Art Of Noise - Close To The Edit

Happy New Year dear reader and welcome to the 14th...good grief...year of The Hearing Aid. Okay so my posts these days tend to consist of roughly 16 words but never mind the quantity feel the quality eh? Hmmmm. Anyway hopefully this year I'll make it to slightly more gigs than I did in 2018 which, given that I only really made it to 2 (plus a couple of festivals) shouldn't be too tricky.

As per usual Christmas at Baron Towers was spent in a haze of gin, wine, yule log cream and artery blocking food but we did venture out to the chazzas and predictably came back with yet more CDs including a double from the rather wonderful and underrated Art Of Noise which only came out a few months ago. Presumably the buyer just uploaded the whole shebang to his/her/their ruddy smart phone or laptop and didn't need the original. Suits me.

PS: Sad to hear about HMV, inevitable but still incredibly sad. It looks unlikely that anyone will step in to save it this time, especially as the last lot (a 'vulture' fund called Hilco) seemingly took £50million out of the business over the past few years. I really do fear for the future of music. Sure there will always be great bands and artists out there but who the hell will be able to afford to pursue music as a 'career' when a million hits on You Tube only nets you enough for a single stick of gum? The result? A music biz controlled by one or two massive corporations, a handful of manufactured acts releasing tunes genetically modified to appeal to as many people as possible for roughly one week before the next comes along and a live scene that withers away to nothingness leaving just enormodomes playing host to holograms of long dead performers playing the hits to a crowd videoing the whole thing on their phones. The internet really does have a lot to answer for when you think about it.