of the songs that would appear later on. Sunny and Slow Motion are from EP Three, the first of which I know well from the 7". Slow Motion would have made a fine album track.

If I Could had four b-sides across its three formats, and make up the rest of Side D. I've raved about No. 5 before; I still think it's a great song, and the most experimental thing they did. I love Hundred Reasons as a rock band, but I'd to have heard more of what they could have done if they'd experimented in more things like this. Given the situation they were in, I can see why it never happened, at least not on the albums. I didn't buy any of the versions of the Silver single, so all four of those b-sides were new to me here, although Aerogramme strikes me as familiar for some reason, and Rush In is possibly the closest to No. 5 in how it differs from a usual Hundred Reasons song; I like it.

Safe Distance was the only b-side from the Falter single I knew, as it was on the 7", however I was very familiar with Introduction to Pop from the electric version, re-titled Pop on Shatterproof Is Not A Challenge. I like this version a lot. Little Toys and Your Day are heavier songs, but in different ways to each other. The demos at the end are nice to hear. Usually reissues are littered with demos rather than actually different songs, but in this case I could have happily gone for some more demos too.

Anyway, that's a lot of words, but on a deserving album. The reissue is great, and the first run sold out, so I doubt I'm the only person who thinks that. The extra songs are all included on a cd too (assuming that anyone who bought the reissue already has the original album on cd, which I'm sure is the case, because I swear everyone owned a copy of this album).

Format: Triple 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 30
Cost: £33 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 01/12/13
Colour: Silver, dark blue and blue
Etching: none
mp3s: cd included

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible [US RSD picture disc]

The first time I heard The Holy Bible was on a cassette a friend had made from his brother's cd copy. I'd borrowed it and, for reasons I can't remember, his walkman too and played it for the first time on a bus for a school trip. I can't remember where we were going, but I distinctly remember pressing play as we sat on the bus just outside the school gates.

Cassettes are a horrible medium. I've always associated them with murky, inaccessible music. The two main reasons for that are this album, and Bleach by Nirvana - both albums I listened to on cassette and found initially impenetrable. One of the many problems with the format is that the only way to know what song you're listening to is keep counting and compare to the tracklisting. In this case, someone had messed up the recording of the cassette, so I had the full tracklisting but was missing two songs from the latter half of the album - Faster and This Is Yesterday. In a lot of ways, it's not a great way to hear an album for this first time, but appropriately difficult for such a difficult album.

I can't remember exactly when that school trip was, but I think The Holy Bible would have been the second Manics album I heard, after becoming a fan on This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. I say this, because I got Generation Terrorists a full year later, and my own copy of The Holy Bible two months after that. I have a strong memory of listening to that same taped copy in a tent in my friend's back garden, discussing the songs, and that can't have been between October and December as that would have been too cold. I had been wanting to dig into their back-catalogue for a while, and I suspect it was the classic "this album is their best, try this one". Interestingly, when I finally bought my copy of Generation Terrorists, the girl at the counter said that Gold Against the Soul was her favourite even though no one else agreed. I love that album now, and probably play it the most these days.

A few of my initial thoughts of the album have stuck with me: I was amazed that there was nothing I'd consider a "single" (which possibly helped with that murky, impenetrable feeling - had my cassette included Faster I suspect I'd still have thought this); 4st 7lbs was haunting; the bass on Archives of Pain was excellent; the opening duo of Yes and Ifwhiteamerica... said so much about the band and the fact that this wasn't a pop album; PCP felt much more accessible somehow, and was a strangely light and upbeat (musically) way to finish such a dark album. I remember feeling distinctly uneasy at the lines "Conservative say: there ain't enough black in the Union Jack / Democrat say: there ain't enough white in the Stars and Stripes" having not quite heard the start of each line. They let themselves off the hook a minute or so later when they reverse the sentiment and start them with "And we say", but for a short while I did panic that my new favourite band were openly racist. Of course now I know that thought to be ridiculous, but the fear of that stayed with me and I think of it nearly every time I hear the song.

