025. Rex The Dog - Prototype (Casio Remix)

Despite the frequent ludditisms which bleed into my posts on this blog, not everything about the digital age and record collecting is so bad. Globalisation provides us with one of the more exciting aspects. To date I’ve purchased records online from: Ireland, America, Belgium, Holland, and now Switzerland. You can see evidence of this in the photos. The fact that I’m buying a record from a British producer from someone in mainland Europe for less, postage included, than it would cost to buy and receive the same item from sellers in my own kingdom serves to highlight both the state of the economy and the ridiculously overpriced postal system we are forced to endure.

Leaving that aside for the moment, despite Prototype being my all time favourite Rex The Dog track, for this I decided to go for the B side. It’s a version which uses only the Casio CZ-320S synthesizer, without any additional production. Those of you lucky enough to own said synth can download the memory tape data stream to play with at home. While the A side will always remain a firm favourite, possibly even making it into my all time favourite records, the B side is a nice oddity. When an oddity is connected to a favourite like this, it’s almost criminal not to have it in the collection.

Rex The Dog - Prototype (Casio Remix)
[Hundehaus : HUND001S]
(2005)

Discogs: €5.00

023. Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin

There aren’t many artists whose back entire back catalogue is a must. The Pet Shop Boys, even when they do things badly, do things better than most, and are thus coveted with the above. They are the exemplars of pop music, creating songs which are not overtly commercial, and yet get lodged in ones consciousness with total ease. Their music is intellectually and lyrically pitched just right, teasing you with enough meaning to draw you into the words, but thankfully not deep enough to require a unit on discourse analysis at the nearest university.

Their upcoming collaborations with Xenomania, the production house behind Girls Aloud and the modern day incarnation of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, released later this month is eagerly anticipated by myself, as two of the most exemplary organisations in pop music come together for one album. The Pet Shop Boys appearance on Girls Aloud tracks will hopefully add a needed mark of musical legitimacy for the detractors of the girl group, who deride them as just another throw away manufactured pop outfit.

Yet, despite the praise I have lavished on the Tennant/Lowe duo, they are sadly under represented in my collection, this 7” marking only the third release I own. In the past, I’ve always elected to consolidate the Depeche Mode offerings which, in place of pop sensibility, opted for a less accessible, introspective and altogether darker lyrical and sonic content. With new albums from both the Mode and PSB, perhaps the state of electronic music doesn’t seem as bad as I seemed to think recently.

Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin
[EMI : R6158]
(1987)

Helen & Douglas House: £0.50

009. GDX - Corrosion

Cover versions of the Sisters inhabit a realm of music which is best left unheard. They inexorably tend to the fantastically sub-standard. Usually, some dodgy goth band takes it upon themselves to pay homage to whom they regard as their spiritual forefather and end up producing some god awful out of tune clamour which remorselessly drains all the inherent acumen of the original, leaving nothing but a spiritually empty din in its wake. They simply miss the point.

To date this is the only cover version I’ve ever heard that is at least serviceable. Amazingly, GDX have managed to surpass the serviceable and entered the realms of common decency. What sets this aside form the pack is that they are one of the few who actually do get it. It’s not another group just trying to echo the Sisters. They have their own sound, their own take, and offer another interpretation. But, what they have captured is the sheer swagger, arrogance, ostentation, pomp and circumstance of the original.

GDX - Corrosion
[Interdimensional Transmissions : IT 18]
(2003)

008. Heaven 17 - Temptation

All that’s really necessary to describe this 7” is one word: epic. Put the stylus on the record, open up the fader and this track does nothing short of fill the room; be it bedroom, local pub, or 2000+ main room nightclub. Back in the days when DJs talked about records, instead of hard drives, a frequent topic of discussion centred around tunes which ‘never left your box’; music that was so exemplary one felt naked without the option of it in your arsenal when playing out. This is one of those records.

Heaven 17 formed as an offshoot of the British Electric Foundation when Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware ditched The Human League. It wasn’t until this single that the duo found commercial success. Unfortunately, it was their only real chart indentation, and subsequent releases failed to find the same perfect balance between dance floor appeal and yet detouring the unnecessary depths of commercialism.

Heaven 17 - Temptation
[Virgin : VS 570]
(1982)