It's 1992. You're Erasure. You're number one, for the first time, after seven years of graft. Great.

What you don't know is that you've just killed your career stone dead by dressing up as Abba. Your peak is just the start of your way down to cult status.

They weren't to know. Are there any others who were similarly afflicted?

On Sky Anytime at the moment is an episode of "Songwriters" with Eurythmics beard botherer Dave Stewart.

For the unaware, the format is akin to MTV Unplugged/Storytellers but with a slightly over-earnest music journo prompting the musician to free-anecdote about the song about to be played.

I'd forgotten how talented Stewart was. He's managed to look like a twat often enough for his songwriting chops to be somewhat overlooked. The show's worth catching: he's accompanied by piano and violin only throughout. Some stunning vocals from Judith Hall, who I wasn't previously familiar with, and excellent violin from the not unattractive Ann Marie Calhoun.

Can't find anything on YouTube unfortunately; well worth looking out for on the Murdochbox though.

Somewhere out there, there is a hinterland of former pop stars still plugging away with negligible numbers of followers on Twitter.

You have thought interest would be higher, but alas...

Doctor & The Medics (http://twitter.com/#!/Rev_Dr) - 21 followers as I type this.

Joe Dolce (http://twitter.com/#!/IlFreddoDolce) - 23

Seems a shame really. Anyone know of any more in this stricken condition? And can the Massive help?

HMV have announced they are to close their 35000 square foot store at 360 Oxford Street.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1043327&c=1

The retailer today announced that it had exchanged contracts on the disposal of its leasehold for the store at 360 Oxford Street to US fashion retailer Forever 21, for £13.75m.

In a statement HMV says the money will be used to reduce debt. However, it explains that it will proactively seek to transfer sales to its existing flagship store at 150 Oxford Street and its Trocadero outlet, as well as to its in-store concession at the nearby Selfridges.

Not the more established of the two Oxford Street stores, but another worrying development for specialist entertainment retail.

There's a lot of nostalgia for 7" singles, and quite rightly - the magic of the A and B remains undiminished.

But let's fast forward a bit, to an era already almost forgotten when singles were aggressively marketed and, at its worst extent, pricing was king over content. It came in a half width plastic case, or worse still, a card sleeve. How are you supposed to show that Skunk Anansie single off amongst your CDs if the spine was unreadable? Answer: impossible. To be proud of it you'd need to keep it in a particular place, where you'd show your visitor "the good stuff that was in the card sleeves".

Nowadays all Prince albums are available this way. But tell me this: what were your favourite 3-tracks from the CD single era? I think this is an area much ignored by popular culture in the rush to download. Make a cup of tea, put a single on...

My picks:

Radiohead
1) Street Spirit (Fade Out)
2) Talk Show Host
2) Bishop's Robes

The final single from The Bends, and the biggest hit; coming after the appearance of Lucky on the Help album and a sudden realisation that they were pretty good, as it goes.

Suede
1) Stay Together
2) The Living Dead
3) My Dark Star

Brett Anderson hates the A-Side. He's not a great judge.

What are your favourite 1-2-3s from the age of the CD single?

I've just been sat here in front of a repeat of a Chart Show 1997, and I'm glad I suffered so you didn't, the Massive.

That said, I was subjected to a fuck-awful single by the post-Roses John Squire fuckup the Seahorses. As well as the Telebubbies. And Space.

Any road, I really loved "Blinded By The Sun" by the busker-plus-guitar-god mistake that was the Seahorses and that awful waste of talent, somehow, reminded me that the past is often shit.

Any other one hit plus everything else shit wonders the Massive would care to share?

I've heard it; it's hilarious. But then I think Led Zeppelin were hopelessly overrated.

More here:

http://www.spinnermusic.co.uk/2010/02/03/mary-j-blige-stairway-to-heaven...

I don't have any audio or video for you at this point. But bloody hell, it's funny. The sound of a sacred cow mooing loudly whilst milked.