23 years have now passed since The Holy Bible came out, and over the years it has been held up as a classic, which it is. For me, it still holds some of that early inaccessibility, probably by design. It is a classic, but for reasons entirely different to the ways in which I consider the others classic - Generation Terrorists has the bold arrogance and timeless songs, Gold Against the Soul is the forgotten gem, Everything Must Go is the huge comeback, and TIMTTMY was the pop breakthrough; The Holy Bible on the other hand, was a treat for the fans who wanted the band to exorcise their darkest corners, which they did (arguably far too well). It is so vastly different to the other albums, that it's hard to compare it in the same light. I enjoyed reading all the fanfare around the 20th anniversary, and it's impossible to not agree with it all.

For Record Store Day 2015, the US version of the album was pressed onto vinyl for the first time and available in record shops in the UK. The US, however, got the original version on a picture disc with the original artwork. The album was available as a picture disc when it was first released, but I'd never bothered to pick one up - they always seemed readily available on eBay. The US RSD version differs as it has "20" after the title, and "original mix" at the bottom. Last year I was in Boston and found this copy in the Harvard branch of Newbury Comics, a shop I'd fallen in love with in my early teens. The exchange rate is appalling these days, so I only bought this record, which had luckily been reduced to half-price - $14 from $28 - probably as it had been sat on their shelves for a year and a half. I was very pleased to add it to my collection.

Format: 12", picture disc
Tracks: 13
Cost: £12.20 new
Bought: Newbury Comics, Boston
When: 14/10/16
Colour: picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

U2 - The Joshua Tree

For reasons I've never really been all that sure about, I own a U2 album. There was a day, at one point in the past - Friday 14th November 2003, to be exact - when I thought "yes, today I'm going to buy this U2 album". I don't remember there being much build-up; I don't think I spent much time thinking "U2 are a band I might want to get into". I think I was starved of good music in Lancaster a bit, but that doesn't make sense - just weeks beforehand I'd gotten into Far and Bad Brains for the first time, and the next day I bought a Fugazi record. It was, evidently, a very confusing time.

I found this in the Oxfam books and records shop in Lancaster - not long beforehand I'd picked up a water-damaged copy of the Lull EP by the Pumpkins and a while later I found a Centro-matic album; it was a mixed bag. Given that the town was heavily influenced by the university, not a lot of good stuff ended in Oxfam. I think every time I'd been in there in the two months I'd been at university, they'd had at least one copy of The Joshua Tree on vinyl - maybe I just got subliminally convinced into buying it (although the repeated notion that people are keen to give copies away is hardly a great selling point).

If you're going to own any U2 albums, surely The Joshua Tree is the only one to own? The thing plays like a Best Of album - can you imagine squeezing Where The Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With Or Without You and Bullet the Blue Sky all on one side of vinyl? Running to Stand Still stands no chance next to those four, but then they come back on side 2 with Red Hill Mining Town. Regardless what you think about U2, that's incredible. The back end of the album is a bit weak, but Exit is way heavier than I remembered. Mothers of the Disappeared is definitely an anti-climatic end though - I doubt in 1982 they weren't thinking that one day they'd be playing the album straight through, and having to end on that song.

Listening to it now, I'm wondering if I'm even that ashamed of owning this. I know Bono is clearly a twat but these are, without doubt, huge pop songs. It also sounds lovely, way nicer than I remember it sounding. I've cranked the volume far louder than one really should when listening to U2, but it is produced (by Eno, no less) brilliantly. I've also just noticed it was recorded by Flood, who produced Mellon Collie. I've not listened to this album in years - possibly more than 10 - but I'm thinking about giving it a spin again now. There are albums I've bought that I've still not played yet, but I'm considering bumping them to play U2 for the second time in one evening. What's happened to me?

I was in Spain recently, sat on a rooftop bar overlooking Madrid and, for reasons none of us could figure out, they were playing exclusively U2 for hours. Despite our obvious feelings towards U2, we couldn't help but enjoy it. It's very strange.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, 12"x24" insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £4 second hand
Bought: Oxfam, Lancaster
When: 14/11/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Jack Johnson - On and On

For a thankfully-short while, Jack Johnson was very cool. I came back from university for the summer after the first year and all my friends had started listening to him - I don't know how they came across him, but I strongly suspect he had some songs on a surf video that a friend had. That summer, we listened to him a lot - I mean pretty much every car journey, and every time we sat around at someone's house. It was strong summer music.

