It is 1984 and a fourteen year old me is already habitually recording, cataloguing or listing my interests. I’ve earlier examples (for another day perhaps) and Monkey Picks is simply the latest method of documenting events.
For whatever reason, thirty years ago I decided to keep
note of every record I bought. Not only that, but to include where I
bought it and how much it cost, and to keep monthly and cumulative
expenditure totals (although, typically, I didn’t quite finish it off by
calculating the final total in December). Quite why I did all this, I’ve no
idea, and I only did so for a year before moving on to a different project in 1985.
Maybe I knew I’d be stuck for a blog post in 2014.
As you can see almost everything was Mod or 60s related (interchangeable
terms in my young mind) with only a few notable exceptions: The Alarm, The
Smiths and even Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Two Tribes” which was such a
massive record that summer and cut across the youth cult divide.
Also of interest (to me at least), the list pinpoints the precise moment I
developed an interest in northern soul with my first purchase of a Kent Records’
collection in April, On The Soul Side,
followed by Shoes two weeks later.
Those albums – that entire Kent series - were game changers for kids like me
who didn’t know about, or much care for, historic tales of the Wigan Casino but
discovered the likes of The Impressions, Bobby Bland, Maxine Brown and Patrice
Holloway from these mind-blowing LPs that could easily be bought on suburban high
streets.
As for Roland Rat’s “Love Me Tender”, I wonder if my little
brother still has it.
The lists can be viewed easier by clicking on them.