For those of a certain age, discovering a bunch of issues of Smash Hits (1979-80, natch) that some gent has meticulously scanned in for the purposes of nostalgia is quite a coup.

This really isn't my doing, by the way.

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/

I was particularly taken by this page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/4318194500/sizes/l/in/set-7215...

with a mention of "Old Heppo (D.H. to his friends)" who is quoted as having quite a downer on all this new fangled synthesizer business. It'll never catch on, you know.

Yes, VH1 is now showing this. Has the cycle now completed? She sounds like Alanis, but not as good as Tori, who in turn was not as good as Kate etc.

Can we now junk this 90s phenomenon? Name a good recent one, The Massive!

Have we done this lot yet? Two albums that came out at the exact time that sounding like ELO and Wings and anything powerpoppy would be ignored, ie whilst shoegaze and grunge ruled. Yet they were fantastic.

I absolutely love 'em. Any other acolytes out there?

A sample:

(Embedding disabled by the evil EMI, I fear)

A new band from somewhere over the ocean.

A lot of the album has something of the Strokes about it, but the single "Song Away" is very The Cars/Tom Petty. Well worth a look if those names appeal.

The studio version has been yanked from YouTube, but here they are on Later:

I commend them heartily to you, the Massive.

When people ask me what my favourite gig is, I always say Orbital at Tribal Gathering, 1997. Just mindblowing, and I had seen Kraftwerk earlier that night.

They've got back together this year, and I am off to see them on Clapham Common tomorrow. I am uncharacteristically excited. Any other Robitall admirers amongst the Massive?

I attach perhaps their finest moment. Props to Hildegard von Bingen.

Doing what I do, I have access to "the midweeks". And Brian Eno's "An Ending (Ascent)" is in the top 100, having been downloaded over a thousand times.

Now I would love to see the Prof get a first bona fide top 75 hit, although it would need an increase in sales for that to happen. My question is: why is this happening now? Anyone?

Who killed music retail, when, and why?

When and who is easy. Eight years ago, filesharing became a thing that you needed no web fluency to enjoy and became accessible. No more of that impenetrable Usenet nonsense... Audiogalaxy, Napster, Soulseek - all of these now-almost-departed filesharing sites educated 2001's 11 year olds that music was now free; worthless. £12 for a Sum 41 album? No chance! I know a place I can get that for free!

So now 2009's 19 year olds, those who are at the age where 20 years ago they would have been *buying* the most music, aren't.

So who's buying it? Not the 11 year olds. If they were, High School Musical excerpts and the Jonas Brothers would be Top Ten in the UK. And last time I checked, they weren't. Why? Because they can't go down the high street and buy the single of the song they love this week.

So, who's left?

Yer 50 quid man, who bemoans the loss of Fopp from his environs, might still go to HMV but would far rather go online. From a purely business standpoint this makes a lot of sense: how can it be sensible to run 20 stores in 20 cities with a deep back catalogue of, say, 10,000 CDs, when Amazon can do the same from one warehouse location and thus cheaper. Very soon there will be one and a half large-ish record shops with range in central London. Watch that number shrink.

50 quid man will eventually stay at home and buy, or download, although he will hate himself for doing it.

Sad enough to say, the future of over-the-counter music retail is the casual buyer. The despised citizen who bought Jennifer Rush's "The Power Of Love" in 1985 and Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" in 1998. He or she might have bought 'Employment' by the Kaiser Chiefs because of the singles and may well have stayed on for 'Yours Truly Angry Mob', because of Ruby, but not the third album. Why would they? They aren't loyal Kaiser Chiefs fans. They're only likely to buy what they have heard that week and if the single isn't on the radio, no sale.

You won't find the rather wonderful Animal Collective album in the supermarkets, even though it is far and away the most rapturously received album this particular January. The chasm between critical acclaim and High Street commerce yawns ever wider.

Where's this going?