The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

ABBA - Angeleyes / Voulez-Vous
(Single, Epic, 1979, S EPC 7499)



A Angeleyes
AA Voulez-Vous

This was a double A side, athough it was Voulez-Vous that got all the airplay, leaving Angeleyes all but forgotten. That nearly always happens with double A sides, only one side really becomes known.



...and Voulez-Vous live on Spanish TV. I love YouTube, you can find all sorts of perfomances you would never find otherwise. Bjorn and Agnetha's marriage broke up this year (I don't know if they officially split before or after this show) and the difference in affection in this video between the two couples is obvious (from about 50 seconds in). Frida and Benny look genuinely in love still, but you can almost sense a coldness between Agnetha and Bjorn. Agnetha's eyes clearly concentrate on the camera, wheras Fridas are all on Benny.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

ABBA - Super Trooper / The Piper
(Single, Epic, 1980, S EPC 9089)



A Super Trooper
B The Piper

That's the end of the Abba, someone else tomorrow.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

Abigail - Smells Like Teen Spirit
(Single, Klone, 1994, KLONES 25)



A Smells Like Teen Spirit (Guitar Mix)
B Stop The Hands Of Time

Abigail Zsiga is her full name. I can see why she just used her forename! This was the song that got her in the mainstream charts in the UK, but she was already known in the dance scene. Her cover of Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic was huge in dance clubs, she also covered REM's Losing My religion and kd lang's Constant Craving before this release.

She has a new release out at the moment, a collaboration with The Perry Twins, a "powerhouse duo", according to her website. A Google search for Perry Twins comes up with Alan and Michael Perry, twin brothers most famous for making minature figures for Games Workshop, I'm certain it's a different Perry Twins though!



This is her newest single:

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

AC/DC - Touch Too Much
(Single, Atlantic, 1980, ATL 11 450)



A Touch Too Much
B Live Wire

AC/DC had a fairly lengthy run in the other thread. By the time this came out they were massive and could do no wrong.

I like this, it's catchy metal, possibly a bit simple compared to earlier AC/DC stuff, but that doesn't make it any the less likeable.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

AC/DC - Shake Your Foundations
(Single, Atlantic, 1986, A9474P, Angus shaped picture disc)



A Shake Your Foundations
B Stand Up

The first picture disc in the thread, mine doesn't look this good anymore, the clear bits have yellowed with age. I'm not sure why, I'm guessing at some point it's been stored somewhere too warm or too damp or something.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

AC/DC - Heatseeker
(Single, Atlantic, 1988, A9136)



A Heatseeker
B Go Zone

I guess you're era depends on what you see as a "new" song. I was at Uni when this came out and had been into AC/DC for a long time, so I tend, subconsciously to see this as a "new" AC/DC song. Presumably their current crop of young fans would see it as ancient!

It is more commercial tha their earlier stuff, AC/DC sensbly fine tuned their sound so that it would be bought by the large amount of metal fans that seemed to be around at the time. I didn't actually get to see AC/DC live until 1991, headlining at Donington.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

Angus rocks!

That is all.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

Ace Of Base - Living In Danger
(Single, London, 1994, ACEB 3)



A Single edit
B D-House mix short version

Ace Of Base were much bigger in the rest of Europe than they were in the UK. In 1993 they had a bit of a setback when it was discovered that founder member Ulf Eckberg used to be a racist band called Commit Suiside (no typo, they did spell it like that). The band even had a song titled "White Power! Black Head Slaughter". Ulf, in 1997, said "I told everyone I really regret what I done. I closed that book. I don't want to even talk about it, that time does not exist in me any more. I closed it and I threw the book away 1987. I took the experience from it, I learned from it. But that life is not me. It's somebody else."

In 1998, some of the band's material was released (without his permission) on a compilation album called "Uffe Was A Nazi".

Fair enough, anyone can change, it's an odd story though partly because Ace of Base always looked so clean cut and normal and partly because their sound is clearly based on reggae music!

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

Adam & the Ants - Young Parisians
(Single, Decca, 1978, F13803)



A Young Parisians
B Lady

Adam Ant (Stuart Goddard) was originally the bassist in a band called Bazooka Joe. They were the headline act the first time the Sex Pistols ever played. Adam was inspired by these new upstarts to leave Bazooka Joe and form his own band. Adam & the Ants were born.

They struggled to get publicity, partly because many of their early songs had fetish based lyrics (some of these ended up as B sides of their later more commercial singles), but punk fanzines were happy to give them column inches. Their vinyl debuit came with two tracks (the most famous being Deutscher Girls) for the soundtrack of Jubilee, a contraversial punk film about Queen Elizabeth I going forward in time to some weird nihilistic version of the 1970s. The film is hard going, but entertaining, with a host of actors who would either later become famous or already had a cult following (Adam Ant himself, Toyah, Richard O Brien, Little Nell [the maid in The Rocky Horror Picture Show], Siouxsie Sioux, Jordan [the punk model, not the large breasted chav model].

Young Parisians was their first single after that. It flopped and Decca released them from their contract. Around this time, Malcolm McLaren poached the entire band (apart from Adam himself) for his new project, Bow Wow Wow. Undaunted, Adam found three new musicians and started again. They would find success two years later when a stonking tour (unsupported by a record contract) earned them a deal with CBS and they recorded the Kings Of The wild Frontier album. Young Parisians was (unsurprisingly) re-released by Decca once they were successful to recoup the money they'd originally invested, it made the top 10 this time.

In Australia, the B-side, Lady, which is much more true to Adam's punk roots, got more radio airplay than the A-side.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

Adam & the Ants - Kings Of The Wild Frontier
(Single, CBS, 1980, S CBS 8877)



A Kings Of The Wild Frontier
B Press Darlings

After losing the contract with Decca, the Ants first album was on a tiny indie label, it topped the first ever Indie chart listing. They the got a contract with CBS for their next album. This, the title track was the first single released from it, which I bought new. I have none of the other singles from the album, because I bought the album when it came out on the back of this single. A wise decision, it's an awesome album.

THis single didn't do so well though, only just scraping the top 50 on its initial release. The album though, shot to number one and the other two singles released from it (Dog Eat Dog and Antmusic) both sold very well, as did this, on rerelease in 1981, when it got to number 2.

Time for another TOTP performance, this from when the single was re-released. This track is an excellent example of the Ants drumming style, heavily influenced by African tribal beats, achieved by having two drummers playing simultaneously, perfectly timed but slightly off beat with each other, very difficult to do well.