{"id":55,"date":"2006-09-16T12:52:53","date_gmt":"2006-09-16T11:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/?p=55"},"modified":"2024-07-04T09:32:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:32:35","slug":"the-best-free-compilation-from-my-youthever-plus-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/the-best-free-compilation-from-my-youthever-plus-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Free Compilation From My Youth…Ever! (Plus One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although I’m an iPod owner, and an avid iTunes user, until this morning I’d never downloaded a song from the Apple Music Store (or anywhere else for that matter).\u00c2\u00a0 Call me old-school, but I like having the CDs.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I do have all of my CDs ripped to my iPod, and some I’ve never even heard straight off the plastic, but I still feel happier having the physical backup.<\/p>\n

A couple of days ago I read a buddy’s ‘blog entry<\/a> describing how he’d recreated a vinyl-only compilation from yesteryear by purchasing the individual tracks online.\u00c2\u00a0 Co-oncidentally, at the same time, my service provider (Belgacom) announced that they’d come to an agreement with Apple to give away 10 free downloads a month to broadband subscribers.\u00c2\u00a0 So this month I decided to build my own compilation of songs from yesteryear that I love, but probably not enough to buy a whole album by the artist.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s what I ended up with:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Geno<\/em>
    \nThis is one of the first singles that really excited me. It still lifts me up even now.<\/li>\n
  2. The Vapors, Turning Japanese<\/em>
    \nAnother classic single from back in the day.\u00c2\u00a0 A great tune,\u00c2\u00a0with lyrics that would do any obsessive stalker proud.\u00c2\u00a0 Who was to know it was about onanism?<\/li>\n
  3. The Ruts, Babylon’s Burning<\/em>
    \nA friend had the single of this at boarding school, and we’d sneak into the study of a sixth-former who actually had a record-player to listen to it over and over again.<\/li>\n
  4. The Clash, London Calling<\/em>
    \nI was never a big Clash fan – I could never take them seriously after hearing Lost\u00c2\u00a0In The Supermarket<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 But this is and always will be a standout song – a statement of intent and call to arms, rolled into\u00c2\u00a0one.<\/li>\n
  5. The Only Ones, Another Girl Another Planet<\/em>
    \nA staple from an ‘alternative’ disco I used to go to at college.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got Blink 182’s version, but you can’t beat the original.<\/li>\n
  6. The Buzzcocks, Ever Fallen In Love With Someone<\/em>
    \nThe best song ever written, bar none.\u00c2\u00a0 And a love song it’s OK for a bloke to like.\u00c2\u00a0 Fine Young Cannibals should never have covered it, because you can’t better perfection.<\/li>\n
  7. Althea and Donna, Uptown Top Ranking<\/em>
    \nAnother one I remember from my past. I didn’t have a clue what they were singing about, didn’t know my Roots from Reggae, but as soon as this started up I’d be skanking like Natty Dread.\u00c2\u00a0 Pure genius.<\/li>\n
  8. Clint Eastwood and General Saint, Stop That Train<\/em>
    \nAnother one from my (alternative) disco days. I don’t know why, but this one has been swimming around in my head ever since. I had to search on the lyrics to find out who it was by, but it’s a worthy addition to my free compilation.<\/li>\n
  9. Motorhead, Overkill<\/em>
    \nI was a huge Motorhead fan as a kid.\u00c2\u00a0 I got over it, but Overkill<\/em> still remains an essential track.\u00c2\u00a0 Philthy Animal Taylor’s drumming is blisteringly fast from the outset, and never lets up.\u00c2\u00a0 I know Motorhead were Heavy Metal, but this is pure punk – speed (both types!), attitude, and agression, it’s got it all.<\/li>\n
  10. Bob Dylan, Things Have Changed<\/em>
    \nI did want Seventeen<\/em> by The Regents<\/em>, which would have rounded out this retro-compilation perfectly,\u00c2\u00a0but Apple’s Music Store didn’t have that, so I settled for this.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a classic Dylan track, but isn’t on any of his official albums apart from the Essential<\/em> compilation, and I refuse to buy that as I have everything else on it on the actual albums.\u00c2\u00a0 Life of a completist, eh?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And that’s it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m now officially a ‘downloader’.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t think I’ll be paying to download anything in the near future (Amazon’s share price would dive if I removed my patronage), but I’m already planning what to get with next month’s 10 free downloads…<\/p>\n

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    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Although I’m an iPod owner, and an avid iTunes user, until this morning I’d never downloaded a song from the Apple Music Store […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30,42,75],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-ipod","tag-music-2","tag-nostalgia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1743,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/1743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}