Nipper has lost his bark!

After last week, she said trying desperately not to come over all smug, it's finally happened, music retailing has moved from the high street.  Poor ol' Nipper.

Well okay, I know that's Birmingham Bull Ring, not Broad Street, but you know what I mean -our town and city centres - with the shock announcement late last night the national music and video retailer HMV was planning on going into administration following poor Christmas sales.
Sounds familiar,eh? And rather like with Jessops they also were being bankrolled by the suppliers who provided much of the January 25% off "Blue Cross" sales stock as did two state owned banks who to put things with my usually matter of factness, want their money back.
Some other similarities include high rents, failure to capitalize on online sales, poor in store stocks (I mean just seven studio albums by the Stones in the branch in a large city branch near me???), uncompetitive online store pricing (Amazon often cheaper).
HMV potentially could of gotten into downloading but after a brief messy store attempt, partnered up with 7Digital who run that for them which would be fine except 7Digital are a big brand in their own right so most would of gone straight to them.
As much as I feel for for all the staff I'm expecting nearly all the branches to go simply because it seems to me you can't run a big chain anymore because of the overheads and also your immediate best sellers, new albums, are stocked by both supermarkets such as ASDA and Tesco cheaply and the likes of Amazon for those who want cds but many more  prefer to download and these can obtained cheaply from the big three Amazon, iTunes and 7Digital.
You can do niche cd selling from a small side street location with an internet presence backed by a warehouse.
Hmv failed also to capitalize on the "Vinyl revival" by stocking few new and re-issue titles that many who like a physical album buy which was the tipping point for me becoming fed  up of having to order run of the mill cd titles only to return later at my expense to collect, getting an account at Amazon  ordering from them. I guess I wasn't alone in that!
I get the nostalgia many are feeling, remembering the first time I visited HMV Oxford Street London and the Manchester store still having those records and the many BritPop vinyl  titles on 7" and 12" lp I bought new that are most collectible.
I just feel by years end the high street will be that much the poorer.

Wall Street shuffle

"The online Miss with masters degree in punnery" is the tag line at my account at a certain social network which as those unfortunate enough to encounter me know is true enough so why would it surprise anyone that among many music acts I liked 10cc, a Manchester based on would be one?
Simply apart from their excellent musicianship each being multi-talented coming on as a budgie on supercharge Trill, the bands lyricists shared the same love of punnery as I do as well as sending whole genres of music with style.
Recently I got this Dutch 3 cd compilation:

This is a distillation over three cds and 51 tracks of the total output of the group from 1970 as Hotlegs through the peaks of tracks like 1975's Life's a Minestrone with epic punnery and great use of nonsense chanting of minestrone in syllables to their last album from 1983 plus for good measure some 80's gems by Godley and Creme such as Cry and Under Your Thumb that are in the same style.Tracks like I'm Mandy, Fly Me, Good Morning Judge, One Night in Paris (a mini opera of Parisienne fun set in Stockport of all places) are all desert island stuff for me. Did UK pop in the 70's get anymore intelligent without getting all po-faced?
Including tracks by Wax, the band formed by Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold, might of appealed to completists but I feel regardless of merit, they would just jar next to the 10cc material and in any event are included on the Music Club Deluxe Andrew Gold double compilation issued a few years back that I'd recommended to Andrew Gold fans.
The mastering for those are concerned as much as I am about the trend in the last 15 years toward louder more bloated sounding cds is pretty good if not quite up to the dynamic contrasts of the original  mid 80's Mercury era 10cc albums issued in Europe or the original Greatest Hits cd issued in the 80's.
For the modest price this set cost's it's worth owning either on it's own or in conjuction with a collection of original studio albums.
1997's remasters done by Roger Wake which remain the only in print regular editions are frankly crap -a word I'd seldom use on this blog ever - lacking detail, distorted complete with obvious tape drag. People, don't waste your money on them as even the original artwork included in say the 80's cd of  How Dare You has gone AWL for the remastered edition replaced by an essay of sorts.

Whisper in your ear!

