how many heartaches must I stand

The best laid plans of mice and music bloggers oft come to shit.

I've spent the lion's share of the past few days up in the attic, flipping through Maura's and my record collections to take stock of what exactly we have and to select worthy candidates for digital transfer. It was during this process that I came across Disco Gold #2, featuring the "top tunes of today" as performed by "Dimensional Sound," in a crate of records Maura brought home from an estate sale last fall. (Besides being the Queen of Animals, Maura also happens to be the Marchioness of Jumble Sales.)

As soon as I glanced at the sleeve, with its lack of indicia, bizarre track list, and garish colors (a means of overcompensating, perhaps, for the blandness of the layout), I sensed I had a winner on my hands, the perfect means by which to further alienate Armagideon Time's readership (though it seems I'm doing well on that front already, if the site's Technorati rating and traffic stats are to be believed).

Based on the album's title, I had a decent idea of what to expect -- latin rhythms and orchestral string sections shoehorned by the hungriest of session musicians into tracks -- like "Night Moves," Bob Seger's blue-collar ode to adolescent horniness -- where such elements had no business being. The banality quotients of the original "Muskrat Love" and "Play That Funky Music" were at red zone levels to begin with, and the prospect of that being taken even further in the name of quick and easy sell-through targeted at the bottom end Quiana-and-cocaine crowd set my heart all a'flutter.

Then I actually listened to the record, and my expectations were utterly dashed. There was no disco-fication (and little disco) to be found, only some bait-and-switch marketing utilizing a hot trend to sell a package of off-brand duplications of popular songs of the era. Compilations of sound-alike covers were pretty common in those days, and were the reason behind the "by the original artists" (likely re-recordings) or "original recordings" (likely the real deal) qualifiers tacked onto advertisements for collections. Though not as ubiquitous as they used to be, their present-day incarnations can still occasionally be found warming the spinner racks at dollar stores. (Packed up somewhere in the attic is a CD collection of "hit movie themes" including generic renditions -- a bit of a redundancy, I admit -- of "Danger Zone" and "The Power of Love" I acquired somewhere.)

Though the cover versions featured on Disco Gold #2 weren't what I'd originally hoped for, I'd have still made the effort to rip and post them if they'd brought something campy, misguided, or downright awful to the table. Alas, that wasn't the case, as the renditions were simply competent, slightly off-model recreations in a store-brand cola kind of way.

Since my planned idea for today's post didn't pan out as I'd hoped, and I had nothing else on deck to take its place, I decided to just post some b-sides from the combined collection of 7" singles my wife and I share. They come complete with all the hisses, crackles, and pops inherent to the format...which just adds to the listening experience, as far as I'm concerned.



The Stray Cats - Can't Hurry Love (the b-side to 1981's "Rock This Town" 7") - Forget Phil Collins, this is where it's at, daddy-o. Rockabilly reigns Supreme(s).

The Go-Go's - Good for Gone (the b-side to 1984's "Head Over Heels" 7") - Better than the a-side, better than anything on the Talk Show LP, "Good for Gone" was hearkens back to the breezy pop sound of Beauty and the Beat as opposed to the overproduced (I'd say "laminated") material on the band's later two albums.

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Placebo Effect (the b-side to 1984's "Overground" 7") - This is a single taken from a four-song EP (I don't understand the logic behind it, either) of orchestral re-recordings of older album cuts (Join Hands in the case of this track) and b-sides released a couple months after the Hyaena LP (and the departure of Robert Smith from the band). It was all downhill from here, as far as I'm concerned.