Triumph: “Mogwai Young Team” by Mogwai

I was on my way home from a very dull afternoon spent in the British Library when I picked this up at HMV Piccadilly Circus, nearly 15 years ago (ouch).

I can’t recall what it was exactly that drew me to the record. Perhaps I’d half remembered some positive word of mouth from a few weeks earlier. Perhaps it was the cover art, which made it very hard to make any sort of educated guess at the music contained within, and therefore intrigued me. Most likely, it was the song titles. I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but Mogwai don’t half give good title: “A Cheery Wave From Stranded Youngsters”, “Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home”, “Summer (Priority Version”.

What on earth was going on here? I had to know what these songs sounded like.

I can still recall the process of my first listening to the album. At about halfway through the first track I can distinctly remember feeling a huge relief – “Aha – they sound a bit like Siamese Dream, only without Billy Corgan caterwauling over the top. I can live with this”. By the end of track two (the mighty “Like Herod”), I had revised my opinion further upwards – the slow, slow fade to near silence in the middle of the track and then howling return at full volume was a fairly cheap trick, but it knocked me sideways and ensured that what followed had my full attention.

By the time I reached “Tracy” I was, to all intents and purposes, in love. Where had this band been all my life? By the time I reached the album’s climax, the wonderful “Mogwai Fear Satan”, it was quite simply shock and awe man, shock and awe.

They’re not to everyone’s taste, but Mogwai remain one of my favourite bands. Young Team remains quite possibly my favourite album, and almost certainly my most played. It blew my mind on first encounter like no other, largely because I hadn’t heard a tune or two beforehand, or checked out thirty second snatches of song before dipping my toe in. I have no idea whether I’ll ever experience similar again, but I rather suspect that the odds are dropping as each year passes, as technology advances apace and my free time retracts towards the singularity.

Here’s the highlight.

“Mogwai Fear Satan” - Mogwai

Disaster: “White Heat” by Nic Endo

Okay, okay. I dabbled with Digital Hardcore and I got what I deserved. In my defence, it was the late 90s It was an experimental time. All the kids were doing it.

Fewer words needed for this one. I was young and impressionable and here’s what the NME said about their “single of the week”:

“A five-track EP with no tunes, no words, no beats and no concession to human pain barriers. Just an astonishing, terrifying, exhilarating roller-coaster ride of computer-generated noise which will burst eardrums, empty bowels and take breath away. Try sitting through Endo's appallingly beautiful symphonies of pure, monolithic, screamingly nihilistic noise. AAAAAARGGH!!! See? Even if you never listen to this record again, you must hear it once. Before now, Digital Hardcore were merely the true heirs to the Pistols, Public Enemy and Prodigy. Now we can add Napalm Death, My Bloody Valentine, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane and Karlheinz Stockhausen to the list of avant-garde sonic revolutionaries they have overtaken. Nic Endo is only 22. She hates you, your lifestyle, your politics and your records. Be very afraid.”

Sounds pretty interesting, right? Worth a go? After all, they’ve overtaken Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane and My Bloody Valentine – they must be doing something right.

Here’s what the record actually sounds like:

“White Heat” – Nic Endo

That's the band, whose first album Tell God I'm Here I bought on the strength of a glowing review in Q.

It was a well justified glowing review.

My last impulse buy was Josh T Pearson, Last Of The Country Gentlemen, late last year. I was out Xmas shopping and I kept seeing posters plastered all over the place for this album. I'd never heard of him, never mind the album but it had written across it Rough Trade Album Of The Year.

I was in Fopp, I saw it for £5 and I was buying plenty of stuff for other people, I thought I'd get a copy of this for myself.

What a dirge. Every song sounds the same. A disappointment.

Tom Russell in HMV a couple of years ago being a great example. I don't want to hear it beforehand, I still love to unwrap & play an unheard cd.

... the iTunes "Preview All" feature (you hear one and a half minutes of each song on the album) is great - it's saved me a fortune.

I once bought an LP of Dame Joan singing a Bellini opera because I liked the cover whilst perusing in a record shop. It was the first time I heard her sing 'Casta Diva', a pretty spectacular bit of music.

1982; some dodgy den round the back of Carnaby Street had the first National Health album for 0.50p. Though i was theoretically present when i saw them support Steve Hillage in 1978, i had no idea of their music, such was my 'distracted' state. I find the album utterly sublime and brilliant, and I still regularly play it.

when I was 14 I bought Pere Ubu's The Tenement Year on the basis of its 10/10 review in the NME. My knowledge of PU was limited to the one track on "C81" which I sort of liked. NME had only been using a rating system for about six months and it was rare indeed for new albums to get full marks. I wanted to hear something that had knocked someone out.

It knocked me out. A big thanks to whoever wrote that review.

Some bloke from the Sunday Times rated this as his album of the year so I popped it into my amazon basket and have loved it ever since.

...because it said 'organ and blues' on the front. Did exactly what it said on the tin - fabulous stuff.

I don't remember 'buying blind' often in pre-internet days. Record shops would always play bits of LPs first.

I bought a Mickey Jupp LP that had been hanging round Discount Discs in Southport for months after I heard a couple of tracks in store.

Even now, when there are so many options available to pre-listen, I hate hearing something before I buy it.

Half the fun is in the discovery.

And I'm very rarely disappointed (a complete lack of critical faculties helps here).

Was the new Waterboys "An Appointment with Mr Yeats" for my husband's Christmas. Such a hit that we played it five ir six times over on Christmas Day - just beautiful stuff.

AND when I drunkenly tweeted Mike Scott to tell him so - HE TWEETED ME BACK!! From New York!! Proper made my Christmas, that did.

I bought another copy for my brother's birthday, I was so impressed.

it was advertised in Q and I think was also endorsed by John Peel but mainly, I liked the cover. Its covers of 1940s stuff but I love it.

Recent hits:
Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo
Thea Gilmore & Sandy Denny
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why there are mountains

and misses (by many miles - It was a real struggle to finish both these):
Kate Bush 50 words for Snow
Jeff Beck Blow by Blow

The two or three times in my life when I have bought an album after hearing and liking it I ended up never playing it at home.
The fun of buying albums is to hear it for the very first time and find out if it sounds anything like what you had guessed it would.
I'm much more likely to get disappointed when I buy a new album by a band or artist that I already like and own albums by.

I keep a black notebook that I have alphabetized, where I write down albums and artists that I've read interesting things about; reviews or recommendations from the Massive or other people whose taste I trust.
And I will look for interesting cover art, bandnames, names of albums, any clue that catches my interest.
My best find last year got bought because I loved the cover art (even though I only saw a thumbnail sized photo of it).
Andrew Bird: "Noble Beast/Useless Creatures", released in 2009 but I missed it then. Bought it for practically nothing in the spring of 2011 and fell in love.
All thanks to the drawing of a big stag-beetle (I believe) that was totally irresistible to me.