Intergalactic Sonic 7"s: The Best of Ash by Ash

I quite like Ash, but I couldn't say I was a fan. Twice I saw them support U2 in Dublin on the Popmart Tour in 1997, but I only really got interested once they'd released an album their record company was dubious about and the band funded itself - got to respect that.

I actually bought this as a Christmas present for an ex-girlfriend and since I didn't see her that Christmas, it's been knocking around for a while, bonus disc and all.

Regrets? Sometimes.

His 'n' Hers by Pulp

This is a great album, featuring the glorious "Do You Remember The First Time?" which stood out so prominently at Pulp's Glastonbury performance. Unfortunately, I was late to the party and hardly listened to it as a result. Who needed to when the singles had become so ingrained from hearing them on the radio.

Chris Morris played "Babies" a lot on his Radio One show, which I'd listen to in the car with a friend as we travelled down to Hampshire to visit his girlfriend.

I haven't seen her lately and I don't know that I remember the first time either.

Pulped by Pulp

Bought cheaply from a colleague who learned his lesson about acquiring CDs far sooner than I, this was never going to fetch the slightly ridiculous thirty quid Amazon apparently thought was the going rate.

Sad to say, I've never actually got around to listening to it, which is nothing to do with the quality of the work and all to do with the amount of music I own and the time it takes to listen to it.

No, I don't want you any more.

Fixed by Nine Inch Nails

A friend was downsizing his collection so I bought this off him. It's of relatively minor interest to me, but perhaps I should've paid more attention - flicking through "Fixed" now it sounds great..!

I really don't anticipate listening to it a great deal though. Throw this away? Not quite...

Ill Communication by The Beastie Boys

This CD doesn't belong to me... it belonged to Jim who left it in the office prior to departing for Thailand... no, that can't be right - I left the company several years before that. So I must've picked it up at some point to listen to.

A surprisingly good album, but I really don't play it at all. Another album I really just wanted to hear rather than own, so it's got to go.

Do it.

The It Girl by Sleeper

Sleeper first caught my attention with their "Inbetweener" single, a clever, hummable song about living in suburban Essex. Sadly, the rest of the album didn't quite measure up.

This follow up featured a four great singles which soundtracked the summer of 1996 and were hardly off the radio... and that's probably how I'll remember them. I certainly don't play this much any more.

What Do I Do Now?

Click... off... gone.

String 'a' Beads by Rose of Avalanche

Another biz-era freebie, though I knew well enough who Rose of Avalanche were. My best mate had been a fan since their first EP, "L.A. Rain", in 1985. When we formed a band, their flanger-drenched psychedelic sound became a template for our own sonic experimentations. Later, around the time of Never Another Sunset, we saw them at ULU supported by Claytown Troupe.

This album was more forward-looking. Goth was no longer flavour of the month, being supplanted by indie-dance Madchester and bands who experimented with samplers, like Pop Will Eat Itself, Jesus Jones and EMF. This album was an attempt to respond, and even includes a remix by Hacienda DJ Jon Dasilva.

What's going down? This CD's going to a better place...

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People, Monster, Reveal

I've just read "Fiction", David Buckley's biography of R.E.M., and was reminded there are several of their albums I don't own for various reasons.

"Automatic For The People" I never got around to buying because my sister bought it and I taped it off her. I listened to it a fair bit, though not as much as the previous albums. This resulted in me not buying "Monster", although I still appreciated the singles when I heard them on the radio.

I was in Chicago the week "Reveal" was released and regret not buying it then. I later downloaded it and listened to it a lot when I met my partner. A superb return to form.

There are other gaps. I'd better clear some more space...

Live - Under A Blood Red Sky (Remastered) by U2

While it's great to see the full concert on DVD at last, to a hypercritical U2 obsessive, this seems like another missed opportunity.

Sadly there was a camera malfunction during "I Fall Down", so that track is missing from the concert footage, but wouldn't it have been worth including the audio as an easter egg?

Both CD and DVD feature horrendous edits during "The Electric Co." due to Bono dropping in a snippet of the tune of "Send In The Clowns". Isn't remastering an opportunity to fix these things? How much was Stephen Sondheim asking for?

Otherwise, the package is nice enough - a slipcase, a booklet with plenty of photos, some wallpaper for your computer and a dodgy old screensaver.

I'm going to dig out my original vinyl copy...

Regatta de Blanc by The Police

I couldn't listen to this album enough when I was younger. I'd first noticed The Police when "Can't Stand Losing You" was a hit second time around and I remember being excited to hear "Message In A Bottle" one afternoon in the car on the way home from school. I finally borrowed the album from a friend a year or two later and taped it, listening to it almost nightly.

It was one of the first albums I picked up on CD, but it's now been surpassed by the boxed set and there's little point hanging on to it.

Sorry Sting, I can easily stand losing this.

Rotten Apples: Greatest Hits/Judas O by Smashing Pumpkins

I bought an early Smashing Pumpkins single - on Sub Pop, I think - around the time of Gish, when they were being touted as the next big thing. I never really got into them, but I thought this might be a chance to catch up.

Sadly, it failed to capture my imagination or my attention.

War Against Sleep by Cassandra Complex

Another freebie with a free 3" CD, something I probably should've disposed of long ago, but I didn't get rid of stuff back then and just let it accumulate.

A member of this group had some involvement with Utah Saints, but this is more industrial or newbeat than techno and I didn't really take to it.

What can you do for me? Not a lot. Off you jolly well go.

Boy, October and War by U2 - Remastered Deluxe Editions

Ouch.

Boy

I have been waiting twenty years to hear the former awaken from the murky, late 70s-style production techniques which swamped the chiming guitars in a welter of bias noise, particularly noticeable when it was originally issued on CD. While this is an improvement, it's not a revelation. New figures don't suddenly leap out of the mix, though it remains perfectly adequate.

More interesting is the bonus disc. An unreleased Steve Lillywhite mix of "I Will Follow" with acoustic guitars to the fore and other ambient sounds coming in all at the wrong times. Fascinating to hear, after nearly thirty years with the original mix it just sounds wrong, though amusing. There are few surprises with the remastered singles, though the single version of "Stories For Boys" sounds more like the version on the Dublin compilation "Just For Kicks" than that which appeared on "U2 Three". Sadly, the sleeve notes point out the 1/4" master of the "Twilight" demo is missing, so this is mastered from vinyl. Not much better than the version I made myself.

The demo of "Speed Of Life" sadly lacks a vocal, while previously unheard "Saturday Night" proves to be the source of the instrumental guitar solo included on the original vinyl and cassette copies of the album.

Lastly, a tantalising glimpse into the live archives. The b-side to "I Will Follow", "Boy-Girl" is complimented by a version of "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" from the same Marquee show, while the set concludes with "Cartoon World", a live recording from the 1980 Dublin National Stadium show broadcast on RTE and widely bootlegged. Like a typical obsessive, what I get is never enough and I'm still dreaming of hearing these shows in their entirety in full 16-bit glory.

October

The liner notes repeat the story about the loss of the lyric ideas due to a "stolen" briefcase, though this isn't quite the whole story.

The sound is better than the Boy remaster, but this seems to be due to the source. Nothing jumps out, but the drums seems sharper, the guitars chime and the bass thrums. This needs more comparison, but presumably it's as much of an improvement as The Joshua Tree remaster, if not more.

The second disc is again tantalising. The first five songs are live versions of October tracks taken from a War Tour show at Hammersmith Palais in December 1982, but reordered. "Gloria" was played in the encore, while "I Threw A Brick..." ends slightly early prior to the segue into "A Day Without Me", which sounds very odd to a U2 fan well-versed in bootlegs from that era.

The show was rebroadcast on BBC 6Music recently in similar form to their original broadcast. At the show, Bono had dedicated "I Fall Down" to a fan named Duncan who sadly died on the Monday night during the concert he was supposed to be at after a road accident. I had an e-mail from his sister some time ago saying she had obtained a tape of the show from the BBC, including the dedication. Public service broadcasting.

Three BBC session tracks recorded for Richard Skinner are included, giving hope that perhaps the Boy-era sessions will emerge one day. The remaining tracks include the "A Celebration" single and b-sides and live tracks from the 1981 Boston Paradise Theatre show. There's no "Out Of Control" from the US "I Will Follow" b-side - though this was released on the "Sweetest Thing" single. And, most puzzlingly, "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" which originally segued into "The Ocean" on the "Fire" double single, has been split and reordered.

