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

Incubus - Are You In?

This is one of the worst purchases I've ever made. The worst part of it was that I wasn't even planning to buy it, but I was too British not to. I was at a record fair and pulled it out of the box to have a look at - it was 2003, so I was still kinda into the band - and before I really had time to think about it, the guy manning the stall said "that'll be £5 please"; I panicked and handed over the money, buying a record that had I a few seconds to really think about, I would have known was going to be junk, and definitely not worth a whole £5. Such a stupid mistake.

There are three versions of the same song here - the song being Are You In? a fairly unexciting song from towards the end of their unexciting third album, Morning View (I had the album, so knew the single was far from good - makes the purchase even worse). The original and "new mix" sound identical, except that the mix is shorter. Not sure what got cut, never cared enough to work it out. The final version is a Paul Oakenfold remix - he was famous for remixing stuff around the time, if I remember correctly. As far as I can tell, he's just made the snare drum louder. I'm sure he got paid handsomely for essentially just leaning on one fader on the panel.

I've never been one for remixes of rock songs, which really makes this purchase even more frustrating. Nothing of interest here at all, but perhaps a lesson learnt?

Format: 12", die-cut sleeve, promo
Tracks: 3
Cost: £5 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 25/01/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Incubus - Drive

There was a while when Incubus were a Very Big Band. They were from what I'm calling the "second wave of nu-metal", but in their case the record label execs went full boy-band rather than over-the-top post-Slipknot nu-metal. If you heard Drive without hearing the rest of the album Make Yourself, you'd never know they were from the same scene as Deftones, etc. Drive was the real turning point away from S.C.I.E.N.C.E and the heavier songs on Make Yourself, and marked the beginning of the chilled Incubus who would go on to make increasingly unlistenable albums (or maybe the fact I found the subsequent two albums so hard to listen to was because I'd got older instead of/as well as them getting shittier).

The a-side here is a live "orchestral" version of Drive, the song that made them famous outside of the circles of people who read Kerrang! who thought A Certain Shade of Green was good (as an aside, I suspect A Certain Shade of Green might still be enjoyable now; it was a huge song). If anything, I think the song sounds worse for the additional strings, but maybe it's because I wanted them to be strange nu-metal band, not a boy band.

On the b-side we're treated to two live songs - Favourite Things from the first album and Pardon Me, one of the highlights from the second (at least, that's what it was in my memory - it's much smoother and more over-produced than I had thought, but the chorus is still huge, even if the guitars are far too quiet in this recording). At the time, I remember being excited to hear the live versions, but in reality they don't add much. Much like many of my old 7" records, I paid £3 for this at a record fair in Southampton.

Format: 7"

Tracks: 3

Cost: £3 second hand

Bought: Record Fair, Southampton

When: 27/10/01

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Disturbed - The Sickness

Jesus Christ, there's really no excusing this one. Yes, I own an album by Disturbed. Yes, it is a hideous picture disc of their debut album. No, I've not played it in a very, very long time. There are some lows in my record collection, but this is truly the bottom.

When I bought it I thought to myself "do I really want to own this album?" and I was on the fence even back then. However, I fell for the usual tricks - numbered release and a picture disc. I've mostly learnt not to be suckered for such things, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally make bad calls based on similar features. I don't always do the smart thing.

As far as I was concerned, there was the first wave of nu-metal, featuring bands like Deftones and Korn; then, in the very late 1990's the second wave appeared and were very different to the first: Slipknot were a prime example - gimmick first, music second; Disturbed were one of the less enjoyable bands from that second wave. Basically, the record labels realised there was money in this genre, and the bands that came in the second wave were much more twisted in the hope of selling more records to foolish teenagers, and I think it worked. Who am I kidding? It definitely worked - I was a teenager and I bought in to the extent I thought it'd be good to have a copy of The Sickness on vinyl.

