Wilde shots

Following in the footsteps of greats such as David Bowie, John Lennon and, er, Andrea Corr, the ever fancy-able Kim Wilde will also be releasing her very own covers album "Snapshots", featuring fourteen of her fave songs from the past thirty years or so.
I was of course curious to find out the tracklisting, and found that thereby hangs a funny tale!
Kim's official site wanted to reveal the chosen tracks to the eager public three at a time, starting with East 17's "It's Alright" (which I've never heard..is it the same as the Pet Shop Boys' song?), The Cure's Inbetween Days (excellent choice!) and About You Know (ah-ah--oo-oo...). However, those hard working Teutonics at amazon.de made eine kleine cock-up and accidently published the whole tracklist on their site . .oopz, ja! Now it's there for all to see as well as on wikipedia and other sites.

Further choices from Kim include Black's Wonderful Life, the Buzzcock's Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone), Erasure's A Little Respect and Mike Oldfield's To France, so could be a bit of a cracker.. (a bit like Kim really). Final track is David Bowie's Kooks, which I'd never heard before. The Kooks got their name from it, apparently

Any road, here's Kim (phwoooar) in 1980-something with a spot of Water on Glass.

Incantado

A remastered edition of Mike Oldfield's Incantations album is re-released this week, complete with some unreleased material and brand spanking new stereo remixing, new cover art and stuff. The best format would seem to tbe the 'de-luxe' edition with 2 CDs and a DVD with 5.1 remasters and some video material too. Details here at the official shop

I've always really liked Incantations since it came out in 1978. It's long (originally a double LP), complex, and just a tad pretentious. Perfect.

Although it continues Oldfield's characteristic mainly instrumental style (save for the Hiawatha recital-singing bit and a few choirs here and there), it's a departure from the more hippy-folky Tubular Bells-Hergest Ridge-Ommadawn mould. In fact its the album our Michael made after undergoing his Exegesis coming out of his shell therapy. He even went so far as to cut his hair, shave his beard off and wear a jacket for the photo on the cover of Incantations,which has sadly been replaced by an iceberg thingy (which is actually shaped like the rock on the original). No matter - the music's ace.

It's also the period he went and did a disco single called "Guilty" which is apparently based on Incantations too, but you can jig around to it and shout 'I'm guilty!' for no apparent reason. Bring it on Mike!

Spandau Ballet - Chant No 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)

I love 1981 - pt. 14

And hail the new club culture of Thatcher's Britain with Spandau Ballet abandoning their Baltic tablecloth look in favour of the smarter, sharper zoot suits of London's trendy nightclubs.
It's the summer of 1981 and storming up the charts this week is ver Spands new single, the clumsily titled Chant No 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On) with a new look and new sound featuring funky guitars, horn (oo-eer) section and expensive doof-doof electronic drums to boot.

Although the preceding Glow had hinted at a slightly new sound, Chant No. 1 was a sharp change of direction for the band who had obviously caught on to the fact that the Blitz style make-up and clothing, and music were out and this was what was going down, Beat Route (geddit?) 'n' all.

As with Depeche Mode's New Life there was also a 12" version with extended mixes of the A side and the B Side Feel the Chant, which, as a variation on Chant No. 1 must make it one of the first "extended remixes" of its kind. Sadly, Feel did not emerge on the recent re-releases in any form. Anyways here's the Chant video but it's Vemo you'll have to go all the way over to YouTube to see it in all its fresh-faced and horny glory.

lyrics in Smash Hits

Happy 18th..

My lovely daughter will be 18 this week, and although she won't care for this much I just wanted to post a track from New Order's Republic album, also 18 this year, which I was listening to quite a lot at the time as my wife had given it to me for our anniversary a few weeks earlier.

I would've chosen either 'Regret' or 'Young Offender' as favourites but the titles hardly seemed appropriate for the occasion. I would also have liked 'Times Change' too if only because it features the line "life will never be the same" which is kind of appropriate after the birth of your first child... although I think the song is about something rather more foreboding. So here's World (aka The Price of Love) which is fittingly summer-y and you can dance to it at your party... perhaps.

Happy Birthday..

FO-TV: Transmission Two

..it's 1981 on FO-TV for this special programme with an electrical / electronic theme

Found Objects Television 2 from Found Objects on Vimeo.