Big Star - No. 1 Record/Radio City - I still don't like both much after relistens and relistens. Lacks the wistfulness and melancholia of "Third" which is great. The slow songs work best - "Thirteen" and "I'm in Love with a Girl". Give me the Raspberries or the Only Ones.

Mothers of Invention - We're only in it for the Money - The pastiches of 60s songs aren't particularly clever or witty, although done well enough. I like the musique concrete slabs better.

Brian Eno - Here Comes the Warm Jets/Before And After Science/Another Green World/Taking Tiger Mountain(By Srategy) - New wave when there wasn't New Wave. Pretty good sonic explorations all with underlying quirky pop songs. Dislike the ambient shit on TTM(BS) though.

Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey/Garvey's Ghost - The former an excellent roots piece with "Back to Africa" militant slants. The latter a dub version of the aforesaid albeit without the spacey reverbs made famous by King Tubby. Both quite good.

Jeff Beck Group - Truth/Beck-O-La - Pretty early metal. Pretty deftly executed. Nice to hear Rod the Mod belting out seminal material also instead of the old housewife shit he does now.

King Crimson - Lark's Tongue in Aspic - Again, complex music which is emotionally evocative. Love this. Sounds like Dream Theater is trying to play like this but fail. (I only have one DT album, though)

Miles Davis - A Tribute to Jack Johnson - Just two long songs of mostly one-chord vamps with not much logical progression. I think it would have worked better if he had chopped up the songs into smaller ones but that's just me. The playing is exemplary, though.

New Order - Movement (Deluxe Edition) - Doesn't add much to my cassette copy as I own all of the singles on comps. A transitional album at best.

Of Montreal - Satanic Twins (Remixes) - Remixes of songs from Sunlandic and Satanic Panic. Haven't heard the originals so no idea how they fare. "Rapture Rapes the Muses" outshines the rest.

Macca & Wings - Red Rose Speedway - Surprisingly, "My Love" is not half as schmaltzy here as heard by its own what with the other gems here, in fact it reminds me of "Bluebird". Favourites are "C Moon", which can seque nicely into Toots and the Maytals' "Sweet and Dandy" and the inebriated "Hi Hi Hi".

Macca & Wings - Venus and Mars - Nice pop songs sandwiched between moments of pomp ("Rock Show"). I think Macca is the only one who had a consistent period of career following the break-up of that band I dread to mention.

Big Country - The Crossing/The Beloved - Happiness - Both childhood favourites until my cassettes conked out.

Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance - New wave post-punk. The eclecticism can be a bit over-bearing.

Peter Tosh - Legalise it - Good enough to have a toke to. That's the whole point, innit?

Public Enemy - Nation of Millions - Replacement after I threw it out for niggas being ungrateful to the States for providence.

Prefab Sprout - Gunman and Other Stories - Harks back to Steve McQueen. Nowhere as good as Jordan but much better than Andromeda Heights, which only had one or two good songs.

Something Else by the Kinks - Masterful tunes backed by grandiose-sounding instruments which somebody here mistook for baroque pop (well, the structures sure ain't baroque)/Arthur - Fail to see the concept as well but nice enough tunes.

This Mortal Coil - It'll End in Tears - Excellent side project by the dudes at 4AD, with cameos by the likes of Liz Fraser. Semi-instrumental. The covers are good, especially "Song to the Siren". The rocky "Not Me" is a square peg but rocks my testicles anyway.

XTC - Apple Venus/Wasp Star - Lavishly orchestrated pop songs. NICE! Even if not a Dukes album, they hark back to the Beatles and the Kinks.

The Dukes of Stratosfear - Chips from a Chocolate Fireball - Novelty or tribute album? You decide. The 60s acts it apes are immediately apparent. I like this too.

Wire - Chairs Missing? - So far removed from Pink Flag it might be a different band altogether. Takes time to digest.