Memories, how they fade so fast…
At work I am currently trying to structure some data and write a report around the evidence that the data provides. I have been trying to do this for a while and it has proven to be time consuming although I’m pretty sure I have cracked it structurally, which has been my biggest problem. Doing this in a busy office has been tricky because of the distractions which are all around – principally the constant noise and hubbub which is enough continuously to interfere with concentration. I have countered this on a couple of occasions by working at home to try and get things written but this isn’t really a sustainable option and so I often simply close my door at work and put on my MP3 player.
This too can be tricky as not all music is conducive to working. Material which requires concentration or invites close listening to lyrics is not really on because these are simply more sources of distraction. Conversely, if the music is too quiet and reflective then, if played while trying to make sense of a 1700 line spreadsheet, it can act as a potent soporific. Generally, then, I go for material which is so familiar that I can zone it out. Sometimes I find things, though, which I had forgotten that I had on the player and this happened today when I listened to the second album released by The Buggles under their own name – “Adventures in Modern Recording”.
I have always liked The Buggles and have all three of their albums. The first, The Age of Plastic, is a modern classic. Although Video Killed The Radio Star has become something of an overplayed cliche, it got to be played so often because it is so good and I can remember when it first appeared out of nowhere on the radio way back when I was still staying at Coates Hall in Edinburgh when I was first a student. I bought the album then on a pre-recorded cassette which I still have although it was replaced by cd some years later. The second Buggles album – although I am being mischievous here – is otherwise known as Drama by Yes. This is an album which I largely ignored for a quarter of a century but which I now quite like, even if it is relatively short. The two tracks from Drama which Yes have been playing on the current tour – Machine Messiah and Tempus Fugit – have stood the test of time pretty well. The odd one is Adventures in Modern Recording which I didn’t especially like for a long time on the basis of one or two listenings. I have to say, though, that listening to it this afternoon I really rather enjoyed it as background and I shall have to listen to it properly soon.
In a complete change of tone, the Buggles were followed by another album which I have had for more years than I care to recall (on vinyl) – Alan Stivell A l’Olympia. Somehow it seems to be that recordings which stayed closest to a musical tradition or which were, in their time, the most oddball and leftfield, seem to have stood the passage of years better than much which was hailed at the time as “classic”. A l’Olympia has problems through headphones – the un-necessarily intrusive audience noise is one, the often peculiar separation of instruments through the channels being another, usually when it sounds very like a studio overdub has been pasted onto the live master. I know it so well, though, that I don’t really mind.
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