Ever regretted the purchase of a record?

There ARE a few purchases I've regretted, and I returned those. Then I kinda wished I didn't, so I just keep everything now, no matter how bad it is. Maybe my kids will think I'm cool if I own it.

• McCarthy!!!!!! My second flipping indie purchase, and it was just so dire!!!! The worst late 80s indie musical cliches one can imagine, (jangly guitars, cheap organs, jumpy drums, crap cello+violin on the "thoughtful" songs!!!!) plus hilariously badly written right-on Socialist Worker style cliches!!!!
• "Manhattan Shuffle" by Landscape!!!! "Wot, like the 'Einstien a Go Go' people?!??!?" Erm, I'm not entirely sure!!!! If they were, they had by this album somehow mutated into some horrible "poppy" early 80s proto-"boy band" with 80s squiggly keyboard sounds, out-of-tune vocals, sub-pub band "tunes", and a "recorded in me shed in a couple of hours!!!!" style production!!!!!!
• Some dreadful "progressive" house record I've never actually bothered to listen to all the way through!!!!!! I must admit, I was fooled by this one when I saw this lying in a pile of bargain bin singles in a charity shop!!!! I think it was the "elevate your mind" and "higher plane" type title on the front that led me to think this might be some lost rave anthem!!!! I put it on and was assailed by the type of rubbish that in 1993 made "cheesy hardcore" seem an infinitely better proposition!!!! You know the drill- some inept "progressive" attempt to recapture the glory days of Chicago deep house: loads of piano stabs, terribly weedy string synths (usually doing some sort of high-note "hit" on the bar at the chorus, in the style of Soul II Souls' "Back to Life") and about 3 backing singers attempting a "gospel" style "choir"!!!

  Then the verse begins and the most insipid and melismatic voice ever starts intoning: "Mmmmm..Ahahahaarrggh... Peee-pulllll!!!!! Weee Gotta It Togeh-tha!!! Becaauusse the worrrllld..." (etc. Go on about how bad the world is for the entire flipping verse!!! Now it's time for the chorus...) "Sooo wee gotta get it togethaa-aa-aah!!!! Move yo- ourrr miinnd to a hhiiiggghhheer plaaa-haaiinnn-nn!!!!!!" At which point, I ripped the needle off the record, and put the single back in my collection, right at the top, as a permanent reminder to not be such a plank next time!!!!! (Still, I got U96's ace sicko Belgian hardcore tune "I Wanna Be A Kennedy!" at the same time, so it wasn't all bad!!!!)

Other bad buys: Joni Mitchell's 'The Hissing Of Summer Lawns'; the House of Love's 'An Audience With The Mind'; something by the Frames; Gram Parson's 'Grevious Angel' (don't hit me!)

And there are *dozens* of albums that sit there waiting to be given a second chance because I am such a sucker for 'reputation': Gene Clark's 'No Other'; Dexy's 'Don't Stand Me Down'; the Replacements' 'Let it Be'. Oh, I could go on and on. I should be more ruthless. Three plays and you

Get the Replacements 'Let it Be' right out of that stack and put it on, open a beer, turn up the volume, kick the cat off the sofa and enjoy. Doesn't matter if you don't have a cat. This album is the absolute bloody essence of rock n roll. Great tunes, a revved up sound and irreverent attitood. Also a great, keening ballad in 'Unsatisfied'. Nick your attention must have been elsewhere if the opening cut 'I Will Dare' didn't have you leaping round the room. Anyway give it another spin. Interesting how the Replacements are viewed critically. It seems to me that they had three phases 1) Bratty Punk (crap but fun) 2) Greatness (Let It Be/ Tim) 3) Descent into AOR - the later albums (Pleased to meet me, Don't tell a Soul) which are worthless. I've read a lot of reviews which rave about phase 3, which makes no sense to me. Anyway, Let it Be is their masterpiece-one of the best 10 albums ever made. It's the only one I own, I have briefly owned and discarded a couple of the later ones - victims of my own 'culling the runts of the litter' policy which swings into operation when I've spent hard earned cash on a clunker. I have rarely regretted this policy, although it has once or twice resulted in me having to re-buy something that I had got rid of. You don't need to tell me how sad this is. (Example : Exile on Main Street - why did I ever hate it?) Normally I never look back, and feel a sense of relief at having removed the particular item from my collection. Latest example : Death in Vegas "The Contino Sessions" A laughably useless piece of tripe.

N.

----- i dont know why i keep pursuing this band... -----

There's something about a "band" that starts from a techno-base but incorporates the cool parts from the Velvets, Stooges, Jesus&MAryChain, NEU! and dub. Maybe it depends on your outlook, in a way they are a necessary band, or one that from a techno point-of- view had to be invented.