Disturbed had seen a lot of success on MTV with the song Down With the Sickness, which was basically the reason why anyone listened to them. Actually, hearing it now, I remember Stupify being on a free cd from either Metal Hammer or Rock Sound; this is taking me right back. I've not thought about that song in a very long time, but I remember enjoying it on that free cd. So maybe I'm mistaken, maybe it was the combination of the two songs that meant I knew who they were. It's hard to recall the exact order of things, partly because it was a long a time ago, but partly because it really isn't that important. Down With the Sickness is hilariously bad now - I forgot so much of this song - that weird noise the singer makes before the chorus and the fucking ridiculous rant he goes on in the break. Surely that was cut from the single edit? I barely remember it, but maybe I've just blanked it out.

Obviously, this record has not aged well. The singer's voice is really quite annoying (he had those stupid lip piercings - it's all coming back) - four songs in and I'm reaching my tolerance levels for it. Musically, they remind more of Spineshank (another second-wave nu-metal band) than they ever did - maybe my ear to discern differences between nu-metals has faded over time. That is not a loss. There is nothing memorable or enjoyable on the second side, which is quite an effort. There's even a Tears For Fears cover, inexplicably.

Luckily, I've never had mp3s of this album, as this picture disc was long before the notion of mp3s download codes. I didn't take it to university with me (imagine if someone saw it!?), so it basically stood no chance after I was 18. I very much doubt I would have played it much in the years between either way - I wasn't impressed by it when I got it home and played it, but did kinda like the fact I had it on a numbered picture disc; like I said, I can be pretty dumb. Being a picture disc, it sounds like shit. That is made worse by the fact the plastic sleeve is incredibly tight, so on the few occasions I played it, my fat fingers made a bit of a mess of the grooves on the b-side. The start of that side is incredibly muffled (that said, that can't all be me - maybe it’s just poorly pressed).

I've been embarrassed to own this record for the vast majority of the time I've owned. At least with other embarrassing albums they mostly had a time when I was a fan to reflect nostalgically on, but that isn't the case here. Luckily, it's a picture disc, so nobody browsing the spines of my record boxes would ever know it was there, which is comforting to know; out of sight, out of mind.

Format: 12", picture disc, numbered

Tracks: 12

Cost: £10 new

Bought: Record Fair, Southampton

When: 26/01/02

Colour: Picture disc

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Amen - The Waiting 18

About six months after finding the Too Hard To Be Free 7" at a record fair, I picked up this picture disc at the same record fair. I'd bought a lot of records that day and was heading home, but browsed through one last stall on the way out. The guy had this 7" for £4 I think, but I had only £2.90 left on me, so I asked him if he'd take that much for it and he begrudgingly accepted. The cheapest one on Discogs is £3, so I reckon I'd got the price right.

The Waiting 18 was the first single from Amen's second album, and far better than Too Hard to Be Free (but not good, don't get me wrong). I remember really digging the chorus at the time - it is a pretty huge chorus - there's something very Alice Cooper about it. The b-side is a scrappy live recording of Justified, another song from their second album. It was recorded in Oxford, which is now where I live (I certainly never thought at 16 that one I'd be sat here listening to this record in Oxford at 32). The whole thing is on a shamelessly gratuitous picture disc of a naked woman within a crucifix, so comes in a black sleeve. The Sex Pistols-style font is more annoying than anything else.

Format: 7", picture disc
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2.90 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 29/07/01
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Amen - Too Hard to Be Free

Amen were another one of those bands that came at a very dangerous time. Any earlier and I'd have had no interest in their style of music, and any later and I'd have seen through it for the gimmicky stuff it was. But instead they struck at the exact right moment. Bastards.

I was still at school when their second album came out, but already I was keen to explore things outside of nu-metal. However, I wasn't in a position to move that far away it seems, as Amen were basically the punk equivalent of nu-metal. It didn't help that I got all of my musical knowledge from Kerrang! magazine, who were big fans of Amen.

It's not all bad, mind you; Kerrang! had the singer of Amen put together a compilation of songs that made it onto a free cd with the magazine. He squeezed a lot on - I think that cd had nearly 30 songs and was my introduction to Refused, Turbonegro, Poison the Well, The Birthday Party and The Distillers (I should dig that cd and listen to it again - I wonder what stuff went over my head then that I might actually enjoy now). I like to think I'd have got into all those bands eventually - they mostly would have been hard to avoid - but it remains my introduction, so I'm pleased of that, and I guess thankful.

