The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

Fairy_Nuff said: ▲ I remember reading an interview with her once where she said it's the limelight she dislikes. I'm glad she writes for others as she's really talented, imo.

That would make some sense.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

60ft Dolls - Happy Shopper
(Single, Indolent, 1996, DOLLS005, Ltd ed grey vinyl)



A Happy Shopper
B After Glow

I don't know much about this band, but I do know I like this record.

What I do know is that they're from Wales, they play poppy punk and they supported the Sex Pistols in Finsbury Park when they reformed.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

999 - Wild Sun
(Single, Albion, 1982, ION 1033, Promo)



A Wild Sun
B Scandal In The City

999 are one of the early punk bands who are still going, still touring. I put them on once when I was promoting back in the 90s, they all turned up in their BMWs, VERY punk, I'm sure.

This track isn't really punk, either, quite a few punk bands seemed to experiment with different genres in the early 80s before slipping back to punk later. This is actually quite catchy, it's gonna be stuck in my head all day now.

This is on black vinyl, normally not a big deal, but for this particular single, the black vinyl is the rarer. The ones you could buy in the shops were all either red or yellow, it was only the pre-release promo copies that were pressed on black vinyl.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

A - 5 In The Morning / 8 Fingers
(Single, Tycoon, 1996, TY 1)



A 5 In The Morning
AA 8 Fingers

So we've finally hit the letters.

A share the record for shortest band name with M, 5 different acts with the name X and, tbh, loads of other bands, using a one letter name isn't exactly an original idea. At least A should always come first alphabetically if you spell out numbers etc.

A are aan English band (I just tried to loook up where from, but Discogs says Leed and wikipedia say Suffolk!), formed in 1995 and getting a contract with Warner Bros just a year later. The signed the contract on behalf of the record company Typhoon Recordings which they wholly owned. That gave them more artistic freedom than they'd get otherwise. This was their first single, the A side was to feature on their first album when it was released later in the year.

They went on to release 5 albums, both in the UK and the States, but only ever had minor hits until 2002, when the single Nothing. Since 1997, their bassist has been Daniel P Carter who DJs on Radio 1's Rock Show.

They've been on hiatus a couple of times, but their still going.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

a-ha - That Sun Always Shines On TV
(Single, Warner Bros, 1985, W8846)



A The Sun Always Shines On TV
B Drfitwood

I like a-ha, there I've said it. I didn;t when they first came out, although to be fair, that's because I just dismissed them as "another commercial band". Later and with a more mature outlook, I actually listened and they did some good stuff. Whatsmore, they showed that Norway can produce musicians no matter how many nil points they get at Eurovision.

This was only their second single, it took a-ha teo years to get from forming to releasing their first single (Take On Me). It was released three times before it became a hit.

We haven't had a TOTP appearance for a while, so maybe it time for one, presented by John Peel and Janice Long.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

a-ha - Cry Wolf
(Single, Warner Bros, 1986, W8500)



A Cry Wolf
B Maybe, Maybe

I've just noticed something odd, looking at yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's releases (yes, I have looked into the future!), Warner Bros catalogue numbers seem to run backwards! Why would they do that?

Anyway, this was from their second album, it's one of my least favourite a-ha tracks, I'm not sure why it's one of the few I have on 7".

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

a-ha - Touchy!
(Single, Warner Bros, 1988, W7749)



A Touchy!
B Hurry Home

From the "stay on these roads" LP, that's enough of this band, someone else tomorrow.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

ABBA - Waterloo
(Single, Epic, 1974, S EPC 2240)



A Waterloo
B Watch Out

A classic piece of vinyl, not worth anything it sold millions so there's loads of them about. Abba were Sweden's biggest export for a long time, at one point they changed the rules in the Swedish chart to restrict the number of weeks a record could be number one, otherwise it would have just been Abba all the time. But we did all that years ago in the 12" thread.

Waterloo was the track that sold Abba to the World, when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with it in my home town.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

ABBA - SOS
(Single, Epic, 1975, S EPC 3576)



A SOS
B Man In The Middle

Abba were quality. Did they do a weak track? I can't think of one.

This was the first big hit after Waterloo, the third single from their third album, and the only record in the charts ever to have palindromes both for artist and title.

Contray to popular opinion, Abba's worldwide success wasn't instant, and their links to my life are becoming a bit odd, the more I look into them! All four of them played in different acts (all having some success in Sweden - Benny's group, The Hep Stars were known throughout the 60s as the Swedish Beatles) to each other in the 60s, although they know each other, in 1970, Benny and Bjorn recorded a single as a duet and the girls occasionally sang backing vocals. The two couples went on holiday together in Cyprus later that year, and starting singing as a quartet on the beach, just for a laugh. They ended up performing a proper show for UN soldiers on the island. They decided to release an album together and their first Swedish hit single came in 1971, although they hadn't come up with the Abba name yet and it was released as Bjorn and Benny.

They continued to work together, both as a duo and as a songwriting partnership (a song they wrote came 3rd in the 1972 ESC). The first proper single as a quartet was Ring Ring (credited to Bjorn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frijd) in 1973, recorded using a wall of sound technique it set what was to become the trademark Abba sound. They put the name Abba together later that year. Ring Ring was a hit in much of Europe but failed to break the lucrative English speaking market, that came in 1974 with Waterloo.

Their first European tour after Waterloo didn't do very well, shows were cancelled and hardly any sold out. They became labelled for a while as a one hit wonder. The Waterloo album (their second) did well in Scandinavia, but barely scraped the top 40 in the UK, and got to only 145 in the US chart. Abba, the next album, did slightly better reaching the top 30 in the UK (but did even worse in the US, reaching 174). It wasn't until their 4th album (Arrival) that they got the guarranteed number 1s all over the world.

There were 6 singles, all of which flopped in the UK between Waterloo and this! After SOS, they didn't fail with anything that they released, so maybe THIS was the breakthrough single, not Waterloo.

Despite it's catchyness, lyrically it's a sad song about fading love.

The Fork Me 7" vinyl collection thread

ABBA - Take A Chance On Me
(Single, Epic, 1977, S EPC 5950)



A Take A Chance On Me
B I'm A Marionette

By 1978, Abba were 5 albums into their career and were one of the biggest bands in the world. The song was inpired by the noise Bjorn used to make to hmself over and over when he was running "Tkk a ch". The B side of this was from a musical that Benny and Bjorn were writing at the time that never got made.

Here they are live on German TV. Agnetha was SOOOOO hot.



She's still not looking bad for her age:



Here's a rare performance of the B side, in Australia in 1977.