Compilations of the past

 It still feels a bit weird as we leave this month  but as I've always said on here we tend not do effects reviews and that on here simply cos it was centred more about me and rather less around objects and equipment.

This week I am looking at a number of records in the build up to a major release next month simply for being part of my life.

Back in the 1970's and 80's if you were less into buying albums by just one artist you had two choices, to buy the seven inch single for around 79p per disc or you bought compilations of the last month or twos hits that may feature a bunch for rather less per song.

Compilations were not new, amongst others Music For Pleasure had "Hot Hits" and Pickwick had "Top Of The Pops" in the 1970's but they usually had re-recorded versions by studio musicians rather than the actual hit.

KTel started the tv advertised hits compilation in 1972 kicking off periodic round ups of hits followed by the mid 1970's by Ronco.

This is one of mine from early 1978 on KTel bought for such a reason and including all time favourite of mine She's So Modern by the Boomtown Rats.

From the same year but at it's end another that had an eclectic  mix of disco in the form of Rasputin by the Boney M and YMCA by the Village People and New Wave in form of Blondie's Hanging On The Telephone and the Boomtown Rat's again with Rat Trap.

With hardly a track I didn't like as a fourteen year old this was a Christmas present coming with a all time favourite I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trouper by Hot Gossip whose performances as they danced to it were very memorable.

Sometimes they would be a kind of a theme to a release and may go beyond a strict couple of month's collection of hits as with Street Level, a album issued by Ronco in 1980 that centred more on New Wave music but included early synth hits by Gary Numan and Underpass by John Foxx with a more "edgy" cover.

This was one I bought in January 1980 from W H Smiths cos I was starting to look more at themed compilations of past hits I'd missed out on and had Reason's To Be Cheerful, Part III which I loved by Ian Dury and XTC's Making Plans For Nigel from late 1979 on

Sometimes the art department would have some out of this world ideas and in Star Tracks they had space themed cover that really had little to do with the music which was late 1979, early 1980 hits with a very eclectic mix of new wave, disco and even old R&B that charted on the "Mod Revival" that year said he who was a mod.

it featured Games Without Frontiers, Living By Numbers and 7Teen which were big favourites of mine in this era, the one that saw me fracture my arm and become reliant for a period on the record decks automatic lowering and lifting as I played this to cheer myself up.

Sometimes they'd be a bit of cross promotion going on as in this Summer 1980 issue made in association with Kawasaki, the motorbike people.

This captures the Disco sounds that stuck around 1980 while picking up on the Ska revival with Bad Manners and featuring the of the moment B.A. Robinson's To Be Or Not To Be plus You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties by the rather good Jona Lewie.

Going towards the end of 1980 things were different for me as I'd moved up to The Sixth and while today we know music was starting to change with the synthesizer groups crashing in the only consession to this is OMD's classic Elona  Gay otherwise it's a mainly disco set with the odd new wave track tossed in.

I mean it has D.I.S.C.O by Ottawan for cryin' out loud  but for me the real excitement was Pat Benatar's gem Hit Me With Your Best Shot which lead to me buying many of her albums later on, Baggy Trousers, the funny observations on schoolboy life performed well by Madness and Cliff Richards outstanding We Don't Talk Anymore.

At this point I wish to highlight the bottom part of the text of all these albums : To ensure the highest quality reproduction the running times of some of the titles as originally released have been changed.

Because they were cramming ten tracks per side, getting close to a good half hour per side, they edited and faded some songs and often there was less bass than the original 45 rpm single.

Thanks to physics and record cutting techniques at the time there were very real time constrants on how long a record could last and pushing beyond some 24 minutes of fairly constant volume music per side always compromised the sound.

Due to that increased awareness of how my favourite songs could sound and also armed with more pocket money I did start getting more whole artists albums around this era.

1981 may of seen more synthesizer groups and quirky songs like Einstein A Go-Go but judging by this an early example of the Buy One, Get One Free two volume sets people like Ktel and Ronco started, there's little evidence on this set as they kept to pop, disco and rock for the most part.

