Tag: Music

Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby – 30 Years On

It’s been 30 years since the man “Smash Hits” magazine christened Terence Tea-Towel released his debut album, “Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby”. In order to understand this album’s significance, one has to place it in context. 1987 was a pretty depressing year as far as mainstream pop music was concerned. The charts…… Continue reading Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby – 30 Years On

Cassette Tape Nostalgia (Rick Astley Nearly 30 Years On)

In the past, I’ve described the inherent sound of cassette tape as “the analogue goodness of vinyl, just less of it”. It wasn’t always so however.  Back in 1963, when Philips developed the cassette format, it was never intended to be a music medium, let alone a hi-fi one.  The cassette (and the machine to play and record on them) was compact and simple enough to make a good dictation system for the office.  There were a number of restrictions that hindered the cassette’s use for music playback.

Sade – Diamond Life – Nearly 35 Years On

It’s quite dangerous to visit your local cocktail emporium late at night, find yourself chatting to a music enthusiast, and then start hankering for an album that you couldn’t have given a toss about back in the day. The danger is exacerbated by the fact that most of us carry a veritable shopping mall in our pockets in the form of a smart device loaded with eBay.

Scouring Charity Shops For Used Vinyl

After the initial expense of buying a quality record deck, the newbie vinyl enthusiast will doubtless be wanting to build up his or her record collection quite quickly. The good news is that this needn’t be expensive. The purpose of this article is to provide a few tips for those scouring charity shops, used vinyl stores and the like, in search of hidden gems.

Queen ‘Studio Collection’ Vinyl Box Set Review

This is an exceptional collection that is a must buy for any serious Queen fan, collector or vinyl enthusiast. The quality of the records is outstanding and the set is excellent value for money. Here’s hoping for a similar release containing Queen’s extensive catalogue of live material. Grab one while you can.

Stevie Wonder – “Songs In The Key Of Life” At (Nearly) 40!

The 3 stunners from Stevie Wonder were Talking Book, Innervisions and the culmination, Songs In The Key Of Life. Recording began in 1974 and ended up being about a year late. It was released at the end of September 1976. It was a phenomenal success, and yielded many hits and cover versions, as well as countless samples on other artists’ songs.  Now that “Songs In The Key Of Life”  is coming up to 40 years old this year, it deserves a revisit.

Take A Chance On Me and Honey Honey – A compare, contrast of two ABBA Songs

It seems that ABBA are a band that, despite not having recorded together since 1982, simply refuse to go away. This is evident from the multi-million selling compilation, “Gold”, through CD and vinyl box-set reissues of the original albums, right up to the phenomenal success of the stage musical and film, “Mamma Mia”. This is due in no small part to the combination of the girls’ voices, but often overlooked is the song writing talent of Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. In this article, I review, compare and contrast two songs, Honey Honey and Take A Chance On Me, and attempt to analyse the song writing devices that lift these songs out of the ordinary, and turn them into works of art.