At the end of the summer, I found this copy of his second album in a shop in Southampton and snapped it up. Of the two we'd been listening to, I preferred On and On - both had some great songs, but there were a few less-poppy ones on this album, and I felt that gave it an edge over the other. I eventually got a copy of his other album at the time, Brushfire Fairytales and picked up his newest, In Between Dreams, not long after it came out, at the end of the second year of university (using an HMV voucher I'd got for taking part in a survey, strangely). Essentially, there was a year when Jack Johnson was a big deal, but my next year in Australia taught me more about this sort of laid back indie-pop and the moment passed.

In the years since then, I've rarely listened to Jack Johnson; like all good summer memories, it was best left as a memory. Occasionally, my wife has suggested playing his albums, and they're pleasant reminders, but not what I'd consider "good" music. All three albums have some good songs, but I can't help but imagine I would find Jack incredibly annoying if I met him in person. I've met people who I imagine would get along with him brilliantly, and they all pissed me off.

But, like I said, On and On isn't a terrible album - the moments that aren't pop are good and make you think he could have had a different but interesting career had he avoided pop a little harder. Taylor and Cookie Jar have something a little dark about them. I like it. When I say "dark", I mean relatively - this is a surfer-dude singing songs on a beach, it's never going to get that dark. There are a few little, short, throwaway songs that I could do without - 16 songs is too many by a long stretch. Taylor, Holes to Heaven and Cocoon were always the highlights.

All that said, when I see this spine in my record collection I never feel the urge to play it, but it reminds me fondly of that summer in 2004, and I like it for that.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 16
Cost: £11 new
Bought: FM Music
When: 23/09/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

System of a Down - Toxicity

A year and a half after the album came out, I found this 7" single of Toxicity at a record fair in Southampton for £3. It seemed rude not to buy it, and I was certainly drawn in by the promise of an "extremely rare" b-side.

Toxicity itself is a strong song, and clearly one of the best songs on the album other than Chop Suey!. Storaged is not as exciting as I'd hoped for, but I knew nothing of the context until just now - it appeared on a demo cassette for the first album, but had never seen the light of day otherwise. It's short, and I can see it working well live.

Again, the sleeve is pretty minimal - also featuring stills from the video on the reverse.

Format: 12", numbered #5604
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 25/01/03
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: no

System of a Down - Chop Suey!

When System of a Down released Chop Suey! I, for some reason, bought all the versions of the single - the two and cds and, a day later, the 7". I don't know if I was planning on building up a complete SOAD collection or not, or maybe it was just because it was just after my birthday and I was feeling relatively flush. The cds had some live tracks as b-sides, along with the new song here, Johnny.

Chop Suey! was, without doubt, System's breakout hit. It took them to levels of fame so many steps above where they were, and where they would have been had the second album not featured it. It's still quite fun, despite having heard it played to death in rock clubs over the years. It did everything you wanted the band to do in one song, was sufficiently weird, and has a few "movements". In a lot of ways, it was their Bohemian Rhapsody. The b-side is nice enough, and has a strong chorus.

The cds were minimal in their artwork - featuring a clear case and the cd only printed as far as there was music, leaving a clear band of plastic for most of its 5"s. Fittingly, the 7" is on clear vinyl, and numbered. The reverse just shows images from the video for the song, which is an unusual route to take - a type of promotion I'd not seen before.

Format: 7", numbered #2161
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: FM Music, Southampton
When: 24/10/01
Colour: Clear
Etching: none
mp3s: no

System of a Down - Steal This Album!