I bought this in late 1981 as a kind of year retrospective although I have to say more recent offerings such as the recent Now Yearbooks do more accurately show the tastes of the time than this album

.

Other companies tried the same trick, this time Telstar, with a pretty decent sample of hits and played on the radio tracks from late 1982.

This had some classy hits I liked such as Let Me Go by Heaven 17, two songs from the very good Fame tv show and Ultravox's Reap The Wild Wind.

Now did you notice the proud 15 Blockbusting Tracks tag line on each of these two records sold together and how that compares with the the Twenty tracks all the others so far had?

Things were getting better and this set is much better for having less tracks per side and even full as released singles versions so it sounds as good as any regular album.

Indiana Jones is the inspiration of the cover but this had a good chunk of that years hits so this was one I got over Christmas 1982 playing next to my copy of Rio by the rather good Duran Duran.

You may of asked "and where is Duran Duran" and this is the answer, on another but this time one of late 1982 hits which was a old school twenty tracks, ten per side compilation.

I bought this because it sound issues aside is a great time capsule of the charts then with so many of my favourites like Rio, the brilliant Japan's Life In Tokyo, Talk Talk by the group of the same name and Thomas Dolby's She Blinded Me With Science that featured Sir Magnus Pike an actual scientist!

Raiders of the Pop Charts was to lead to a series of title that runs to today, a mega brand in music which we'll look at some other time but that was a look at some old compilation records I bought and why.

Denis and thoughts on The Sixth

Sort of continuing from where we left of this week having taken a stack of mail off our postman when I wrote this including this fortnights Match Of The Day Magazine and will be working my way through the weeks Beano and Phoenix takes us to one anniversary of two this week.

Yes it is his 72nd birthday although really is always ten, sounds a rather familar concept, what, from when he first made his first appearence in The Beano in the early nineteen fifties, when Dad was still young (!) and many a boy's favourite character.

He was and is so us although over the years he's changed, his strip is no long "the menace" but still in trouble as we were.

Wednesday was rather pleasant so I was out exploring armed with my camera and you really don't relish viewing images from the display on the rear with bright light around you, trust me.

Thoughts turned a bit to The Sixth as as in many schools mine had the transition from the Uniform in the Fifth to a dress code in the Lower and Upper Sixth that excluded a Blazer so around the school you'd of scarely felt we "belonged" there with no ties, nothing logo'd and that strangely enough back then did unsettle me because as far as most things went we were still children, albeit older children, more explained to rather than just ordered and expected to set an example to the younger ones.

For me personally there was this dysphoria between the extent I was seen by birth date as that person and in reality the still somewhat juvenile not quite caught up by the Second he was not in Juniors still me.

Sometimes I do question why it was we didn't have a uniform although a number of business did and if it just was an idea that was popular in academia the notion of no uniforms, less deference to structures and so on rather than anything really sensible.

Personally I'd of like a uniform that did have a blazer, a tie so long as clip on ones were accepted and at least the option of six inch inside leg short trousers and turn over top knee socks in winter simply as it would of looked as if I belonged and reminded us we were still part of school as older children even if we had privileges tied to responsibilities we'd be expected to live up to.

Certainly I enjoyed my time in the Sixth not just in the lessons, the lively General Studies debates but the many clubs and activities we run eithier just for us such as a cinema club or sports and electronics clubs for all the year groups as we learned to do more for ourselves.

Deja Vu and reset VI

One unfortunate byproduct of events for most of this year so far has been that somethings have had to be left to one side for lack of time and one was the nagging feeling that a monthly magazine didn't appear to had been arriving as I would expect although the period around Christmas is often more complex in the publication world.

Adventure Box  Max is a favourite of mine for being an A5 sized publication with short stories, comics, makes and interesting facts that is written for those of my more limited reading age.

I had a subscription for it with Unique Magazines that had been renewed in late 2021 so I started to do some investigation into it as by now I'd of normally had had March's issue and had no recollection of having the December/January one.

That's a good example of the cleanly drawn comic bit of it.

