Rattle And Hum by U2 - Digital Compact Cassette

The first U2 DCC I managed to secure - if only I wasn't such a collector. I can't even play the things.

Still, they look very nice. Kind of like cassettes, but different.

Not that anyone would notice.

World Clique by Deee-Lite

"Groove Is In The Heart" is one tune which is guaranteed to get me on the dancefloor. Kiss FM played it to death in the summer of 1990, just as I started working for pluggers International Radio Promotions in Notting Hill.

The following year I caught Deee-Lite at the Tourhout Festival in Belgium. Having obtained a backstage pass, I managed to blag my way into the press pit and got some great shots of Lady Miss Kier. Hmmm... I just realised who Lily Allen reminds me of!

Unfortunately, this is a bit of a one-song album - something I'm starting to notice and beginning to rail against. How many other Deee-Lite tunes do I need? Exactly.

Au revoir.

From Her To Eternity by Nick Cave

I thought this had "The Mercy Seat" on it. Dummkopf! I didn't listen to it that much. And now it's gone.

Wipeout 2097

This is what decluttering is all about.

I played this game relentlessly in the late 90s and it epitomised everything I loved about racing games: hard to master, it featured explosive action, adrenaline pumping speed and an array of improvements as you got better at it.

Time has moved on though and I don't play it any more.

Pump Up The Volume by Various

A great compilation of 80s/90s dance and house music which captures the atmosphere perfectly of something I didn't participate in, I picked this up in Australia after it seemed to disappear from UK shelves with some finality.

I don't listen to it often... and now it's gone.

The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror/Simpson and Delilah; Three Men and a Comic Book/Blood Feud

Two more Simpsons video cassettes leave the shelves and the house visibly exhales. Only four left!

The Good Son by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Sales are particularly dangerous for me. The chance to aquire something new and not pay the full price is almost irresistible, so I frequently left HMV and Virgin with goods I didn't particularly want throughout the 80s and 90s.

Around ten years ago I looked at the sale CDs from one end of a row, hundreds and hundreds of them, all sitting there in cardboard boxes. Why cardboard boxes? Then it dawned on me. This wasn't stock. This was cheap product bought in especially to create an event: the sale. Looking closer, the bargains were few and far between. This stuff was garbage. I found myself able to hold onto my hard-earned cash more easily after this.

None of which has anything to do with The Good Son by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, which I did acquire from a sale, but not from a chainstore.

In 1990, I attended my sixth Greenbelt Festival. It had become a regular thing among my friends, signalling the end of summer and a return to either school or university.

This year was different. I'd just left university and would be returning to a job in the music industry, working for a plugging company in Ladbroke Grove.

A Christian festival, Greenbelt had a relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere. You were never worried about losing your belongings, people were very friendly and the only ones drinking tended to be us. The festival gained greatere exposure through Radio One in the years I attended, thanks to support from Simon Mayo, who in 1990 donated all the CDs he'd been sent by pluggers.

I bought this and Goo by Sonic Youth.

I listened to Sonic Youth a lot more.

Sorry Nick.

I Am The Greatest by A House

http://www.7digital.com/shops/assets/sleeveart/5033281001409_182.JPEG

I saw A House over at the Mean Fiddler (when it was in Harlesden) on a night when This Picture supported them - my reason for driving round the north circular at a ridiculous time of night, since the tube didn't go all the way out there.

This album contains the radio hit Endless Art, a popular choice on GLR (which BBC Radio London was known in the 90s).

They may not have been the greatest, but they were good.

Sadly the world moved on.