One thing I went through during the nineteen nineties was format standardization usually across whole artists as I bought things on tape for quite a period and lp record before that so albums in no particular order were across them
The downside of that is some special albums went in forms I did love and this did include what I regard as Janet Jackson's two most consistently good albums that matched personal expression with musical experimentation.
Released in April 1986 Control was her breakout album after two very so-so albums issued while being a child actor and Control is the key word in this as it was her adult statement of independence exploring issues and linking up with Jam and Lewis produce who throgh their production company FlyteTime to the signature Minneapolis funk sound popularized by Prince to new heights.
This featured four singles Nasty, What Have You Do For Me lately, When I Think of You and Let's Wait Awhile who wold very well.
This copy is a mint first UK copy.
Her follow up, issued as the buzz around brother Michael's Bad album dropped in late 1989 took the same team but instead invited people to look at the world around them such as disadvantaged children, under educated and excluded young adults, the drugs issue touched on memorably by Mrs Reagan in the Just say No campaign and also encourage positivism, the belief things can be turned around.
This had a number of hits across 1989 and 1990 with Miss You Much, Escapade, Black Cat that featured heavy metal guitar solo, Alright and Lonely.
I own a seven version cd of Black cat.
One issue with the original vinyl issue I had was that - it was a single disc for just over an hours worth of dense loud music so some songs were trimmed and it had be cut at low volume meaning it could and did sound noisy on replay.
There was only a half inch gap between the end of last song and the start of the paper label making the end tracks sound poorer than normal.
In that era the lp was something issued as an after though with majority sales on tape and cd where such issues simply don't exist.
In July of this year this album was reissued on vinyl as a double rectifying that failure using heavy 180 gram vinyl and that version is now restored to my collection.
There's only one set of things that have been on everyones minds this week and it's also pointless even trying to say "this will happen" cos things are in such a state of disarray that frankly no one knows what might happen and where we'll end up.
It's around that thing we have been unable to escape in the last three years that have seen two general elections, three prime ministers and a european union election - yes Brexit.
Let's start with proroguing parliament, a measure applied from last week by the Prime Minister and given approval for by the Head of State (The Queen) that really wound some people up saying to pause parliament is undemocratic.
First thing to say is often it is paused typically whenever a Prime Minister wishes to bring in new measures and is more often than not before the Opening of Parliament by the Queen.
There is no legal restriction on the number of times in any term it may be nor if the number of days. Boris Johnson wanted 23 days in part for his own legislative program apart from resolving the conundrum that is Brexit and John Major got more in controversial circumstances in the 1990's.
A appeal against it in Scotland was rejected because it was found to be Lawful and all was was a matter of Political Judgement not reserved for legal interpretation.
We can say he is therefore entitled to do it.
Part of the significance around the timing is as things stood come October 31st, we would be leaving the EU with or without a deal and it is the idea of leaving without that is exercising Members of Parliament to the point the passed a law preventing it.
Let's back track a little here.
No Prime Minister said they wanted to leave without an agreement which for the avoidance of doubt is undertaking agreed by the United Kingdom AND the EU BEFORE we start trade negotiations covering tariffs, customs arrangements, plus the major issue of the Northern/Southern Irish border.
You are simply are not allowed to start those negotiations UNTIL you have agreed to leave with the EU or have left by any other means making it necessary.
The EU is insistent on the so called Irish Backstop that has Northern Ireland subject to EU customs rules to keep trade flowing without restrictions and borders with the Irish Republic unless THEY felt other workable arrangements could replace it no ifs, buts or maybes AND entirely their own call.
The UK Parliament voted three times down an agreement between then Prime Minister Theresa May and the EU that included just that because it disagreed totally with it (and treated one part of the UK Northern Ireland on leaving as if it hadn't).
In a two week period the Speaker very controversially allowed MP's themselves time to discuss and put forward alternative proposal that they did and to which MP's also rejected.
The reason we faced NO DEAL was because-actually Parliament CANNOT agree a deal itself that the EU can also agree to.
This week the same MP's decided with 27 member majority not to allow leaving without a deal even though they themselves can't agree one having had three years to do so a point likened by the Prime Minister as to going round and round like a circus which in that respect regardless of my view is true - we are while saying they haven't been give enough time to discuss Brexit.
I could hold my head in my hands and darm well scream my beeping head off when I hear that as as far as I can that's pretty much most of what Parliament has being done in that time - debating it.
Plus the extra time has to be agreed by the EU (and they don't have to).
The trouble with agreeing the custom union is we HAVE to use EU Customs Agreements with NO say in them and no ability to make our own either so it would not be in the EU but still subject to them. Not really an exit from the EU which the voters wanted.
The problem is they can't agree a beeping thing by way of this agreement before leaving so realistically all you can do is either leave without and get a trade deal in double quick time honouring the referendum AND the european parliament votes OR apply to rejoin the EU.
Reapplying it should be remembered isn't automatically the route to restore the UK to where it was with our opt-outs and exemptions and may even involve agreeing to further measures to bind is in more such as a guaranteed period where will will not be allowed to leave, working toward the adoption of the Euro and so on.
That would tie the hands of any incoming Prime Minister.
It's most unlikely you'd be told what an agreement would be BEFORE you decided to rejoin either which is the converse of the Pro Remain argument against leaving which isn't an improvement on the uncertainty and fear that some people have.
Both leaving without an agreement or reapplying BOTH have risks and within sections of the community potential losers and winners and unless the EU were to set out terms for both first I honest don't think another referendum would really help.
I honestly feel getting involved in the the EU with the unwillingness of Mp's to insist on a referendum at the point of the Maastricht agreement and Lisbon Treaty failed to test the voters enthusiasm for "ever closer union" and I say that as someone who was favourable to the then Common Market and who with some reluctance concluded what increasingly not acceptable within the relationship was not amenable to change from within.