System of a Down were one of the bands you had to like if you were into nu-metal around the year 2000. They somehow were the edgy, cool band to like, especially if it was before their second album came out. The first one, released in 1998, felt like the closest thing to an "underground hit" that the genre had, at least amongst the people I knew (which is obviously bollocks in hindsight, but felt like it at the time. Like I've said many times, the early 2000's was a dangerous time to be a teenager). Their second album, Toxicity, came out in 2001 and suddenly they were everywhere.

I got a copy of the first album in 2001, just weeks before Toxicity came out, but I'd borrowed it from a friend earlier and made a cassette copy, so knew the songs very well. On top of that, I'd bought a copy of a limited edition tour cd from a distro that a guy someone had met at a record fair was running – it had three of the album tracks twice each, the studio version and a live recording. Toxicity dropped the day after they played a great set at Reading Festival on the main stage, almost certainly winning them many more fans (I distinctly remember the maniacal look in the bassist's eyes as they walked out on stage to a song about how they're all on drugs). An enterprising record store owner who routinely had a stall at the festival stayed open until midnight to sell copies of Toxicity and Iowa, the new Slipknot album released on the same day; they must have made a killing with that festival audience.

SOAD enjoyed a lot of success from Toxicity, especially from the single Chop Suey!, which became an instant classic in rock clubs all over the country. Then they had the awkward follow-up, the difficult second album (except, in this case, the difficult third album). In 2002 they released Steal This Album!, an album I always believed to be a b-sides/rarities album, but I've just read online that it was more along the lines of leftovers from Toxicity, or even tentatively a sequel to the album. Either way, it wasn't billed as a regular album, so I certainly never listened to it as such.

The cd was released with four different designs on the cd itself, which given that it didn't have a sleeve was basically the cover of the album. I bought the one with the skull on it, which was my favourite of the lot at the time – I think the shop had at least one of each. A few months later I was in Nottingham after an open day at Lancaster University, and found this double picture disc of the album for a bargain £9.50. It was appealing in itself, but I liked that each side had one of the four covers on; it made me feel better about having picked just one of them on cd. That price seems like even more of a bargain given that copies on Discogs are now around £75.

As an album, I remember liking it less than the first two, but that was almost to be expected, given that it wasn't an album proper. A.D.D. was always the highlight and still has a huge chorus. It could have been a huge song had it been on either of the first two albums, although that awkward transition between the verse and the chorus probably needed some more work. Otherwise, there were some nice enough songs (Highway Song has the second best chorus on the album) and a few slower moments (good ones, like Mr Jack and unnecessary ones, like Roulette). A common theme was one of half-heartedness, or incompleteness - Chic 'n' Stu and I-E-A-I-A-I-O both had that fast-paced singing that Serj could so uniquely do, but piss-poor lyrics; Boom was a political song with none of the subtlety they'd shown in the past. All in all, an odd collection, but a nice enough record to own.

Format: Double picture disc 12", insert
Tracks: 16
Cost: £9.50 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Unwritten Law - Elva

This album is just Very Bad. I don't think I've ever taken any real enjoyment from it. Every now and again, if I'm in a particularly shitty toilet in a bar or pub, I think to myself "I really hope I don't die here; I'd be so embarrassed for people to know that this was the last place I was alive". Listening to Unwritten Law in 2017, I'm thinking "god, I hope I don't die listening to this; I'd be so embarrassed for people to know this was the last music I heard". What if people thought the last music I heard was so important to me that I wanted it played at my funeral. What a shitty funeral it'd be, soundtracked to this album. Urgh. If you're reading this, I didn't die listening to Unwritten Law (at least, intentionally) so that's good.

When I was at school, we pretty much all had copies of each other's cds collections on tape or minidiscs. Nick had Unwritten Law's third, self-titled album, and I remember having a minidisc of it (in fact, I still do, but either my minidisc player is broken, or all of my minidiscs have broken themselves). I guess I enjoyed that album at the time, but I couldn't tell you much about it. I was never a huge fan of that California-punk, and it'd be a long time before I started listening to other genres of punk.

