After The Noise
Everything Is Equal
Thursday 11 June 2026
The The – Slow Emotion Replay (1993)
Typical.
Absolutely typical.
I finally recover from the epic journey back from South America and, completely out of nowhere, I catch a cold.
And it’s June, for goodness’ sake.
Not a full-blown cold, just a niggling one. A sniffly nose, occasional sneezing fits and that horrible tingling feeling which tells you something isn’t quite right. Aching bones too.
Functioning has become surprisingly difficult.
Meanwhile, Manchester continues to do what Manchester does best. Rain, drizzle and general misery.
Even the dog walk felt like hard work this morning. Bowie looked almost as fed up as I did.
It’s times like these that remind me just how much music can lift the spirits.
This classic from Matt Johnson is something I haven’t heard for years, and it sounds every bit as good as when I first got my grubby hands on a cassette copy of Dusk back in 1993.
I was delighted when Johnson started making music again a few years ago, resulting in the excellent comeback album Ensoulment.
Speaking of epic…
Whitney Houston – The Greatest Love Of All (1985)
I wasn’t much of a Whitney Houston fan back in the day.
In fact, she occupied a prominent position on my personal list of musical enemies, alongside Michael Jackson, Mark Knopfler and his Dire Straits chums, and my greatest nemesis of all, Phil Collins.
Houston irritated me enormously.
The smile.
The ballads.
The endless songs about love.
Thankfully, time is a remarkable healer.
These days I bear no grudge towards any of them. In fact, I enjoy quite a lot of their music.
This song, however, has undergone a complete transformation in my mind.
I wasn’t especially keen on it at the time, but somewhere along the way it clicked. I still can’t pinpoint exactly when.
Every time I hear it now, it sends shivers down my spine.
It’s euphoric, majestic and features one of the great vocal performances in pop music.
The late Whitney Houston really was something special.
The Amps – Dedicated (1995)
The Breeders’ Last Splash was one of my favourite albums of 1993, alongside the aforementioned Dusk.
Which makes it all the more puzzling that I never bought this two years later.
I was probably too distracted by Britpop and life in London. And being a facking student.
Kim Deal after The Pixies, between The Breeders and more Breeders, before eventually returning to The Pixies. With a little help from sister Kelley along the way.
This is a lovely song.
That driving bass sound which made The Pixies feel so essential back in the day is instantly recognisable. It’s unmistakably Kim Deal.
I also like the idea of bands making a single album and then disappearing.
More artists should try it.
Are you listening, Mr Sheeran?
A bit of research reveals this is essentially a Breeders album in all but name, which makes it even stranger that I ignored it back then.
Clearly, I wasn’t reading the NME properly.
The Mothers Of Invention – Wowie Zowie (1966)
Frank Zappa’s early years are always worth revisiting.
Very much of their time, yet somehow still sounding fresh and exciting sixty years later.
That’s a difficult trick to pull off.
I’ve always been more of a Zappa dabbler than an expert, but this is exactly what my cold-ridden ears needed today.
You can hear the ideas bubbling away. The humour. The weirdness. The experimentation.
This is where it all began.
And as the rain continues outside and the cold refuses to leave me alone, it serves as another reminder of something wonderfully simple.
Music is a fantastic thing.
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