The disc closes with the live "I Will Follow" from Veronica's Music Mobile released as a single in the Netherlands and the 1996 reworking of "Tomorrow".

War

War was the first U2 album I bought. I knew New Year's Day from the radio and television and I made a trip to Oxford Street the weekend after it was released, only to find window displays featuring the album artwork dominating Virgin and Our Price.

The previous reissue by Mobile Fidelity Sound Laboratories was excellent and included different versions of "Seconds" and "Like A Song". I'd need to sit down and compare side-by-side, but the bass drum resonates nicely under the acoustic guitars at the start of "Sunday Bloody Sunday", so I'm not going to complain.

The second disc starts with b-side "Endless Deep", followed by previously unreleased "Angels Too Tied To The Ground".

The plethora of remixes follows, but there is one missing. We have the single version of "New Year's Day" and the US Remix by Francois Kevorkian, as well as two 1999 remixes by Ferry Corsten. Then there are three remixes of "Two Hearts Beat As One": the Long Mix and USA Mix again by Francois Kevorkian and the Club Version by Steve Lillywhite.

Missing is the Francois Kevorkian version (3:42) from the b-side of the French release of "Two Hearts Beat As One" and the US release of "I Will Follow (live)". This is an edit of the Long Mix. Still, at least this resolves the confusion over the naming of the mixes over at u2wanderer.org!

The disc closes with the tracks from the 12" release of New Year's Day, the b-side and the live tracks - and this time "A Day Without Me" does follow "I Threw A Brick Through A Window"!

Zavvi are offering a free, four-disc slipcase when you purchase any two, so I went for that.

HMV has an exclusive T-shirt edition of each. Must resist...

Swoon by Prefab Sprout

The second Prefab Sprout album is one of my favourites, produced by Thomas Dolby, featuring "Faron Young" and "When Love Breaks Down"... I bought it with this in a double pack - the old trick: convince you you're getting value by selling quantity not quality. I've fallen for it so often.

This features "Don't Sing" which I remember seeing on The Tube. And that's about all I remember.

Sorry Paddy.

Me and Mr. Ray by Miracle Legion

This is supposed to be a great album. A lost classic. I may listen to it one day and decide I should never have sold it.

But for now it's another record company freebie sitting on my shelves and taking up space which I have to pay for.

And then? I posted it. And it was gone.

Urban Hymns by The Verve

I remember when this was out - Radiohead, Travis and The Verve were ubiquitous on every radio in a public place.

"Bittersweet Symphony" was regularly played prior to U2's entrance on the Popmart Tour and the opening bars still make friends of mine who saw up to fifty shows feel a surge of adrenaline whenever they hear them.

Sadly, a couple of big hits weren't enough to get this to stick in my CD player. The drugs don't work... and neither does this.

Against Nature by Fatima Mansions

I saw Fatima Mansions support U2 on the Zoo TV tour in Paris and London.

They were entertaining, fleetingly. And this - a record company freebie - is taking up shelf space.

Only losers take the bus - or hang on to stuff they don't need, want or care about.

Veni Vidi Vicious by The Hives

This is a great album. "Main Offender", "Hate To Say I Told You So" and "Supply And Demand" all feature.

But I'm not listening to it and it's taking up space.

"Hate To Say I Told You So" indeed.

www.tism.wanker.com double CD

I am becoming obsessed with TISM - I have to own every limited release, despite already owning the regular version.

This is noteworthy - a free disc entitled "Att: Shock Records Faulty Pressing Do Not Manufacture". Many people and shops apparently fell for this and returned copies upon its release.

Perhaps not TISM's best effort, but it includes "Thunderbirds Are Coming Out" (great video), "Whatareya?" and the self-explanatory "I Might Be A C***, But I'm Not A F***ing C***".

At Home - Not At Home by Wim Mertens

Another disc from the ex-plugger's freebie box and it's still sealed.

Which means I've never listened to it. Leaving me slightly curious.

No matter: no longer at home.