Mother Love Bone - Apple

I always thought I should have got more into Mother Love Bone and, listening to Apple now, I still don't know why I didn't. The album always felt like this tussle between 70's and 80's glam rock and 90's grunge, and that conflict got in the way of me being able to really enjoy it; it's a key part in the beginning of grunge, but the hard rock part felt dirty, tainting its status as an album that started the genre that defined the 90's.

I'd read about the band before I heard them, and their connection to Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog and Soundgarden was irresistible; how the singer, Andrew Wood, died just before this album was released and that Chris Cornell wrote most of the Temple of the Dog album as a tribute to him (naming it after a line in Man of Golden Words), essentially introducing Eddie Vedder to the other guys in Pearl Jam. I got the Temple of the Dog album in 2004 and loved it. I occasionally thought about getting a copy of this album on cd when I saw it come up on eBay, but for some reason never did.

In 2007 I had one of the best charity shops finds ever, and picked up this and Soundgarden's Louder Than Love for less than a fiver each - the wonders of the age when people priced things before Discogs. Both were in great condition considering their age so I snapped them up. I never found anything even half as good in that shop again. It really is a huge album, and if you can get past the glam-rock leanings, it's really great (although I have to make a real, conscious effort to do so). Stardog Champion has a brilliant riff and, actually, the same can be said for Holy Roller too (a song only ruined by the spoken-word section and the use of the word "love rock"). Heartshine is another great song. The second half doesn't reach such heights after that point, although the closer is nice. Looking at the song titles I've written here, you can see where that dirty glam-rock feeling comes from.

Anyway, as I wrote this, I just managed to knock some Lego onto the record as it played. My heart sank. Luckily it's just left a surface scratch and still plays fine. That comment about it being in great condition now seems a bit like I was tempting fate. Definitely going to review where my X-Wing model sits now.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 11
Cost: £4.80 second hand
Bought: Oxfam Books and Records, Winchester
When: 23/07/07
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

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

Him - Buried Alive By Love

Him were always terrible; I knew that even when I bought this record, but when I was 16 I thought their logo was kinda cool, and so having it on a shaped picture disc was too good an opportunity to miss (plus, even the notion of a shaped picture disc seemed cool at the time). I think I also hoped that they'd end up being huge, and that a shaped picture disc of their logo would be worth something. That, obviously, didn't happen.

When I was 15 we went to see Alice Cooper for Hugh's 15th birthday. On the way in there was a person handing out promo cassettes (yes, cassettes) publicising Him's newest album, Razorblade Romance. It had snippets of four songs, including their cover of Chris Isaac's Wicked Game. I can't remember thinking much of the other songs, but I enjoyed the cover, having vague memories of the original. I'd also read a few bits about the band in Kerrang! Magazine and toyed with the idea of getting their album and becoming a fan. However, I never found a copy for a good price and quickly realised that they were probably shit, and that goth-rock wasn't a genre I wanted to be a part of. I dodged a bullet really.

However, in that short period of thinking they could be an interesting band, I did become quite fond of their logo, which adult-me knows to be thoroughly ridiculous. That, combined with the fact this record was only £1, made me decide to buy it. If, I reasoned, the music was terrible, it's not much to spend on an interesting shaped record purely the sake of looking at it. As it happened, the music was terrible, so I'm pleased it wasn't expensive. I've not spent that much time looking at it over the years, having filed it away it amongst my 10" records. The a-side has an objectionably catchy chorus, but the b-side is pure drivel.

Format: Shaped 7" picture disc

Tracks: 2

Cost: £1 new

Bought: HMV Winchester

When: 07/05/03

Colour: Picture disc

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Plan B - Mama

This 7" really adds very little to my record collection. In fact, it's definitely one of the most unnecessary vinyl purchases I've ever made. It's something of a comfort that it was only £1, from back in the day when you could buy 7" records for just £1. On the other hand, for £1 you usually got at least two songs, but here we are treated to just one song and an etched b-side - and not a very interesting etching at that.

Mama was one of the singles from Plan B's debut album, Who Needs Actions When You've Got Words - an album that relied heavily on the songs he’d released on EPs and various smaller releases ahead of the major label debut. On top of that, it just wasn't a very good song. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Mama was one of my least favourite Plan B songs. Between the shitty lyrics about crack pipes and that terrible chorus it really did nothing for me. It was too R&B musically and too cliched lyrically - there was nothing to enjoy about either part. I was disappointed by the album in general, and this was the pinnacle of that disappointment. There's really no need to own that song on a 7" on it's own.