So whilst Casey Chaos may have introduced me to some cool music, the years have not been kind to the music he was making. Too Hard to be Free (misspelt as "Too hard too be free" on the reverse of the sleeve - I mean, come on) lacks anything particularly interesting in 2017, 16 years after it was released. The chorus has a bit of something to it, but the rest is pretty flat. I remember thinking they had better songs than that one at the time.

The b-side is a live studio recording of Europe for BBC Radio 1 Rock Show session (which I think I recorded at the time and still have on a minidisc somewhere - such was the time). It's a Killing Joke cover (I now know), but you wouldn't know from looking at the sleeve. I remember thinking it was a highlight of that session. It's the better song of the two now for sure.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 01/06/01
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Music - Getaway

Getaway was another single from The Music's debut album, and another 7" picture disc I bought a record fair for £3, just a few months after buying Take the Long Road and Walk It. As a single Getaway isn't as strong as the others, but it's fine.

The b-side here is Dragon Song, another non-album track. Unlike Alone it wouldn't have sounded out of place on the album, but possibly didn't make the cut because it just wasn't as good. It's also a fine song for the band, but doesn't really do anything they'd already done on a bunch of other songs on the album.

Format: 7", picture disc
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 new
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 25/01/03
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Music - Take the Long Road and Walk It

Take the Long Road and Walk It was one of the singles released from The Music's debut, self-titled album. The People had got a lot of play on MTV ahead of the album release and I'd bought a copy as soon as it came out. I found this 7" at a record fair in Southampton and was fairly happy to add it to my little collection of The Music records. At that age, picture discs were an appealing thing, rather than the pain I know them to as an adult.

It's still a fun song, and very representative of what they were doing at the time. I can't say I play this 7” very often (ever), but I can vividly remember the appeal of the band. The b-side is a slow, mostly acoustic song called Alone; it’s not remotely like anything else the band had released up to that point, but it kinda works. The singer's voice is stretched in different ways, but it's good to hear. I have a few more The Music 7"s, and I probably bought them partly because I enjoyed this b-side so much.

Format: 7", picture disc
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 new
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/10/02
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Red Hot Chili Peppers

If you grew up around the time I did, it was basically compulsory to own a RHCP album, often more than one. I own six, which - with the hindsight of age - is clearly far too many. I stopped after Californication, which I'm pretty sure was the point when most people agreed it was now definitely time to stop - my collection is then six of the seven they'd released up until 1999. Luckily, this is the only one I have on vinyl, so the only one you'll have to read my thoughts on.

A friend of mine who played the bass got into the Chili Peppers after reading a list of the 100 best albums, as rated by a bass guitar magazine; Blood Sugar Sex Magik was number one and he instantly became a huge fan. I picked up a few albums as and when I found them, including this copy of their debut for a mere £3.50 at a record fair (where I also got Blood Sugar Sex Magik on cd on the same day. Needless to say, that would get more play over the years that followed than this one did).

As of this moment, I can't say how many years have passed since the last time the needle hit the record on this album. I don't have mp3s of these songs, so I've not heard these songs in many, many years. Have the years helped it? No. True Men Don't Kill Coyotes was always a highlight and sounds pretty good, all considering. On first listen, all those years ago, I wondered if maybe early Chili Peppers was the era for me having not particularly gelled with the more recent era (despite my rampant album buying I wasn't a huge fan - I felt there was more to get from them that I wasn't seeing so kept buying more). However, Baby Appeal swiftly followed and quickly made me realise that wasn't the case. The real low of the album is Green Heaven, which is musically dull (a feat quite difficult for a funk band) beneath some of the most turgid lyrics surely ever committed to a major label debut. Mummy, Where's Daddy? is pretty dire too. Easily a contender for worst Side Two Track Two.

