four

who is and who isn't


this is a little late, look you see, but i thought that perhaps you - if you are a frequent and indeed regular visitor - may well have had enough of Ian Brown for a bit. such a sentiment is of course heretical, but then again also i do make every effort to avoid writing about the same subject for consecutive posts, unless there is good reason to. which of course there was with the day of release misadventures in respect of the new Ian Brown album, Ripples.

but for now, the point of the post. one week after the peculiarly difficult to attain day of release and the album chart has come out. yes, true and totes, the charts are no longer as important as they once were. for starters the "singles" chart has become meaningless due to messing about with how "sales" are calculated. the album chart is not far behind being such a mess, what with x number of free "streaming plays" equalling one "sale", but still the actual sales of the actual record are what count the most.

and the people have, it seems, gone off to purchase Ripples off of Ian Brown, even if one could not do such at HMV, as it turned out.

indeed, fourth in this "consolidated" chart, which appears to combine sales of actual lps and cds, presumably tapes too, with all this "streaming" and "downloading" stuff. beaten off of the top spot what Ian Brown has never reached (no, not even with The Stone Roses) by The Specials, someone called Busted and that record about that film about that Australian in a circus or something singing about being in a circus or something.

how does that compare with previous chart performances by Ian Brown? favourably. allowing for the fact that more sales this week might push it higher, that number four slot is only bettered by his third solo album (and arguably his finest), Music Of The Spheres. it currently equals the position reached by the (now 20 years old) debut solo Unfinished Monkey Business, quite topical at the time The World Is Yours and for the complete image Second Coming off of The Stone Roses. which means it did better than The Stone Roses debut, which somehow only ever got to number five, and the superb Solarized which somehow stalled at 7.

whilst i cannot tell you too much about Busted, for i am not quite so "down" with the kids and what they are grooving to that i know of them, i am pretty confident i know how The Specials got to number one. and good luck to them, by the way. tape sales, or the sale of tapes, must count towards the chart. one of them google search thing says there are presently 21,000 "licenced" black cabs (hackney carriages) operating in London, which presumably means 21,000 copies of the new album by The Specials are in the tape decks of such vehicles. i have every confidence that the non-tube, non-uber and non-bus using members of the London community have heard bits of the tape as they have been driven around at the maximum cost to be able to do so, all whilst their cheeky cockney cabbie belts the lyrics to Pressure Drop over whatever is on the new album.

the failure to purchase Ripples on its day of release was, for me, offset somewhat by my in hindsight wisdom in ordering the tape of it off of Ian Brown's site; a tape which did indeed arrive on the day of release. on the day of release i did take to the web to go back to the very same site and placed an order for it on CD. this, as you can see above, arrived the very next day, along with the 12" of First World Problems which i elected to order at the same time. well, i do like to purchase at least one proper, physical single each year.

yes, in retrospect, i did "miss a trick" by trying to go and buy the CD (and possibly vinyl) at HMV. for a consolidated amount that i spent on separate orders for the tape, then the CD and 12", i could have got the "super" bundle what came with the CD, tape, vinyl and a print of the album artwork signed by Ian Brown. but, i didn't, and if i had then i would not have got the 12", so there you go.

what would i have done with the print what has or had been signed by Ian Brown? framed it probably, and put it on display. i am not sure i am all that fussed about having signed stuff, really. over the years i have picked up things off of the Manics, and Brett out of Suede, which have been signed by them, but in truth i would have bought such singles unsigned. the novelty factor of the Brett out of Suede one is, i guess, that knowing his fortunate lifestyle he was in all probability likely to be doing a sex as he signed the records.

am i still digging the album? yes, very much so. i've been giving it fairly frequent spins, with spins being the right term as i have now put the tape away and am playing the shiny CD. it's just a bit easier to have on when you are doing the dishes and that, not needing to flip the tape over to hear side two.

how about a bit more on the 12" single? sure, why not. the most striking thing about it is that, in keeping with the point above, Ian Brown has decreed that both sides of the record may be used. whereas this might seem perfectly normal, for the two (by their standards) "recent" records off of The Stone Roses, the 7" All For One and the 12" Beautiful Thing, the song only appeared on one side, with side two (the b-side) being all blank and smooth.

oh surely yes, i know,  many who purchase things like 12" singles in this day and age leave them unopened, so that they may be "mint and sealed" when they for some reason resell them on stuff like ebay and what have you. well, i buy music because i wish to own it, to play it and to keep it. besides, i thought some of you may want to have a gander at what it looks like, so there you go.

erm, whereas both sides of the 12" are used, it's just the one song. there is the album version of First World Problems and then there is the "edit", which i imagine is the download "single" what i bought as and when it came out. oh. but still, nice to make a fairly maximum use of the slab of vinyl.

will this likely be the only single (that has the benefit of being an actual single) that i shall be purchasing this year? i am not sure. oddly i have no idea who, if anyone, that i like will be releasing any new vibes this year. or, for that matter, of any new artist will come along with something that i would fell compelled to purchase. maybe i will go along to that independent record shop i found on Record Store Day this year, see what classics are getting reissued.

yes, that's an unusual non-Commodore 64 mode picture of the 12", the tape and the CD if you are interested. indeed i have pretty much run out of things to say for this post, hence the obvious narrative for the obvious picture.

no, to the best of my knowledge, Ian Brown has not granted any interviews in support of Ripples. this, presumably, or you would imagine, is all down to the fact that he is fully aware any and all interviews will see him get asked questions of, or about, The Stone Roses, which he presumably is not interested in answering. there is also no word on a tour, or any concerts. if i were any good at doing bets and that, my money would be on a gig or two being announced rather than any sort of interview being granted to anyone. now watch, since i have written that, an interview appear somewhere now that i have said it would probably not.

why, or for what reason, do i particularly care about the chart position of this or any album? to lessen the sense of isolation, i suppose. so much of modern society places emphasis on being alone, or in solitude, and not "out there" in any sort of randomly mingle sense. well, except getting hammered in pubs and clubs, or that sort of thing. just knowing that there are fellow fans out there, who i in all likelihood will never meet and would probably not wish to meet me, makes me feel fleetingly less alone in this life, i suppose.

go on then, the back of the 12", the tape and the CD too. sorry for the poorer than usual quality of the pic; my pc what has my picture fixing (kind of) software on has crashed, so this is pretty much the best i can do for you. no idea why the flash is doing what it is doing.

am i likely to round off this set and buy Ripples on vinyl? it is possible. now that HMV has been saved by some Canadian business concern (thank you very much), then maybe it is now that the record label shall trust them with copies of it to sell. considering that my last visit to HMV gave me a sense that it was my final ever time there, it would be apt to return to purchase the record.

speaking of vinyl, wouldn't you know that Ian Brown is on that twitter thing. he took to it to express his delight that, when measured on vinyl sales alone, Ripples was in fact number one this week.

splendid stuff, although one suspects that Ian himself didn't do this twitter thing, rather one of the people down the record label or similar.

anyway, that's that for this post. possibly also for Ripples for a while. the album shall probably just get mentioned over the next ten or so months in passing, when any other new releases get bought and i comment on how they are not as good as Ripples. also, at the end of the year when i do a "best" thing, this shall no doubt be it.




who is and who isn't