Format: 7", picture sleeve
Tracks: 1
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 12/07/06
Colour: Black
Etching: Laser-etched lyrics
mp3s: no

Plan B - Sick 2 Def / No Good

Sick 2 Def was another song I remember from Plan B's incredible Roskilde set in 2005; it's arguably the pinnacle of what he was doing back then – acoustic and mind-blowingly dense raps, more intricate than a lot of rappers would dare to try. The third verse is of course the real party-piece, where he raps a story in reverse about a man getting stabbed because the attacker heard a Plan B song. He credits Nas with doing it first, but makes it his own. It's hard to not stop what you're doing and listen to the carefully told reverse story reach it's crescendo. I'm still impressed by it, even 12 years after first hearing it.

No Good is to Sick 2 Def on this 7” what Kidz was to Dead and Buried on the first 7" – annoyingly produced rather than acoustic, but still with interesting raps. The raps themselves pale in comparison to Sick 2 Def, but almost any song would, so I guess using a song that sounds entirely different is the best trick to make them stand apart without that comparison.

I don't know exactly when this 7" came out, but I found it in my local HMV when I was back from Australia for Christmas. I was pleased at the time to add it to my collection – I suspect I would have gone to some effort to get a copy had I known it was coming out. Of course, now, I'm less fussed, but it is worth the money alone to have that incredible acoustic rendition of Sick 2 Def.

Format: 7", gatefold sleeve

Tracks: 2

Cost: £2.50 new

Bought: HMV Winchester

When: 09/01/06

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

The Used - The Taste of Ink

One of the first thoughts I had about The Used was that they sounded a bit like Refused. Writing that now, I know it to be a thoroughly ridiculous statement; I struggled to write it just then, it's that ludicrous. However, the first song of theirs I heard was A Box Full of Sharp Objects - I caught most of the video on MTV when visiting my uncle. There were certain similarities between that video and the video for New Noise (or so I remember) and it was a promising single. At the end I saw that it was by a band called The Used and make a mental note to check them out.

The following spring they'd released their album and second single, The Taste of Ink. I'd bought Hugh's copy of the album from him (for £10 - I must have been planning to buy it myself, and I imagine he was keen to offload his fairly quickly, so I think I paid pretty much what he paid for it) and then a few weeks later picked up this 7" for £1 in my local HMV. I was still enjoying the album then, so it seemed like a good purchase. As a single, it's surprisingly catchy still. That said, I'm not sure why I'm surprised - it's so smooth and over-produced that it was basically pop, and by it's nature pop is catchy. The b-side, Just a Little has a shamelessly tribal drum beat at the start and a very heavy break before another very smooth chorus; it's a strange combination that doesn't quite work (hence the song not making the album, I guess).

Not a single I've played a great deal over the years. I saw the band twice over the years - Reading 2003 and Leeds 2007 - the first time I was underwhelmed and by the second I was long over the band.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 10/03/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Mew - Am I Wry? No

Mew released a single called She Came Home For Christmas in 1997. Somehow, in the early 2000's I stumbled across the video for it on MTV and thought it was nice (although it's now been at least 15 years since I heard it, so I wonder what it sounds like now). Looking at Discogs, it might be because ...Christmas was also on Frengers, an album that collected some of their earlier releases and was released in 2000.

Anyway, I kept the name in my mind as a band I should check out. In 2003 my local HMV happened to stock a 7" of their newest single for a very reasonable £1, so I bought it one morning before college (along with a cheap cd of Minor Threat's first demo tape - quite the odd pairing of purchases). Am I Wry? No did much less for me at the time than I remember She Came Home For Christmas doing. In a sense there was a comparable grandeur - only here it was in the songwriting, rather than the song itself; they squeeze a lot into that song, possibly at some detriment to it. The b-side is a live recording of Behind the Drapes from the same album, which I remember preferring to the a-side. The gentle backing vocals just hovering behind the lead singer later in the song always appealed to me. It was a much simpler affair, but nice.