Checking at the publishers own site showed unlike some titles recently from D C Thompson in Scotland, this one from Bayard Publishing had not been cancelled and was still available in much of the World.

So, you might say what had happened?

Going to my Subscription page showed it had expired but with a note to say this was no longer available from them, so you could not renew it.

I set up a new subscription with another magazine distributor aided by them using PayPal so hopefully I'll be able to pick up from here I left off with November 2022's issue.

Monster Fun that returned to us via a Halloween 2021 special and a bi monthly outing from April 2022 following a teasing February newsletter to Fang Club members had an announcement to make.

From June of this year it will now be going Monthly following both demand from the readership which includes a high proportion of children and reports from Rebellion Publishing, its publisher that copies were flying off the shelves exceeding expectations in those Covid days

This includes a bonus issue, the Spooky Subscriber Special, packed with highlights from the comic so far plus THREE brand new stories, puzzles, and activities. Older fans of Monster Fun will love this issue too, with Sweeny Toddler making his return in another outing of his (in)famous Easter story previously only available in a special edition version of Issue #1 from last year.”

The one complication I had was due to changes in online credit card sales since my original subscription runs out and Rebellion not doing either PayPal or Direct Debits like D C Thompson do, I had to sort out having a no longer with me mobile number with my bank and enable telephone banking on my plain non smartphone mobile so I could pay for mine.

Eventually on Tuesday I go that sorted so for £23.99 I get 12 months issues, that special edition, some ghoulish stickers for only the cost more or less of an extra issue, which in these "cost of living crisis" days is a bargain.

Roll up Blue Peter presenter No. 42

 

It was announced late Monday who the 42nd Blue Peter presenter was going to be following Richie's departure last Friday watched as ever by me, long term super fan of the show.

Falkirk, Scotland resident and paralympian sports star Abby Cook, aged 20, was appointed with a challenge from the get go of abselling down a viaduct which should prove interesting as she's a racer by sport.

How many years have I looked for the moment this iconic show would decide to feature a disabled presenter as someone with physical disabilities myself as good as the show has been for showing things like disability sports, moving on from the days when the only time someone was on a show was to raise funds for charity?

Loads.

The shows editor Ellen Evans said."We knew Abby would be great as she has a real affinity for working with young people and the biggest heart".

Abby has worked encouraging disabled and non disabled young people get active with Forth Valley Disabilty Sport.

This appointment is just brilliant.

The final word should go to her who said "I was speechless when I found out. I was very emotional knowing I'd be presenting a show I love and grew up with."

I'll be watching tonight.

Goodbye Richie Driss

Today is one of those days where someone you've watched  from their start leaves a show you've spent nearly all your life watching on tv from fuzzy 405 line black and white to modern high defination digital colour.

Richie Driss became the 38th Blue Peter presenter on May 16 2019, soon becoming well known for his sporting prowness - he is seriously good at soccer amongst other things - and developed a open, friendly highly authoritive form of presenting that children could easily relate to.

In a groundbreaking emotional program where presenters discussed racism and how to handle it he memorably shared his experiences as a mixed heritage person grown up to the audience dealing with it.

He also showed a lot of guts in dealing with the many challenges presenters undertake - this isn't a desk based role - not just to build their own experiences but also to inspire viewers to give things a go, get involved in things and have adventures.

Here we have Richie learning LandSkating from July 2019, an eposide I remember well from learning about this sport that I never heard of before and his prepared to put his all into undertaking that challenge.

Another was on June 24 2021 where Mwaksy joined him for a basic army training challenge which he did very well on showing his fitness and quick thinking.

For many of us Blue Peter could never be the same without the pets and there can be no arguing that Henry has became very much a part of the show in the same way today as Shep did to those of us who watched in the 1970's who was linked famously to the presenter John Noakes.

Actually Richie in some ways had some of that action adventure side he had although modern day health and safety would never of allowed some the escapades John did to ever be attempted today.

It is that today, his last day presenting on Blue Peter, I am remembering as sad as it is, his leaving as we watch the send off as he was great presenter up with the best.

Bye and Thank You.