Frequently, when I talk about music, I am showing my age. The title to this blog is borrowed from Stand and Deliver, an early 80s song from English group Adam and the Ants. They were very big in 1981 – I recall Ant Music spending about 10 weeks on top of the Australian singles chart which was pretty much unprecedented (try doing that Taylor Swift!).
The line just popped into my head last night, even though I have never had any interest in listening to Adam and the Ants in the intervening four decades plus, and don’t own (nor intend to own) any of their recordings in either physical or electronic form.
The catalyst for me thinking about an obscure 1981 hit single was the arrival, on Friday in the mail, of Flying with Angels, Suzanne Vega’s latest album – her first studio album in over a decade.
Streaming means that I very rarely buy any CDs anymore, and nor do I bother playing them. Suzanne Vega, my favourite singer, is an exception to that rule – I just had to have her album in physical form, as with all her other albums, and some of her more obscure song track or tribute recordings (how else would I know about Laura Nyro, a folk singer whom Vega sees as a precursor?).
So last night I did something which is rare for me in recent years – I played some CDs rather than to just simply stream. I unpacked the CD player my cousin bought for me as a gift several years ago, and which had sat unopened and unused for all that time, plugged it in, and worked out how to use it.
Then I played Flying with Angels twice. After that, being in an indulgent mood, I grabbed my copy of Tori Amos’ early (and disavowed) album, Y Kant Tori Read, which I bought for about $150 in the Belconnen Music Shop in 1999 during my seven month sojourn in Canberra, and played that. [OK – it is not as good as Under The Pink or From The Choirgirl Hotel, but Tori Amos did not need to disown it except for the terrible 1980s hairstyle she wore on the cover.]
Then, to finish off the evening, I played a CD of Maeba Mina, a reclusive Italian singer with a cult following – another gift from my cousin.
I found it all more relaxing than streaming, which usually involves me picking out individual songs I like and paying close attention.
So… whilst I don’t own a stereo as such, and my record collection is a story for another day (I inadvertently acquired a large vinyl collection 14 years ago), I do have a large CD library (300 plus) that I need to listen to again. So the Devil can’t take them yet.
Lost For Words! 