Anyway, that was the extent of my dabbling with the band Mew. However, in the 14 years that followed I'd occasionally see their name pop up, often from friends I wouldn't have expected to be fans. Recently, Frengers was reissued for Record Store Day and lots of people got very excited. It's nice that the band grew a large and obsessive fanbase whilst I wasn't paying attention. That's much nicer than finding out that they faded away to obscurity.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 16/06/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Jane's Addiction - Just Because

Twelve years after they released Classic Girl as a single, Jane's Addiction reunited and released their fourth album, Strays. A week ahead of the album, they released the single Just Because and I remember it being plastered all over MTV that summer. I bought the 7" in HMV the day it came out and went into town the following Monday with the sole purpose of buying the album. That day ended up being a far more significant day since the MVC in town had a sale on, which meant hundreds of pretty niche albums were £4. I bought a couple of albums I knew I'd enjoy, but also chanced £4 on a band I'd never heard of called The Paper Chase. Without too much hyperbole, that album started a chain of events that introduced me to so much incredible music that I can't even begin to describe (although I did try to here). I remember thinking at the time that Strays was a fine album, but that took up very little space in my mind compared to how excited I was about The Paper Chase. I'd spent a few years loving older bands like Jane's Addiction, but their reunion actually threw me into a whole world of other music, such that they'd seem drastically less exciting. It was something of a turning point.

2003 was before a lot of bands started doing the whole reunion thing, so it was much less of a cliche back then. On top of that, Just Because was actually a great single - it certainly gave you the idea that Strays could be great. It wasn't, of course; few reunion albums are. I've not listened to it a whole lot over the years, but I remember thinking there were too few risks - there were no ten-minute songs (let alone back-to-back) and nothing shocking (excuse the pun). Even the artwork was boring. But Just Because was an exiting single (and the video with all the flashing lights helped), so I got into it a bit. The b-side is a live recording of a song that also made it onto Strays, Suffer Some, which is, without being too critical, a very run-of-the-mill Jane's Addiction song.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.35 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 14/07/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

One Minute Silence - I Wear My Skin

Just before OMS released their third album, they released I Wear My Skin as a single, which I eagerly bought, so that I could hear a bit more of the album ahead of its release. As a indication of what I was like back then, three days later I had my long hair dreadlocked into 30-or-so very thick mats of hair. It was the early 2000's and I was into metal; it was acceptable at the time.

I Wear My Skin was a much stronger single than We Bounce and, if I remember correctly, great fun to jump around to at their shows. The break before the final chorus and the outro are particular highlights. The b-side is a non-album track, something of a rarity around that time for the band. It starts off too messy, but comes together and has quite a huge chorus. With a bit of re-working, it could easily have been an album track (and would have actually been better than a couple that did make it on there, as far as I remember).

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 24/06/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

One Minute Silence - Revolution

In 2003 One Minute Silence released their follow-up to 2000's Buy Now... Saved Later, an album that was hugely popular amongst my friends and me. Quite a few months before the album coming out, they released the first single from it, Revolution, on a one-sided 10" with laser-etched b-side. I only had a couple of 10" records at the time and none of my records had any etching beyond text in the run-out groove. I really had no idea what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised to see the OMS logo on the reverse. I ordered this copy into my local HMV and remember asking so often whether it had arrived that they told me to stop asking and they'd phone when it finally arrived.

Revolution is one of the highlights of One Lie Fits All and has aged surprisingly well. I've listened to that album a few times in the last 10 years or so, and still get some enjoyment from it. The production was slick and the songs sounded great, which helped a lot - their particular segment of nu-metal could have easily sounded shit in 2017, but actually still kinda works. Or maybe it's just so steeped in nostalgia that I can't separate the two. I always really liked Revolution so it's hard to say if it's objectionably a good song, but I like it so that's all that really matters. I think people were put off by the slick sound of the album at the time, and you can kinda see why. But it's still a heavy song, and if you crank it up loud enough you can hear the bass line well enough to hear that.

After that we get We Bounce, a song that would eventually be an album track and another single, much closer to the album launch. It always did less for, but gets going after a slightly uneven opening. Finally there's a live recording of Holy Man one of the singles and highlights from the second album. Listening to it now brings back so many memories of going absolutely fucking mental in the pit at their shows, something we did almost routinely in our teen years. That breakdown in the middle makes me feel tired now thinking about how I used to throw myself around to it. My body definitely could not handle that anymore.

