And time won't take my love away
Jan. 11th, 2008 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaOn Fridays this year, we ask...
What's in the Box?
The Box in question is the glovebox of my car, home to my extremely motley tape collection. By the time I owned a car with a tape player tapes were on the way out and most of my music was in CD format. However, charity shops were practically giving tapes away, which meant that I bought rapaciously and eclectically. A half-remembered 80s band who once released a single I'd liked a little ? A band I'd vaguely heard of ? An unknown group with good cover art ? Bring them on.
Of course, the net result is that I've ended up with a tape collection which any music-lover would be slightly ashamed of. There was a relatively narrow window (late 70s to later 80s) when tapes were big news, and my horde represents that. However, in amongst the terrible pop I've found some gems and I reckon its time to come clean about my guilty musical secrets.
In The Box this week we have:
Black Box - Dreamland
Perusing the contents of The Box[*] last night I found various albums which I feel will stand up to scrutiny. They are at least unembarassing, and in some cases genuinely credible. However, I feel that this isn't really playing the game. Accordingly this week we take a swift dive into the world of 80s bilge.
Do you remember the summer of 1989 ? Jive Bunny was at number one in the UK charts for ever, with Swing The Mood, and was replaced by Ride on Time by Black Box which was, in turn, at number one for ever. At the time I, a very recent convert to chart music and a lover of both 60s pop and ridiculous medleys, hated the strange, screechy dance record that knocked Jive Bunny from his ear-waggling top spot.
Quite what possessed me to buy a Black Box album fifteen years later is something of a mystery; the sticker on the front suggests I paid a whole pound for it (though the cheapest of Amazon's secondhand sellers has it at a bafflingly expensive £17.50). I think perhaps I was just curious to hear a half-remembered song which reigned for a now-implausible six weeks[**].
This album screams 80s - even thought it was at the end of the decade, things don't cut off that sharply. The cover art, the samples, the keyboards... let's just say it's of its time. However, trundling up and down motorways with Black Box for company I've grown strangely fond of the tape.
I Don't Know Anybody Else was a later single from the album; in the UK it wasn't as successful. It shows off the singer's flexible voice in the same way Ride on Time did, although the Vomiting Man sample is something of a mystery. Maybe they borrowed it from Kiss, I've no idea.
Black Box - I Don't Know Anybody Else [link expired]
[Poll #1119584]
[*] In a spirit of fair reporting, I should really point out that the contents of The Box is a slightly notional concept; only a small fraction of my tape collection will actually fit into the glove box of my car at any one time. For the purpose of this exercise, The Box realistically comprises the car glove box, a couple of teetering piles on the chest of drawers in my bedroom and (for slightly vague reasons) a carrier bag under the stairs.
[**] Yes, I know it wasn't dramatically overlong then. Please no one mention Bryan Adams.
What's in the Box?
The Box in question is the glovebox of my car, home to my extremely motley tape collection. By the time I owned a car with a tape player tapes were on the way out and most of my music was in CD format. However, charity shops were practically giving tapes away, which meant that I bought rapaciously and eclectically. A half-remembered 80s band who once released a single I'd liked a little ? A band I'd vaguely heard of ? An unknown group with good cover art ? Bring them on.
Of course, the net result is that I've ended up with a tape collection which any music-lover would be slightly ashamed of. There was a relatively narrow window (late 70s to later 80s) when tapes were big news, and my horde represents that. However, in amongst the terrible pop I've found some gems and I reckon its time to come clean about my guilty musical secrets.
In The Box this week we have:
Black Box - Dreamland
Perusing the contents of The Box[*] last night I found various albums which I feel will stand up to scrutiny. They are at least unembarassing, and in some cases genuinely credible. However, I feel that this isn't really playing the game. Accordingly this week we take a swift dive into the world of 80s bilge.
Do you remember the summer of 1989 ? Jive Bunny was at number one in the UK charts for ever, with Swing The Mood, and was replaced by Ride on Time by Black Box which was, in turn, at number one for ever. At the time I, a very recent convert to chart music and a lover of both 60s pop and ridiculous medleys, hated the strange, screechy dance record that knocked Jive Bunny from his ear-waggling top spot.
Quite what possessed me to buy a Black Box album fifteen years later is something of a mystery; the sticker on the front suggests I paid a whole pound for it (though the cheapest of Amazon's secondhand sellers has it at a bafflingly expensive £17.50). I think perhaps I was just curious to hear a half-remembered song which reigned for a now-implausible six weeks[**].
This album screams 80s - even thought it was at the end of the decade, things don't cut off that sharply. The cover art, the samples, the keyboards... let's just say it's of its time. However, trundling up and down motorways with Black Box for company I've grown strangely fond of the tape.
I Don't Know Anybody Else was a later single from the album; in the UK it wasn't as successful. It shows off the singer's flexible voice in the same way Ride on Time did, although the Vomiting Man sample is something of a mystery. Maybe they borrowed it from Kiss, I've no idea.
Black Box - I Don't Know Anybody Else [link expired]
[Poll #1119584]
[*] In a spirit of fair reporting, I should really point out that the contents of The Box is a slightly notional concept; only a small fraction of my tape collection will actually fit into the glove box of my car at any one time. For the purpose of this exercise, The Box realistically comprises the car glove box, a couple of teetering piles on the chest of drawers in my bedroom and (for slightly vague reasons) a carrier bag under the stairs.
[**] Yes, I know it wasn't dramatically overlong then. Please no one mention Bryan Adams.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 04:10 pm (UTC)But I think the female vocal on Ride on Time was a sample, and that the woman who appeared with the band was there for appearance's sake only. Maybe this is a further sample of the same person.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 04:41 pm (UTC)I'd inferred (without knowing the original it was sampling) that it wasn't that part that was sampled. The whole album appears to have the same vocalist on, so that would be pretty extensive plundering for samples.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 04:48 pm (UTC)