A few years later, I was in Nottingham and found this for £4 in Selectadisc. I bought so many records in there that day that I was putting some back because I couldn't carry them all. Luckily, I can't remember what I put back, because I'd almost certainly be kicking myself. It's hard to imagine what could've been less enjoyable than this. According to Wikipedia, Unwritten Law made a conscious choice to move away from punk towards a more "accessible hard rock" sound. I wish they'd put that on the fucking sticker, rather than boasting about two singles I now know to be shit.

There are many crimes on this album, but one of the worst is the first song - Mean Girl is the worst song on the album, and opens the album for reasons I can't fathom. Up All Night isn't terrible in comparison - it's probably not a good song, but compared to the opener it's quite the relief. There are other lows (Actress, Model... is appalling) and some moments that aren't as shit as everything else, but it's all relative. It's also far too long. In two words: stupid and pointless.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 17
Cost: £4 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Billy Talent - Fallen Leaves

I wrote about Billy Talent a few years ago with this post about a shaped-7" of Devil in the Midnight Mass. They were never a band I was hugely into, but I do seem to have a lot of their 7" records (three, to be precise). I'd enjoyed Try Honesty from their first album (which I eventually bought, around the time the second one was out) and found myself buying all the singles from the second, despite never hearing the full album.

Fallen Leaves was the third and, thus, the last I bought. I think I knew by this point that I wasn't going to be a huge fan of the band, but it was £1 and I enjoyed the clear picture disc. I found this around the time it was released in my local HMV, a few weeks after buying the shaped picture disc in Paris. The song is catchy enough but a little repetitive. The b-side is a live recording of the same song (lame) from MTV, but sounds terrible. I know picture discs aren't known for their quality, but this is really bad. Still, you can't argue with that price.

Format: 7", picture disc, insert
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Lancaster
When: 19/02/07
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Billy Talent - Red Flag

Red Flag was the first Billy Talent release I bought. A few of the singles from their first album had been plastered across MTV a summer or two beforehand, so I knew the name and knew what they sounded like. About a month after buying this, I bought a cheap copy of their debut album. I never heard any of the subsequent albums.

Red Flag has a huge chorus, as you'd expect from the band, but the extent to which I find the singer's voice annoying was stretched on this song. I knew what I was getting into, so that's on me really. The b-side is a demo of what I assume is an album track. It's an ok song, but only a fraction as catchy as the single itself. I went on to buy a few more singles from the second album, but I think they were never really going to be a band for me, so that's about where I left it; everything I own by them was bought within a five-month period, after which I was done. That says a lot.

Format: 7", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV, Winchester
When: 11/09/06
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: no

LostProphets - Last Train Home

Again, see here for the obligatory prefix on the band. Last Train Home was the second single from the second album, and came out a couple of weeks after the album did. I bought the album, but have so few memories of it that I barely remembered owning it. I was 19 and the appeal of a band like this was wearing off. On top of that, these songs now feel miles away from the debut album and the version of the band we'd got into. I don't remember thinking that at the time, I just didn't enjoy them so much. I think they released further albums, but I stopped paying attention shortly after buying this record.

The appeal of this 7" was almost certainly in the b-side - an acoustic version of Shinobi Vs. Dragon Ninja from the first album. For £1.50, I was mostly just curious about how that'd sound. To save you all the wonder, it sounds bad. I've always been a sucker for acoustic versions, but this just doesn't work. The riff holds up ok, but the changes into the chorus just jars. They've tried to cover it up with some faint strings, but it sounds wrong. Since I'll almost certainly never listen to the band again, it seems rather fitting to leave it on such a dud.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: HMV, Lancaster
When: 16/02/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

LostProphets - Burn Burn

I wrote everything I need to say about LostProphets in this post about their debut album - please refer to that. I'll get this over with quickly.

Burn Burn was the first single from their second album and I bought it when it came out, not long after starting university. It was quite different in sound to the debut - less going on and felt like whoever produced it wanted them to be a very different band to the one they were on the debut. I wonder how this song would have sounded had it been on the first album. The b-side is a demo, and sounds horrendous on flimsy 7" vinyl, but had more going for it as a song than the single, I felt. I have no idea if a non-demo version of it ever appeared.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.80 new
Bought: HMV, Lancaster
When: 03/11/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no