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Purchase log, 2019-03-19

[Pop Will Eat Itself - This Is the Day ... This Is the Hour ... This Is This!]

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.

This past weekend was the Friends of the Seattle Library Book Sale, which usually provides a few weeks’ worth of listening.

Catalog

CD
  • Aretha Franklin, Aretha’s Best
  • Atmosphere, Overcast!
  • Beck, Mutations
  • Billy Idol, Idolize Yourself: The Very Best of Billy Idol
  • bis, The New Transistor Heroes
  • Björk, Drawing Restraint 9
  • Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet
  • Branford Marsalis Quartet, Crazy People Music
  • Daniel Lanois, Acadie
  • David Bowie, Pin Ups
  • Dawn Upshaw, Voices of Light
  • Einstürzende Neubauten, 80-83 Strategies Against Architecture
  • György Ligeti, Ligeti Edition 5: Mechanical Music
  • Jane’s Addiction, Nothing’s Shocking
  • Joanna Newsom, Ys
  • John Zorn, The Gift
  • Johnny Cash, American Recordings
  • Josquin des Prez / Giovanni Palestrina, Motets / Masses
  • Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II
  • Lizz Wright, The Orchard
  • Lovage, Nathaniel Merriweather Presents … Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By
  • Mazzy Star, So Tonight That I Might See
  • Mike Patton, Adult Themes for Voice
  • Oingo Boingo, Dead Man’s Party
  • Osvaldo Golijov, Ainadamar
  • PJ Harvey, Let England Shake
  • PJ Harvey, Rid of Me
  • Pop Will Eat Itself, This Is the Day … This Is the Hour … This Is This!
  • Queen Latifah, Nature of a Sista
  • Robert Palmer, Addictions Volume 2
  • Roberta Flack, First Take
  • Sonic Youth, Washing Machine
  • Soundgarden, Louder Than Love
  • Spice Girls, Spiceworld
  • Stephen Sondheim, Putting it Together (Original Cast Recording)
  • The Beatles, Yellow Submarine
  • The Mars Volta, De-Loused at the Comatorium
  • The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
  • Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, At Carnegie Hall
  • Tom Tom Club, Tom Tom Club
  • William Grant Still, Africa
  • XTC, Nonsuch
  • Yaz, You and Me Both
  • Various Artists, Stay Awake
  • Soundtrack, Pride and Prejudice (BBC Television serial)
  • Soundtrack, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away)
  • Soundtrack, Sense and Sensibility
Vinyl
  • Dead Or Alive, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know
  • Eleanor Steber, Barber: Knoxville: Summer 1915 / LaMontaine: Songs of the Rose of Sharon
  • Millions Like Us, Millions Like Us
  • Olivier Messiaen, Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum / Couleurs de la Cité Celeste
  • Olivier Messiaen, Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine
  • Olivier Messiaen, Tashi Plays Messiaen – Quartet for the End of Time
  • Robert Palmer, Clues
  • Robert Palmer, Double Fun
  • Robert Palmer, Maybe It’s Live
  • Robert Palmer, Pride
  • Robert Palmer, Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley
  • Stephen Sondheim, Pacific Overtures (Original Broadway Cast)
  • William Schuman, Symphony No. 3 / Symphony for Strings
  • Yvonne Elliman, Yvonne
  • Soundtrack, A Room with a View

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Purchase log, 2018-09-11

[Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette]

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.

The KEXP Record Fair was on Saturday. I hadn’t known till the clerk at Jive Time asked me if I had gone.

New releases

CD
  • Jake Shears, Jake Shears
  • Renée Fleming, Broadway
Vinyl
  • Parquet Courts, Wide Awake!

Catalog

CD
  • Culture Club, Colour By Numbers (remastered)
  • Grace Jones, Warm Leatherette
  • Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert
  • Michael Jackson, Thriller (Special Edition)
  • Missy Elliott, Supa Dupa Fly
  • UA, 11 (Deluxe Edition)
  • UA, AMETORA (Deluxe Edition)
  • UA, turbo (Deluxe Edition)
Vinyl
  • Dead or Alive, Sophisticated Boom Boom
  • Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew, Oh My God!
  • Franz Schubert, Die schöne Müllerin (Deitrich Fischer-Dieskau)
  • Janet Jackson, Dream Street
  • Joni Mitchell, Ladies of the Canyon
  • Julee Cruise, Floating Into the Night (original pressing promo)
  • Public Enemy, Yo! Bum Rush the Show

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‘Youthquake’ pretty much described my reaction to Pete Burns in 1985

[Dead or Alive - Youthquake]

I didn’t know what to make of Pete Burns the first time I encountered him in the video for Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me ‘Round (Like a Record)”.

Boy George and Annie Lennox had already blurred the androgyny lines in the years leading up to Dead or Alive’s debut, but Burns took it a step further. His rough baritone stood in sharp contrast to Boy George’s soulful tenor. He shook his hips and wagged his finger like a woman, but the eye patch and black clothing made you think he could kick your ass in the alley.

If I had been better conditioned to internalize my homophobia, I would have been repulsed by Burns’ feminine wiles. Instead, I would mimic his moves in front of the radio.

He was confusing, and that confusion was fascinating. He was scary and inspiring, no doubt offensive to my Catholic family to whom he would have probably given zero fucks.

I thought about buying Youthquake when it came out, but I wanted to make sure it had at least two other hits before I sank my allowance on it. Dead or Alive would score a second hit in the US with “Brand New Lover” on the following album, Mad, Bad and Dangerous. By then, I had already cycled through urban radio before eventually settling on college rock.

But I made sure to at least own “You Spin Me ‘Round” on 7-inch.

Over the years, I would encounter Pete Burns and shake my head over the transformation in his appearance. In my mind, he was a skilled acrobat on the thin edge of masculine and feminine, but he obviously disagreed.

Despite all the loss in 2016, Burns is the closest to home the Reaper’s scythe had hit. Prince was my brother’s artist, and David Bowie was once-removed in his influence on my life. Burns, however, was one of the first signals that I would not lead the heteronormative life of a first generation Filipino son.

Looking back on it now, he was probably the first public figure to plant the idea in my mind that being queer was not only acceptable but a source of strength. Yeah, you could be a sissy but a sissy who could kick someone’s ass in the alley.

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