It's hard to predict when, if ever, I'll play this album again. I'm impressed by how well True Men Don't Kill Coyotes has aged, but that is more than cancelled out by how horrified I am by the rest of the album. I've clearly repressed a lot of memories of it.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 11
Cost: £3.50 second-hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/10/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Nirvana - Bleach

I've been writing this blog for years and this is the first Nirvana record I've written about. It's funny given that Nirvana were one of the first bands everyone got into or heard about - it seemed that every band at my school would cover Smells Like Teen Spirit.

My introduction to Bleach happened back when I was at school. A guy I kinda knew gave a copy of Bleach to a friend and I was instantly intrigued - I had no idea who this band were but assumed they were a new, cool band - this was at least a year before I'd start to get into music properly so I really had no clue. When I found out that Bleach came out in 1989 my world was suddenly opened up to a world of music that was neither current nor of my parent's era (kids with older siblings probably never had this experience).

A little while later I was at the local library with my parents and found a copy of Bleach in amongst the cds you could borrow. It was £1 to borrow a cd and this was before I had a job so I had to spend my very limited pocket-money to hear Nirvana; I decided it was worth the money. When I got home and played the cd I was not remotely prepared for what hit me. Bleach, to my young and uneducated ears, was a wall of noise, fuzz and guitars. I had never heard anything like it.

This isn't some fairy-tale of instantly being converted into a grunge fan though. I recorded the album onto cassette, listened to it a few times before misplacing it somewhere. I wouldn't hear Bleach again until I bought this copy aged 18 - in the intervening years I'd had the typical exposure to Nevermind and In Utero and the cult of Nirvana and a wealth of other music. It was strange going back to Bleach after so much had happened.

Listening to Bleach now, and back at 18, I can't help but think of 13-year-old me sat by my parent's hifi being blasted with punk-rock for the first time. This album is so deeply linked to that early memory it's hard to think of anything else.

In reality, I rarely listen to Nirvana. I fully appreciate the status and importance of the band and I think they were very good, however I don't go back to their albums very often at all. Grunge for me was Soundgarden and Mudhoney. I like Bleach for its raw, dark sound. The comparisons to Melvins are much clearer on this album than anything else Nirvana did and I like that. School, Love Buzz and Negative Creep are by far the highlights for me. They certainly didn't catch my ear so well when I was 13, which is a shame - the wails of "No recess" on School should have been the thing I needed to cut through the wall of noise I perceived. I really should listen to Bleach more often.

I picked up this copy at a record fair in 2003 for a slightly pricey £15 - it is the 2002 reissue, which explains how it is in such mint condition (although I did end up accidentally knifing the bottom edge of the picture sleeve by dropping the record into it on carpet not long after I got it - an important lesson learnt there). I read somewhere that early copies had the "Kurdt" spelling but I guess they decided to crack that out again for the reissue.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 11
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 23/01/03
Colour: White
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - Repeat / Love's Sweet Exile

The 90's were quite a time. This single was a double-A-side (something unheard of these days) released on cd, 7" and two different 12"s. Sadly, this is the less exciting of the 12" versions - without the gatefold sleeve and live version of Stay Beautiful. But it's nice nonetheless. The two A-sides are both songs everyone is familiar with and the third song, Democracy Coma is one of the more readily-found B-sides, being on Lipstick Traces and Stars and Stripes, the (Japanese version of the) US version of Generation Terrorists. A nice song.

I found this for a very reasonable £4 at a record fair in Southampton 15 years ago. It's not in the best shape, but it had already been knocking around for 10 years at that point.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 3
Cost: £4 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 01/06/01
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - New Art Riot E.P.

I'd never heard of the New Art Riot E.P. before I saw a copy of the cd in the HMV in Bournemouth in 1999. I'd just started getting into the Manics and only had their newest album at the time, This Is My Truth, and their first, Generation Terrorists. It was £5, which was quite a lot for four songs especially since I had only just started working and really needed to be spending any money I did have on Christmas presents for my family. I distinctly remember my friend Chris laughing at me for spending so much on a "single".

