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Steve Devereux


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A few weeks ago, a friend of mine "tagged" me in a Facebook meme, the one talking about fifteen albums which changed your life:

“Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good.”

Well, I spent far too long thinking about it, and writing far too much in response, that it was wildly out of control and much too long and inappropriate for a Facebook note. But it set me to thinking about music in general, and some of my more common thoughts about music, and the upshot is that I've started a proper blog to set down some of these thoughts and get them out of my head. The waterfall of drivel I've written about the fifteen albums is forming the start of it, but it's really just a beginning.

It is located at http://radionixon.wordpress.com, if anyone wants to read it, especially during the increasingly lengthy wait for Bar Italia.

"Nixon" as in "the Nixon Administration", the name of a band I once dreamed I was in. We were great.


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Mike


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Awesome. One of the big reasons I eagerly await the re-emergence of the rest of the Bar Italia site is: I miss your writing. Definitely looking forward to reading this. Consider this added to my Google Reader.

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Steve Devereux


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There's 95% less ELO and internal monologues from here on in, I promise.

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Steve Devereux


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Having a lot of fun writing this so far. Are the posts too long? I worry they're starting to get a bit too rambling.

Different Class is #15, if anyone was wondering.

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Deebs


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Interesting read so far and the posts aren't too long. You may be in danger of re-opening some old debates though!

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Steve Devereux


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Well, that's not a bad thing, I guess...? What old debates are you thinking of?

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Steve Devereux


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The Different Class piece is up now.


Different Class


I'm especially proud of describing (What's The Story) Morning Glory? as a "lumpen, barely-literate, shit-smeared paving stone of an album" - there's nothing like carrying a grudge for 13 years - but I'm also quite pleased with it as a whole; I was deliberately trying very hard not to repeat anything I'd already said on Bar Italia, but there are probably a few lines that crept in.



-- Edited by Steve Devereux on Saturday 4th of April 2009 02:49:49 PM

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Sturdy


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Steve,

I have just read the entirity of your Sodding Oasis rant with an idiotic grin on my face throughout. And then the rest of the Different Class article, which almost moved me to tears. Thank you.

(And I don't even think Different Class is that good, really)

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Steve Devereux


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Really? I didn't know that. I knew you didn't care for This Is Hardcore... What's your current favourite Pulp record, then?

(And thank you, it really does mean a lot.)

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Eamonn


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I know... doesn't care much for Pulp's best two albums and calls himself an anorak?!

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Sturdy


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Steve Devereux wrote:
Really? I didn't know that. I knew you didn't care for This Is Hardcore... What's your current favourite Pulp record, then?
Not that it matters really, but I listened to We Love Life the other day for the first time in ages and very much enjoyed it, so probably that.

I do love Different Class, but (as you sort of touched on) I think it's often held in affection more because of what it means to people than, objectively, how good it is. Looking at it through cold impartial eyes (which is really the only I can look at it after all these years of analysing and playing it to death) I think it suffers in places from the speed at which it was written, and I don't think the pent-up "Ha ha! I'm getting my own back on everyone in the entire world after years of being a complete loser!" lyrical perspective always does Jarvis a lot of favours. I can understand why you hold up I Spy as being a high-point of the album, but I've always found that song in particular a bit too much to take really.

-- Edited by Sturdy on Sunday 5th of April 2009 09:34:54 AM

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Fuss Free


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Steve. Just finished reading your review of Different Class. Well done, sir.

Are you familiar with the 33 1/3 series of pocket books on great records, put out by Continuum Books? They have so far managed to put out 63 books, with another dozen on the way, and yet they still haven't commissioned one on Different Class.

I flirted with the idea of writing one myself and communicated with the publisher about it. He said he's received other proposals for a Different Class book in the past and was indeed keen on putting one out, but none of the proposals have thus far impressed him.

Reading your account of the album, Steve, I think you're the perfect person to write the book. If you can expand your review into 60 pages and include some personal reflections on the time and place, I think it would be a great read.

You should contact Continuum. They do accept submissions from unpublished authors, and your blogs are well-written enough to lend you some credibility.



-- Edited by Fuss Free on Monday 13th of April 2009 05:54:40 PM

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crazyshady


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As Bon Jovi once said....keep the faith! Keep the dream alive boys lol.

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Steve Devereux


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Somehow, I'm now up to 30 records. Frightening.

Records 1-15 are the Facebook ones mentioned above. Records 16 and onwards are just whatever I happened to be listening to that day, except for Fridays, when I let Winamp or my iPod pick me something from my collection at random, to stop it getting too predictable and gushing and what have you.