Format: One-sided 10", laser-etched b-side
Tracks: 3
Cost: £3.60 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 03/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: Band logo etched on b-side
mp3s: no

Transplants - Diamonds and Guns

This is a strangely embarrassing 7". I think part of me knew that at the time, but Diamonds and Guns was just so damn catchy that I had to buy into the whole thing the Transplants were doing. It felt fresh at the time - nu-metal had been around for a bit, so why not let punk take its turn with rap? Writing that in 2017 feels dirty, but at the time it was kinda acceptable. Maybe.

Diamonds and Guns is shamelessly catchy; it's like they weren’t even trying to hide how popular they wanted that song to be. The piano and the "woah woahs" from the off scream "huge MTV hit", which is not at all a surprise - for a punk band they were not worried about trying to reach the masses. I remember the video appearing on one of the music channels and it instantly being hugely popular and plastered all over MTV that spring. It's funny, because the first two verses are incredibly flat but, for me, it was always all about the half-rapped, half-shouted vocals that came in later. The b-side is another album track, Tall Cans in the Air, which benefits from the shouted/rapped vocals throughout and a much rockier chorus.

I bought this 7" a few days after buying their debut, self-titled album. It was £1, so it felt rude not to (I use that excuse a lot, but £1 is a very nice price to pay for music). Plus, I was still enjoying the single at the time and thought it'd be nice to have it on vinyl, albeit shitty picture disc vinyl. I don't remember being bothered that the b-side was an album track, although I'd only had the album a few days, so maybe I just didn't notice.

Musically, the band hasn't aged well, which isn't a surprise. I doubt even the most hardcore Rancid fans consider Transplants anything more than a piss-stain on history.

Format: 7", picture disc

Tracks: 2

Cost: £1 new

Bought: HMV Winchester

When: 07/04/03

Colour: Picture disc

Etching: none

mp3s: no

The Music - The Truth is No Words

The final 7" I bought from The Music's first album (and maybe the final 7" they released from it? There weren't that many more songs on it that weren't already singles!) was The Truth is No Words. It’s arguably a better song than Getaway, but lacks vocally - we know the guy can sing, so why he doesn't try on the verses here is beyond me. The b-side, What's It For is another simple acoustic song that would have sounded thoroughly out of place on the album. It's fine, but I certainly wouldn't consider it a vital part of their back-catalogue.

As a final note, I do enjoy the consistent art style they went for over the first EPs, singles and album - it's simple but it works. Whilst picture discs sound shit because the vinyl is so thin, this artwork was surely always begging to be on a picture disc like these ones.

Format: 7", picture disc

Tracks: 2

Cost: £1.50 new

Bought: HMV Winchester

When: 17/02/03

Colour: Picture disc

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Peeping Tom - Mojo

I was pretty excited when the Peeping Tom album came out. Actually, that's an understatement; I was on a huge Mike Patton kick at the time having recently discovered the excellent Loveage album and was loving hearing his voice against something less abrasive than Fantomas. An article I read had a quote from Mike along the lines of "the Peeping Tom album is what I want songs on the radio to sound like" (it always amaused me that his dream radio station had him singing on every song). The list of collaborators was ridiculous - from Rahzel and Dan the Automator on this song, Massive Attack and, most strangely, Norah Jones (although her song is excellent).

Unsurprisingly for an album designed to play like a radio station, there are a lot of hits, but Mojo certainly works as the single. The b-side Preschool is good too, but would have been the weakest track on the album had it made the cut. Nice yellow vinyl. I remember the day I bought this record I ended up going straight to a party at my friend Guy's house. He had some turntables set up in his living room and we played the record a couple of times at the start. It went down well if I remember correctly. Good times.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 14/08/06
Colour: Transparent yellow
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill

Despite enjoying this record, I still haven't got round to buying Thom Yorke's solo album, The Eraser. I remember it being pretty big news when it came out and I heard the album a few times when I lived in Cardiff, but I've simply never bought a copy. I will one day, probably.