Of course the joke got worse when I got home and played the cd. New Art Riot is not the Manics at their finest. It's only when you appreciate the EP in the broader context of the history of the Manics that you get the most out of it. This was them at their scrappy beginnings, before they got picked up and convinced they could write good songs. There's not a huge amount of time that passed between this EP and songs like Motown Junk and Motorcycle Emptiness, but the change is pretty extraordinary. After a while, you can start to see the potential hidden behind the terrible production, slightly ridiculous lyrics and dubious vocals (from a man who often has an incredible voice). The songs aren't bad - each has it's merits in some way - but they're not as easily enjoyed as the songs they'd go on to write.

When I bought that cd I was very confused, and 16 years later, I'm not much wiser; why was a copy knocking around in the Bournemouth HMV nine years after it had been released? Surely it hadn't been sat there for nine years. I think the answer is that the label has just never really stopped printing copies of it; why would you if you had music by one of the bands that went on to be one of the biggest bands of the 90's? From what I can tell, it's basically impossible to determine whether a copy is an original 1990 copy or a subsequent repress from the many years that followed. It's quite nice in a way - much like the quote about cans of Coke on the back of the sleeve: "all Cokes are the same and all Cokes are good".

Anyway, a year and a half later I found this very (suspiciously) mint 12" copy at a record fair in Southampton. My Manics collection was in full swing my that point so it obviously had to be bought. I certainly don't play it often, but it's nice to be reminded of the bands early days every now and again.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £5.50 second hand
Bought: Record fair, Southampton
When: 29/07/01
Colour: Black
Etching: Side B: "Motown wot!"
mp3s: no

Silverchair - The Greatest View

The Greatest View is from Silverchair's fourth album, Diorama. I'd found an import copy of Diorama in Essential Music in Southampton sometime before it had a general UK release, which seemed to make me a lot of temporary friends at college as everyone was very keen to hear it. Sadly, Diorama wasn't as great as the first three Silverchair records but did mean that they finally played the UK, giving me a chance to see them.

The Greatest View starts off with a pretty heavy sounding guitar but quickly turns back to the softer sound they were playing around this time. Not a classic. The b-side contains two songs that didn't make it onto the album (which is more than twice the average number). Asylum is a nice-enough, piano-led song but, again, not what I really want from Silverchair. I do remember them playing it the time I saw them and thinking it was a nice treat for the small number of us in the crowd who had this import single. Pins and Needles has something Neon-Ballroom-y about it but with the added style of Diorama in places (yet also the lower quality production you often get with b-sides. I'm not quite sure how it can sound both over-produced and under-produced at once, but it does).

The strangest thing about this record is that the a-side plays at 45rpm but the b-side plays at 33rpm. I don't think I've ever started playing the b-side at the correct speed. This was particularly a chore during the golden years when I had my Rega turntable which required lifting the platter off to change the speed.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 3
Cost: £3 new
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/10/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pop Will Eat Itself - 92F

Around 2002 I was in that rare and lucky situation of having a steady income (from my part time job pushing trolleys) and no real outgoings (because I was a teenager living at home) which meant I bought a lot of records by bands I liked, regardless of whether there was really anything notable on that record or not. A prime example of that is this Pop Will Eat Itself 7".

The a-side is a remix of 92F, a song which I have more remixes of than I care to count. That said, it is one of the better mixes (there's a piano in the mix which adds a lot), although the recording with the female vocals is far more enjoyable than it is with the normal Poppies vocals. Certainly one of their stronger songs either way. The b-side is an instrumental and, whilst interesting enough, isn't anything to write home about; it's the sort of song that might find it's way onto an album as filler.

I probably wouldn't have done anything more interesting with the £2 this record cost me, but it is fairly redundant in my record collection.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/10/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pop Will Eat Itself - Very Metal Noise Pollution

If you wanted a quick introduction to Pop Will Eat Itself, I think the Very Metal Noise Pollution EP would be a perfect place to start. It may only contain four songs, but they sum up everything the band was doing at their peak and each one is brilliant in it's own way. PWEI-zation might as well be an introduction to the band, 92'F was one of their greatest singles and the backing vocals on this version are incredible, Def.Con.One was the Poppies doing hip-hop in a way only they could and Preaching to the Perverted was the token rock song. Four sides of an interesting band and not a dull moment.