  1. Haircut One Hundred: "Pelican West" (1982)
  2. The Beach Boys: "Summer Dreams" (1990)
  3. Jean Michel Jarre: "Images" (1991)
  4. Kraftwerk: "The Man Machine" (1978)
  5. ELO: "Out Of The Blue" (1977)
  6. T.Rex: "Electric Warrior" (1971)
  7. OMD: "Liberator" (1993)
  8. ROC: "Virgin" (1997)
  9. Spiritualized: "Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space" (1997)
  10. Broadcast: "The Noise Made By People" (2000)
  11. Groove Armada: "The Remixes" (1999)
  12. Fischerspooner: "#1" (2001)
  13. Pet Shop Boys: "Release" (2002)
  14. Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom: "The Days of Mars" (2005)
  15. Pulp: "Different Class" (1995)
  16. Super Furry Animals: "Love Kraft" (2005)
  17. Scott Walker: "Scott 2" (1968)
  18. Clark: "Growls Garden" (2009)
  19. The Exciters: "Blowing Up My Mind" (1969)
  20. Goldfrapp: "Felt Mountain" (2000)
  21. Tears For Fears: "The Seeds Of Love" (1989)
  22. Cats In Paris: "courtcase 2000" (2008)
  23. Wire: "154" (1979)
  24. 1. Futurologischer Congress: "Schützt die Verliebten" (1982)
  25. Echo & the Bunnymen: "Heaven Up Here" (1981)
  26. The Dreamweavers: "It's Almost Tomorrow" (1956)
  27. Michael J. Sheehy: "Sweet Blue Gene" (2000)
  28. Mikael Stavöstrand: "Reduce" (2002)
  29. Lodger: "A Walk In The Park" (1998)
  30. Anthony Reynolds: "British Ballads" (2007)


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anet


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Hope it's not a silly question, but just wondering how the ordering of those albums goes? Surely no15 has to be higher than no1? But then how does that work for the next 15? Or is it in no particular order?

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Eamonn


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Steve when are we gonna get your review of Jarvis' new album? When it comes out?

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Steve Devereux


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anet wrote:

Hope it's not a silly question, but just wondering how the ordering of those albums goes? Surely no15 has to be higher than no1? But then how does that work for the next 15? Or is it in no particular order?



The first 15 are in roughly chronological-biographical order, being more or less the order in which I first listened to them, as per the terms of the Facebook thing - except for Different Class, because I wanted to save that one until last.  (Last in terms of the original Facebook thing, I mean.)

From 16 onwards, there is no order, and nothing to be read into one record being featured before or after another; it's purely whatever I happened to be listening to the most that day, except Fridays, when it's a totally random choice.  So there's no meaning to one album appearing at 16 and something appearing at 30, or down the line at 284; it's not a ranking.

 

Eamonn wrote:
Steve when are we gonna get your review of Jarvis' new album? When it comes out?



Well, technically I haven't even reviewed the first one yet - Bar Italia has been down since before it was released, so nobody's seen my review of that.  But to answer the question, I haven't heard it.  Like a few others on the forum, I'm waiting for it to be released. We Love Life lost a lot of its impact because I'd already heard it a thousand times by the time it came out, and I think at that point I pretty much decided against downloading any records before they came out; I can't remember too many I've purposefully sought out since then. The Drift is the only one which springs to mind. Anyway, yes, I'll review it when it comes out.

(Speaking of Bar Italia, I haven't given up, it's just there are enormous technical difficulties involved in putting it back together and I can't face the idea of re-writing all that stuff again.)

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anet


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Just read your Different Class piece - great to read such a moving appreciation of what was for me, one of the three albums that literally changed my life. It only appears to happen to me once a decade, but on hearing Different Class in the 90's, it felt as if I was being violently shaken and jolted awake again, to all the amazing and wonderful things that great music can do to you.

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Steve Devereux


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Glad you liked it, thank you. :)  So, what were the other two albums?

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Steve Devereux


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31. The Chiffons: "Sweet Talkin' Girls - The Best of the Chiffons"

A random pick.

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anet


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Steve Devereux wrote:

Glad you liked it, thank you. :)  So, what were the other two albums?


In the 80's,  Meat is Murder - The Smiths (no, I didn't become a veggie!), and just last year Hey Ma - James (as in the band James, because most people's response to that is 'James who?').  All three of my 'life changing' albums have caught me at a time when my life has just been drifting along, and filled me with the inspiration to get out and do something more meaningful.

Incidently, I confess to the crime of buying the Oasis album at exactly the same time as Different Class, but after listening to DC a couple of times, I couldn't bear to soil my ears with the Oasis one ever again!



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Steve Devereux


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32. Jean Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert: "Moog Acid"

-- Edited by Steve Devereux on Thursday 7th of May 2009 08:58:40 PM

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Steve Devereux


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33. The Boo Radleys: "Kingsize"

Also, in the unlikely event that anyone lurking here is Wire fan "Dr Up", could you please stop being such an arse? THANKS.

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Steve Devereux


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Cuh, I haven't spammed my blog here for weeks now. I am slipping.

34 was a load of old Motown singles, at great length.
35. Robert Wyatt: "Shleep"
36. Grandaddy: "Sumday"

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