echo & the bunnymen: siberia (cooking vinyl)

if i have to choose between buying a magazine with a cd or dvd attached to the front and one that has not, i will tend to go with the latter, thank you. strange that in another age a flexidisc (ask yer dad) was a once-in-a-blue-moon very attractive incentive to buy. it's just that a cd or dvd is at best a load of rubbish, in the bin with it. at worst it is just another way-in to more spending. i am specifically referring to the sampler cd which comes with publications like word or uncut. i have been duped many times into buying full-length albums when falling for the taster, and invariably best-by-miles track, on a sampler cd. there was the work song by willard grant conspiracy, and the season's reverse by gastr del sol. that's two off the top of my head where the other songs on the album were nothing to speak of. but i digress.

once upon a time, a sunny day in july 1981 it was, in the golden disc in southchurch road, southend on sea, a buck-toothed shop assistant held up two records. one was heaven up here by echo & the bunnymen, the other talk talk talk by the psychedelic furs. i stood on the other side of the counter, trying to decide which record i would spunk my pocket money on. no contest, of course, because the heaven up here cover is a classic and that was enough in itself, never mind what was inside. it was a good decision, though. my mind was blown, and the bunnymen were a fantastic entry into the esoteric. in retrospect, i think the furs would have been a bit of a dead end. anyway this is getting slightly nick hornby and i've only got 16 minutes left so i should move on. me and the bunnymen really hit it off and they led me to even greater delights, though they were my first love and shall always remain.

so how did it come to pass that i was getting my first taste of the latest bunnymen release through a sampler cd? crazy world, isn't it. i think the main reason is i loved them a lot and so when i stopped loving them, i had further to fall. the song, off the front of word is called something like all because of you days or something like that. it's the chorus anyway. and it just had something magical in it, similar to the magic they used to possess. so i bought the album. well, to be precise i used some spare nectar points to get it. and guess what?

it's alright.