![[Quruli - WORLD'S END SUPERNOVA]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022301928WSAE_f.jpg)
I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.
Tags: abba, hajime chitose, lianne la havas, prince, purchase log, quruli
![[Styx - Kilroy Was Here]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/StyxKilroyWasHere1987278731_f.jpg)
At the onset of the 1980s, ABBA quietly disappeared. They broke up, but from what I remember, they never publicized it. No big announcement. No farewell tour. Just the inevitability of tastes moving on without them. It took a decade before audiences realized how much they missed the quartet, by which time, they shut door on a possible reunion. Until it actually happened, and the world lost its collective shit, myself included.
Following the movie musical excess of Xanadu, Electric Light Orchestra downsized the orchestral part of their sound to include more synthesizers. As such, Time dabbles a toe into new wave but does not fully dive in. I can’t confess to being the target market of ELO’s pre-Xanadu work, but this tentative detour appeals to me.
Similar to ELO, Styx also went into a more keyboard-oriented sound with Kilroy Was Here, and like Time, it doesn’t completely abandon the band’s core sound. So it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a new wave detour, even if the synthesizer effects give it that early 80s sheen. But as established by Time, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.
The American vinyl pressing of Falco 3 replaced the two big hits of the album — “Rock Me Amadeus” and “Vienna Calling” — with unimpressive remixes. As a cost-conscious teen of the late ’80s, I could not abide by this bait-and-switch and sold my copy to a used music shop months after the purchase. I would not think of the album 39 years till a tinge of nostalgia and a reasonably-priced used copy brought the title back into my collection. The remainder of the album wasn’t bad, but I still wanted those single edits. Thankfully, an anniversary CD reissue of the album included the mixes of my youth.
I am by no means an officiando on the works of Helmet, but I have a sense I would have preferred the Big Day Out set over the CBGB’s set back in my youth of the early ’90s. Today? I much prefer the CBGB set.
This two-disc retrospective of Tokyo Jihen isn’t limited just to singles, otherwise it could have easily fit onto once disc. Once the material enters the post-Sports era, I have to admit I lost interest. So the first disc is probably going to get more spins than the second if you have the same reaction.
Tags: abba, electric light orchestra, falco, helmet, picks, purchase log, styx, tokyo jihen
![[ABBA - Voyage]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ABBAVoyage2021277682B504_f.jpg)
I can’t say I expected much from 2021 given how Generation X has turned out to be such dumb fucks, but I didn’t anticipate those expectations should have been lower. If the current trajectory holds, 2022 can already go fuck itself.
At least we got a new ABBA album out of the deal.
Some other favorites from the past year:
Tags: abba, czarface, deafheaven, duran duran, emmylou harris, favorite edition, finneas, helmet, jam and lewis, lil nas x, mf doom, mono, perfume, princess goes to the butterfly museum, sungazer, utada hikaru, yo majesty
I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.
Tags: abba, elliott carter, isis, meghan trainor, michael nyman, oakenfold, purchase log
![[Tomosaka Rie - Cappuccino / Escalation]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/TomosakaRieCappuccinoEscalation.jpg)
I haven’t really cottoned to Explosion in the Sky’s soundtrack work, but I’m hoping this release feels more like an album than a cue sheet.
At first, I thought this album was just a reissue of Live in Seattle, till I took a closer look at the title.
I wonder if John Green would be interested in reviewing this album.
The Replacements had, at best, a periphery influence on my teenage listening habits, and yet I’ve bought just about every deluxe edition of their albums. Clearly, I’m making up for lost time.
I’m ambivalent about this album. I had sold it for cash a long time ago, but I picked it up again from the thrift shop. I don’t know if it holds up well.
I can’t lie — I’m pretty damn excited about a new ABBA album in 40 years. The singles preceding the album sound like time hadn’t stopped for the quartet, and the world definitely came back around to them.
I guess I still care because there is a part of me that fondly remembers a younger Sting in various forms of undress.
The Ego Has Landed was one of my most played CDs of 1999, and it collected the best bits of Robbie Williams’ first two albums. About 20 years later, I would find I’ve Been Expecting You at the thrift store. So I have to say I’m very much tempted to drop cash on these vinyl reissues, even though I haven’t heard Life Thru a Lens in its entirety.
Japan actually has its own Record Store Day event that focuses on domestic releases, but it’s separate from Record Day, which happens annually in November. While Record Store Day focuses on independent retailers, Record Day in Japan looks similar to National Album Day in the UK, where larger retailers are involved with the festivities.
Past Record Days in Japan have included reissues of NUMBER GIRL, YEN TOWN BAND and a number of Studio Ghibli soundtracks. For me, AJICO is the biggest news coming out of this year’s crop, but I’m also immensely pleased to see Hatakeyama Miyuki’s Diving into your mind getting a reissue. The Tomosaka Rie 7-inch single pairs two of her biggest hits, “Cappuccino” and “Escalation”, the A-side written by Shiina Ringo.
Tags: abba, ajico, explosions in the sky, hatakeyama miyuki, looking ahead, r.e.m., renee fleming, robbie williams, sting, the replacements, tomosaka rie
![[Torche - Admission]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/TorcheAdmission20192163613P45_f-300x300.jpg)
I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.