This entry is having to be prepared in Notepad(tm) as throughout today my internet has been flipping itself off just at the moment when you've typed a well thought out comment and hit 'submit'.  Most frustrating.
Frustrating also is when HMRC decides to apply VAT on a item posted in the European Union  which realy isn't ment to happen however I feel they often make up the 'rules' as they go along.
Anyway to business and matters soulful.
In 2002 apart from the Shalamar reissues I once talked about Sanctuary who own the UK rights to the SOLAR back catalogue decided to start a complete Whispers reissue campaign which got me interested as someone who did like this soul groups music having bought both the 1994 30th Anniversary set and 1999's And The Beat Goes On 2 cd compilation albums.
For reasons that I honestly can't remember, this 8 cd series laid incomplete in my collection as I think I'd started at the end(!) probably because my original cd of 1987's Just Gets Better In Time had gone all sticky in the way many cds made by Nimbus in the UK during that period were prone to and I was thinking more about getting a  replacement.
In time I did get "The Whispers" famed for the smash hit And The Beat Goes On as well as My Girl coupled with 1987's seasonal album Happy Holidays and Imagination from 1981 with its smash It's A Love Thing coupled with This Kind Of Loving from the same year that suffered from the same fate as other albums on SOLAR at this period little promotion as the distribution deal was changing. A few years later I found the second disc in the series Bingo-The Janus Years which as the name suggests covered all the material recorded for Janus Records  a division of Chess featuring the Bingo album and a favourite song  by them of mine Mother For My Children from 1974 but that was it.
Recently I've finally get around to completing it aided by something I didn't have back then - Amazon - although quite a number of these discs are discontinued with single cds versions still available new from Unidisc of Canada.
The Whispers story on album begins around 1969/70 and the Soul clock label so I picked up 'Planets Of Life the Soul Clock recordings' because apart from that album you do get the other non album 45's which set the scene for the moved to Janus from 1972 through 1974. A word of warning the Canadian cd doesn't have the title track and the German is poorly copied from a lp with lots of filtering to hide crackles etc.
From Janus they moved in 1975 to Soul Train a label created by the people behind the legendary Soul Train black music tv show releasing One For The Money (also a 45) and Open Up Your Love from 1975 and 1976 respectively.
1979 saw the release of the acclaimed Headlights abum a favourite of mine a with it's singles (Olivia) Lost and Turned Out and the 'quiet storm' Lets Go All The Way which in this series is coupled Whisper In Your Ear featuring the single Can't Do Without Your Love. These were the first albums they issued on the SOLAR imprint.
Finally we get to 1981's Love Is where You Find It featuring In The Raw as well as Emergency, one of the first albums to have a uptempo dancing and slow romancing side configurations which for this series is coupled with 1983's Love Is Love released during a period of very rapid change in R&B  music as electro and rap was making its way into the mainstream.

Dancing On The Valentine

Yes, it was 25 years ago that I bought this VHS EP video of Duran Duran performing three songs from the Seven and the Ragged Tiger album. This was video, issued by Picture Music International/EMI, was one of first to be done in stereo.
I still have my original copy in excellent condition. I guess everyone has a videotape collection and this is a part of my 'legacy' collection.

My Duran Duran VHS video collection
















The track list for this videoalbum first issued in April 1983 on VHS and Betamax is as follows:

Rio

Planet earth

Lonely in your nightmare

Careless memories

My own way

Hungry like the wolf

Nightboat

Girls on film (Night version)

Save a prayer

The chauffeur

Is there something I should know

The videos for Lonely In Your Nightmare and The Chauffeur aren't available on DVD plus the version of Girls On Film is the 18 CERT (US NG-17 version) which has been re-edited for later issues including the DVD's. This is a tape you sure need to hang on to!


























This Video came out on VHS and Betamax and is a EP meaning it has only 3 videos on it but retailed for much less than a full video back then.
Issued in 1984 it has the videos for The Reflex, Union Of The Snake and New Moon On Monday. These titles are available om THE GREATEST HITS dvd.


















This came out in 1989 and has the videos from the singles issued from Notorious and Big Thing albums. A big thing at the time was the the audio was Digitally Mastered on this release and it sounds amazing on my Hifi stereo VHS machine!


















This video is of a live concert from 1989 part of the "Skin Trade" tour and is highly recommended.VHS only release!