This feels like an appropriate time to tell the story of how I got into PWEI. Readers of a certain age will remember the ill-fated and short-lived Sega Saturn, a strange console that started the decline of Sega. (As a side note, it had the curious feature that when used as a cd player you could mute the vocals of any song. I still don't know how it did that.) Anyway, a friend at school sold me his and a bunch of games for very little. I mostly wanted it so I could play Alien Trilogy and because I heard you could play the games in a cd player and listen to the soundtrack; he had Quake and I was keen to hear the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack (long before Trent became an award winning film-score composer). Also in the bundle of games was the impossibly-difficult game Loaded which featured two songs by a band I'd never heard of called Pop Will Eat Itself. The two songs were great (Kick to Kill and RSVP from their final album) and I was happy because I'd discovered a band that I may never have heard of until much later (and I doubt an older-me would have given them so much time). It would be ages before I read anything about who the band were or found out anything more about them. Such were the days before the internet.

I eventually sought out a cheap best-of (Wise Up Suckers) and then found more and more of their records in second hand stores over the next couple of years. I even travelled all the way to London from Lancaster to see them on their 2005 reformation tour, which was an excellent show. Most of my friends thought PWEI were terrible and I guess they had their reasons. In the early 2000's, PWEI weren't a cool band and it seems I'd missed the boat on their music by a good ten years, but I still dug their music. They were a fun band to get into.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £8 new
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/10/02
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Audie Murphy's Saddlebags" Side B: "Size of an elephant"
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours [Picture-disc]

As a bonus post to the earlier one on the regular LP of This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, here is the probably-bootleg Mexican picture-disc I mentioned. Back in those early days of record collecting, I found this picture-disc at a record fair in Southampton. The most notable thing about it is it's abridged tracklisting, finishing on Be Natural and skipping the final trio of Black Dog On My Shoulder, Nobody Loved You and S.Y.M.M. (the break appears after Tsunami rather than after I'm Not Working). I assume this is because picture-discs have less groove depth so require more width to sound better (or at least sound not-shit). The second most note-worthy thing is the Spanish writing in yellow around the edge of the second side giving some details about the release.

When I saw it at the record fair, I thought it was a strange release (mainly for the two reasons above), but I was quite keen to have the album on vinyl and thought it would be a nice addition to the collection (I also bought four MSP cd singles that day). Upon getting it home I discovered two more things - the edges had been well-thumbed and were incredibly crackly, and it was the most warped record I'd ever seen. My record player at the time was a smaller one that had 12" records hanging over two edges when playing and a lid that sort of sat over them when it was closed; this record was so warped that it touch the lid. Over a period of weeks I gradually laid more and more books on top of it and it eventually played fine. Twelve years of being in my collection has probably helped keep it in shape too.

Format: 12" picture-disc
Tracks: 10
Cost: £11 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/01/02
Colour: Picture-disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - The Masses Against the Classes (Jukebox 7")

There was a time, in my younger years, when I thought I'd try to collect everything that the Manic Street Preachers had released. Looking back, this was of course wildly ambitious, but for a few years I bought every Manics record, cd and tape that I could find and afford. My collection remains very far from complete but there are some nice releases in there (the Japanese cd of Gold Against the Soul, the Japanese release of the US release of Generation Terrorists, Lipstick Traces on triple vinyl, etc). One of the more redundant records is this white label jukebox 7" of The Masses Against the Classes, which I found at a record fair in 2002. I didn't have the 10" proper release of the single at the time, so thought it would be a nice edition (having bought the cd the day it came out - I was a massive fan-boy after all).

Both sides play the same (why bother pressing it twice?) but there's no denying that The Masses Against the Classes is a stand-out song from that era of fairly sub-par releases by the band. This is My Truth... and Know Your Enemy weren't terrible albums but certainly not my favourites, and time would judge Lifeblood very poorly. Amongst all this, The Masses Against the Classes was shining gem. It was the Manics being a rock band rather than a pop band. It was also delivered in a uniquely Manics way - a single that wasn't cut from an album and released in just run. There were a lot of great things about it, it's no wonder it made it to number 1.

Format: 7", white label jukebox single
Tracks: 2
Cost: £4 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/01/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no