Tags: abba, alabama shakes, atta isaacs, bangles, clannad, cyndi lauper, elliott smith, fleetwood mac, front 242, gabby pahinui, grandaddy, hapa, john zorn, johnny cash, krzysztof penderecki, leonard bernstein, lorde, morrissey, mumford and sons, new jersey percussion ensemble, purchase log, reo speedwagon, sing like talking, skrillex, stephen sondheim, the alarm, the style council, torche, tricky, various artists
![[ABBA - Greatest Hits, Vol. 2]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ABBAGreatestHitsVol240172_f-300x295.jpg)
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
If my 8-year-old self were in control of this list, the soundtrack to Xanadu would occupy the top spot. The only other title he might have recognized would be Diana. And he would have questioned the inclusion of AC/DC.
Other favorites from the year:
The roots of my collecting bug are anchored in 1980.
I would bug my mom to buy me 7-inch singles. I was told I didn’t have the sufficient capacity to judge whether a full album would be worth the purchase price. My mom wasn’t about to drop cash on a set of songs if only one of them would entertain me.
So I amassed quite a lot of singles — “Tell It Like Is” by Heart, “A Lover’s Holiday” by Change, “Stomp!” by the Brothers Johnson.
I was, however, a pest about ABBA. The age of eight seems to be the right level of maturity for ABBA to sink its sugary hooks into an impressionable mind. My niece was crazy for Mamma Mia, the movie musical, right around the age I bugged my parents to get me their Greatest Hits, Vol. 2. The first volume didn’t have “Chiquitita.”
Video games interrupted my interest in music for four years, so it makes me wonder in how much more trouble I’d be today without that disruption.
Tags: abba, ac/dc, david bowie, diana ross, emmylou harris, favorite edition, grace jones, kate bush, killing joke, rewind, soundtrack, talking heads, the b-52's, the police, u2, x
![[Go Gos - Beauty and the Beat]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/GoGosBeautyandtheBeat190257_f-300x300.jpg)
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
If there were a year I was least interested in music, it would be 1981. And it was a remarkable turn of events, because I had amassed quite a 7-inch collection the year before.
Other favorites from the year:
1981 marked the start of my fascination with the classic video games of the era. I would also take an interest in computers and programming. My parents actively discouraged me from pursuing either interest, but it would not stop me from sneaking away to the arcade when we went to the local malls.
That didn’t mean I was totally unaware of music. Of the titles on this list, I would have listened to the Police, ABBA, Rick Springfield, the Go-Go’s and Buckner and Garcia. And I would have definitely seen Grace Jones in the press.
If there was one album I really wanted to get at the time, it would have been Pac-Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia, mostly for the maze patterns on the inner sleeve that would have help you to win the game.
Tags: abba, black flag, brian eno, buckner and garcia, david byrne, eurythmics, favorite edition, gang of four, go-go's, grace jones, lou harrison, rick springfield, the police, u2
There was a time in my life when it was absolutely not OK to admit to liking ABBA, and that time just happen to coincide with junior high school.
Well, it extended throughout high school as well, but a very specific incident in junior high school schooled me in what was then conventional wisdom. I had drawn the ABBA logo with the backward “B” on my copy of the Webster dictionary, and it opened me up for ridicule.
This being junior high, such ridicule had a lasting effect.
It became acceptable to like ABBA again in my sophomore year of college (ca. 1993) when a column in the Village Voice signaled the all-clear. The column tied ABBA’s resurgence with the gay community, and I was another two years away from being in the psychological mindset to come out.
So I clung to my internalized homophobia and maintained my ABBAmnesia.
Muriel’s Wedding hit theaters in 1994. Mamma Mia opened in London in 1999. In 2000, the members of ABBA turned down 1 billion dollars to reunite.
It’s been OK to like ABBA for a very long time now, but up until last summer, I couldn’t do it.
And I had long run out of excuses.
The biggest obstacle was my rockism. Straight guys with guitars — that is the bulk of my listening, and a lot of those straight guys instilled in me the idea that “disco sucks”. ABBA, even today, has not shaken off the perception of being a disco band, even when close examination of their output demonstrates otherwise.
Tied to rockism is internalized homophobia. Yes, even after nearly 20 years out of the closet, there are acceptable conventions of gay male culture to which I just say no. I don’t get drag. And I didn’t get ABBA.
It wasn’t always the case.
I drew that ABBA logo on my dictionary because I really did like them when I was 8 years old. I was in mall record store when the clerks put a LaserDisc of ABBA’s music videos on the TV. After that, I was hooked.
Pac-Man later derailed my attention from ABBA, but by then the group had broken up. And then came Duran Duran.
A recent holiday conversation with my sister in Chicago revealed that her own 7-year-old daughter was absolutely addicted to Mamma Mia.
Maybe that was it.
ABBA’s melodic sense is so basic and tuneful, it’s children’s music. I was a child when at the height of my ABBA fandom. I didn’t understand the words — and there were no lyric sheets on my albums — so all I had to go one was melody. Have I really been looking down on that instinctive appreciation all this time?
Today, I recognize that Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus wrote some sophisticated pop music. And while “Dancing Queen” put a lot of cash in their coffers, “Intermezzo No. 1” showed the band could do a lot more.
I’ve culled my music collection numerous times over the years, but the four vinyl albums by ABBA survived each purge. I put those albums on my turntable after purchasing some decent stereo speakers in May 2013, and I realized I was just way too freaking old to hold onto a slight from more than 30 years ago.
I’ve since added Super Trouper, The Visitors, Arrival and The Album to my collection. I’m passing on Voulez-Vous, and the jury is still out on Waterloo and Ring Ring.
I was right to draw that logo on my dictionary. Too bad I was too young to recognize it.
Tags: abba