It was the inability of David Cameron to do that around 2015/6 that set all this off and he did tell the EU as much.
We also face the situation that the Prime Minister isn't being allowed to go the country either because a piece of legislation only passed in 2011 by David Cameron and Nick Clegg then leader of the Liberal Democratic Party only allows for breaking a fixed four year term IF you can get 66% of the Mp's to agree and they're not.
Labour are refusing UNTIL No leaving with No Deal is blocked.
That figure is a extremely high bar, almost without precedent which allows the opposition to determine in the kind of mess we are in now not allow the ball in this stand off to be put back to the people to determine by either returning the Governing party with a majority for its program or or the opposition and their alternative.
It needs an amendment to a simple majority of Mp's in a free vote to do the job it is meant to.
Having typed this I'll cuddle up to my plushies - beeping grown up messes!
New Romantic Rules was a website I used to visit in the early 2010's which at the time was hosted on Blogger that specialized in things from acts noted for their 1980's hits although there would be entries from decades either side of it.
Controversially, it via server allowed downloads free of charge on the basis of 'research' before being shut down in that form around 2014.
I have been redoing from legal sources a couple of albums I had originally on tape that i got from that site.
1985's Crush album saw OMD continuing in much the same vein as their earliest albums outside Dazzle Ships with the hits Secret, Le femme accident and guitar driven 88 Seconds in Greensboro
1986's The Pacific Age did better for them aided by the smooth Forever Live and Die and We Love You issued in early 1987 while notable track Southern had samples of Dr Luther King's speeches included.
Some of those early downloads used a primitive Mp3 encoder which could sound mushy and lacking in depth while my new versions use Lame which is the best Mp3 encoder out there.
The current version of the site, worth reading for its write ups on artists can be found Here
One certainty is that every few years or so on this blog there will be a Beatles related post even if I don't go into buying boxes of remixed celebratory reissues of albums or singles which been coming out in the last few years.
This as any beatle fan knows was the last issued Studio album although it was recorded before Abbey Road and tied into the film of the same name that originally was supposed to show a band recording in a studio recording new songs but ended up documenting the fractures within the band that lead to their breakup in 1970. That's probably why the original film isn't allowed out on dvd and blu ray - too painful for all still around.
I've been on the look out ever since getting the SHM cd in 2015 of getting a really good original all analogue cut record and recently obtained a copy.
That first sentence was a laugh, new phase-more like last album really but when you have Allan Klein as manager and Phil Spector brought on to make it more commercial you can expect such claims.
One clue for it's original is on the back namely this is a British cut and pressed record from nineteen eighy-one where that green Apple logo changed from red to green, backed in April.
American copies had a red apple logo but this has the "Granny Smith" apple in light green and for those who care has the stamper matrix numbers of YEX 773-3U and YEX 774-4 being cut by one Harry T Moss at Abbey Road.
This copy apart from minor wear to the jacket which to be honest may well of happened to it had I bought it around then, is in excellent plus condition with no wear and dead quiet when the music stops.
It can join my 1979 British Abbey Road for preferred stereo only releases as I generally like the older albums in mono having the complete all analogue mono reissues from 2014.
In June we talked about a bunch of Super Audio cds that had come out including a couple by the Canadian blues rock band, the Guess Who.
They were not the only releases in this format issued by Vocalian Dutton of Watford, England for they had issued the eighth and ninth albums by the group released in 1973 and 4 respectively on stereo and quadraphonic lp and tape.
They feature Clap For The Wolfman from 1974 and 1973's Glamour Boy singles.
This last week in a bunch of releases it was announced another pair of albums were to be issued.
Issued in 1970, the third and forth albums, American Woman and Share The Land were the most popular by the group containing both hit singles of the same titles amongst others and are musically their strongest release full of invention.
Originally these two albums whilst issued in stereo were only issued on quadraphonic tape with its technical restrictions so this issue marks the first time the quad version comes out in full quality apart from all four albums quad digital debuts some fourty odd years after being last issued.
The week I think was characterized by the heroic activities of the emergency services fighting to prevent the town of Whalley Bridge, Derbyshire from being wiped off the map by flood waters, not that some places near here faced risks in individual areas.
Here, we saw an influx of various Butterflies, such as about seven on one bunch of lilacs locally when I was out walking earlier on in the week and it has kept up like that to the point I counted a good number only last night in our front garden.
The combination of warm and rain has also lead to the blackberry bushes here growing to the point they are intruding on the pavements, well covered in fruit.
I have been remaking a couple of Mp3 albums I originally downloaded in late 2012 from various 'hush hush' sites which didn't sound so good while listening to my collection of OMD albums on my personal digital music player.
Dazzle Ships wasn't well received upon release in April 1983 as it mixed use of sound effects such as radio identification tunes and had rather less vocal harmonies than its predecessor and featured the single Genetic Engineering.
Well, I'm back and while the 'Littles' part of being away should be on the next edition of said blog, on this blog we just acknowledge its existence and move on to the extent to which I have fully developed adult side which isn't generally the case.
With some concerns, I did pack the 'big camera' and a couple of Zoom lenses with me carefully sandwiched between the clothes because one thing that crosses both sides of me is photography in a more high school plus level and 'picture taking' on the other and a camera that affords more control and range within the focal lengths allows for more creative pictures apart from higher optical quality.
That meant I was able to take pictures like this with the advantages of image stabilization where I normally struggle with 'long lenses' and even against the light that I feel show the kind of tranquil feeling I had while out exploring on foot.
Deliberately using a longer focal length and a wider aperture just softens the background sufficient while leaving enough information for you to take in.