Around the time it came out, Harrowdown Hill was released as a single and I found this copy in HMV in Winchester. Harrowdown Hill is an excellent song (to the extent I'm wondering now why I didn't buy the album). The simple but upbeat bass line carries the song through fading only when Thom's vocals rise for the chorus. The b-side Jetstream is a glitchier affair and less my thing, but still quite listenable.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 11/09/06
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Million Dead - Living the Dream

This is the only Million Dead vinyl I own. I have both of their albums on cd, but I don't think either were ever pressed on vinyl. They caught our attention pretty early on when some of their singles made their way onto MTV2. I didn't really know what sort of style of music Million Dead played at the time but I knew I liked. It would be years before I discovered that Frank Turner was also from Winchester, but that's another story.

I'd got A Song to Ruin shortly after it came out and thought it was great (it's an album I still go back to regularly now). I was pretty pleased to find this 7" in the HMV in Winchester when it came out, mostly because I had no idea they had a second album coming out. This was back in the day when 7" records were dirt-cheap and this one in particular set me back £1. I could have saved a further 10% by using my student discount card, but it just didn't seem worth the effort. Anyway, Living the Dream is another fine Million Dead song and builds up to a huge outro, which is always nice. Tonight Matthew might be the only post-hardcore song written about Stars in Their Eyes and probably very confusing to any non-British fans. It's a pretty good song too; the sort of b-side that could easily have been an album track (although perhaps it was the obscure lyrical content that put them off including it).

The thing that always amazes me most about Million Dead is that I think I never actually saw them live. According to Wikipedia, the only time they played Reading Festival was the one year I didn't go (2005 - I was living in Australia so I had a good excuse). They almost certainly played nearby a bunch of times and toured with bands I probably would have gone to see, but I somehow never saw them. I've seen Frank solo many times since they broke up, but he's pretty adamant that a reunion is off the cards. I've heard they were quite something live and they certainly had the songs. It's shame but another reminder to check out bands when you get the chance.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV, Winchester
When: 28/03/05
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Soundgarden - Louder Than Love

When I was 16 or 17 it was announced that Oxfam was going to open a dedicated books and records shop in Winchester. This was pretty exciting news because whilst MVC and HMV were keeping us in new cds we also knew that second-hand and charity shops often contained some bargain gems on both cd and vinyl. When it opened I was, of course, disappointed; most of the stock was from 70's pop bands and a lot of it was quite expensive - they had some supposedly rare Beatles records in the racks for £50 or so, getting gradually more and more knackered (although I did get a copy of Dirty by Sonic Youth on cassette for £1.50 not long after it opened). It wasn't as great as I hoped, but I still regularly checked the stock for any pleasant surprises.

On the 23rd of July 2007, there were two very pleasant surprises in the racks - someone had donated a copy of Louder Than Love by Soundgarden and Apple by Mother Love Bone, both on vinyl in reasonable condition and for less than a fiver each (I assume they were from the same person - it's an easy assumption to make). It was a little grunge-rock treasure trove that day. I wonder if the same person had donated any other records but someone else had got there first. Either way, an excellent find.

That day wasn't the first time I heard Louder Than Love though. My friend Guy had leant me a copy when we were at college and I hadn't enjoyed it that much. I think I had all of Soundgarden's albums at that point except for Louder Than Love and Ultramega Ok (the latter of which, criminally, I still don't own) so it was a bit different to the sound I'd been used to. Superunknown was huge for me back then (and still now) and Badmotorfinger had some massive hits. Louder Than Love wasn't so easily accessible and for years I thought I simply didn't like it. Years later when I found this copy in Oxfam I knew I had to give it a second try and I'm glad I did.

Ugly Truth is a bit of a slow opener but Hands All Over and Gun set the tone for the rest of the album much better. Loud Love is pretty excellent too but the highlight of the album is Big Dumb Sex, which is far more enjoyable and catchy than you might expect from a song with the chorus "I wanna fuck, fuck, fuck you". The reprise of Full on Kevin's Mom caps the album off in excellent style. In fact, there seem to be an awful lot of songs that are probably about sex on this album, something not so obvious on any other Soundgarden album. Perhaps touring left them in a certain frame of mind. That cover is one of my favourites too - I'm a big fan of the energetic-live-picture-album-cover and this is a prime example. Listening to it now, I still see why I wasn't taken by it all those years ago, but I'm glad I gave it a second chance because it's a huge album.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 12
Cost: £4.30 second hand
Bought: Oxfam Books and Records, Winchester
When: 23/07/07
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no