From A to Z

I've been making great progress spending more time with my music collection and less time with BBC 6 Music. I'm now down to just listening to the breakfast show and so largely avoid the repetitious hell of the playlist. This has been made a little easier with Lauren Laverne going off on maternity leave (good luck Auntie La La) though that situation may change when Huey Morgan from Fun Lovin' Criminals steps into the fray as her temporary replacement.

It's not as simple as it seems though. My music collection is fairly large despite being culled somewhat in the past couple of months, so the problem is what to listen to next. I can listen to all my favourite albums (and I have) but that doesn't do justice to all the other stuff that's there. Just because an album isn't on my ever-changing virtual all-time favourites list, doesn't mean it isn't worth listening to. There are some absolute gems in there that just never seem to fight their way into my attention. So how to go about picking what to put on the turntable or slide into the CD player?

Last week I worked my way through my vinyl albums using the alphabet as a method of selection, trying to pick things that I hadn't listened to for a while. All went well until I got to 'Q'. No Queen, Queens Of The Stone Age, Quintessence, Q-Tips or Quicksilver Messenger Service. So in the end it came down to a choice between an old dance single by DJ Quicksilver or searching out something by ? And The Mysterians, which I'm sure to have somewhere on a CD compilation. I went with the former as it was easy to find and it's on vinyl like everything else in the A to Z. See below for a list of the selections.

So, what next? After having a day or two of general browsing, I'm currently picking my way through eponymous albums on CD, for no better reason than there seem to be quite a few and I rather like the word 'eponymous'.



Ash - Trailer
Bad Company - Bad Company
Cast - All Change
The Dylans - The Dylans
Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodiles
Finitribe - Sheigra
Goodbye Mr Mackenzie - Good Deeds And Dirty Rags
Happy Mondays - Bummed
Inspiral Carpets - Life
James - Wah Wah
Killing Joke - Killing Joke
Leftfield - Rhythm And Stealth
Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs
Nirvana - In Utero
Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder - Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder
Pere Ubu - The Art of Walking
DJ Quicksilver- Bellisima
Lou Reed - New York
The Slits - Cut
Todd Terry - Ready For A New Day
U2 - War
Velvet Underground & Nico - Andy Warhol
Wire - A Bell Is A Cup
X Cabs - Chemistry
Neil Young with Crazy Horse - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Frank Zappa - Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch