and so we are well and truly "in the zone", look you see. which is to say that Christmas looms. no matter how peculiar, strange or odd it shall be this year, what with the invisible war on the plague still, in theory, being fought.
it is a time, or period, or era even, for tradition. there can surely be no greater, nor more important, tradition to engage in at Christmas than to spend £1 on whatever the most elite of Christmas CDs what Poundland has on the shelf. except this year rather than handing over a shiny new one pound coin to purchase the disc, one has to make payment via a "contactless" card thing, so as to avoid passing on diseases to others.
usually, or normally, it is so that Poundland have (quite) a range of Christmas compact discs to browse, select and purchase. this is 2020, though. we have for some reason traded in ideas of choice, freedom and what have you to just accept what we are given. and in this regard, Poundland only has the one disc of Christmas on the shelf. well, i only saw the one in the branch (or chapter) i went into, and i did not spend all that long a time looking.
the years have been kind to me, for they have let me obtain special Christmas CDs by the three greatest recording artists of the twentieth century off of Poundland for £1. for those of you who are for some peculiar reason interested in such, here are the links to those editions -
Chas & Dave - read more by clicking here.
The King, Elvis Presley - He may be seen by clicking here.
Mr Sinatra - details of the chairman's yuletide merriment found via clicking here.
hopefully (if you are interested in such) you can make out the overwhelming majority of the tracklisting for this set in the above picture. as you can see, yes, two of the three recording artists mentioned earlier do indeed feature here, with Chas & Dave missing out. not at all sure why one of their splendid Christmas recordings was not included, but what do i know of how the record industry works.
above is an image, of course in the greater glory of Commodore 64 mode, of this particular Christmas compilation CD on the shelf at Poundland. they don't even have a special display section for the festive discs this year, they have rather just shoved it with the regular stuff. which is no bad thing, as it allowed me to spot a copy of Collected by (or of) Massive Attack, which i picked up at the same time, cheers.
going on some comments i have seen online (and if it is on the internet then it must be true), it is only a matter of weeks, if not days, that Scotland will be an independent member of the EU. so, presumably, if you go into McPoundland, you will not see this disc on the shelf there. unless those seeking independence for Scotland are just using the EU thing as an angle to get what they want, and then yes, probably you could get the disc up there. no idea, really, i shall ask someone.
in conclusion, then, that picture above may (or might not) be a bit clearer on the track listing for you for the disc. nice one on including Johnny Cash, now i look properly, and the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole do add a touch of class to proceedings. actually, this does look decent, maybe it will get more plays that i suspected at first.
being staunch advocates of tradition means that Poundland have stuck to the usual here, and so every possible expense has been spared in creating this compilation. one is immediately struck by a sense of all the songs curated for the collection being selected less for relevance or quality, more for a lack of needing to pay any royalties or licensing fees. it is how they do things.
one quite strange thing about this CD is that it is (probably) banned from sale, distribution, playing or even private ownership in the EU. this is due to some obscure EU directive (maybe), which prohibits you claiming a musical compilation as being someone's playlist without the express consent of that person. as the producers of the compact disc failed to produce the regulatory documents to satisfy the claim that Santa agreed the music contained on (in) the compilation was his choice, it got banned.
do i imagine, or expect, to play this Christmas CD much over the festive season? not really, no. a priority for me at this time of year is to play the b-side of the 12" of The Power Of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, on which various Frankies bestow their Christmas blessings upon us, the devout and loyal fans. after that, them other three discs what i linked (actually four since there are two of The King, Elvis Presley) are more likely to get played.
why, exactly, then, did i buy this with little chance of it being played much? as it happens i might throw it into my verk vehicle to play as i drive around. but, other than that, it was purchased for the tradition of such things.
right, then, time for me, and for you, to get down and get with it, but just no longer on this post.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment