This is probably the saddest blog post I've ever written. Ok, so it's no sad on a global scale of human suffering, but on a personal level it's quite sad for me. It's about some of the vinyl records I foolishly sold in the past, for what often turned out to be for less than a pint of beer. Some I have managed to replace at a reasonable price, others for a more substantial price, and others still allude me. There are also some which, although worth a hefty sum of money today, having sold I can happily live without.
I'm going to start with Aphex Twin. At one stage I had most of Richard D James' material on vinyl. I was more than pleased a couple of months back to pick up an original 1992 pressing of Selected Ambient works 85-92 which remains one of my all time favourite albums.
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
I've been less lucky on Selected Ambient Works volume II, where I used to be the proud owner of the triple vinyl version on brown vinyl. I'm not sure I'll ever be replacing this one as prices on Ebay currently start at over £300. Even the 2017 black vinyl, reissues seem to go for a fortune.
Surfing on Sine Waves by Polygon Window is another I sorely miss. Thinking about it, I used to own all of the vinyl releases in Warp's Artificial Intelligence series at one stage. I didn't own the coloured vinyl versions of these, with the exception I think of Incunabula by Autechre.
Next up is P J Harvey. I used to own most of the early albums and singles on vinyl and these are probably some of the ones I miss the most, in particular the debut album, Dry. I never owned the impossibly rare, limited edition version with the extra demos album, which now seems to command a price tag of £150 an upwards on Ebay.
P J Harvey - Dry, Too Pure records, c.1992
I did however manage to pick up copies of 1995's To Bring You My Love and also the 12" of Fifty Foot Queenie recently, but the bulk of the P J Harvey vinyl back catalogue still alludes me.
At one stage I had a fairly impressive collection of vinyl that was released on Manchester's Factory records, although not some of the crazily rare stuff like the Factory Sampler. Wisely, and thankfully, I held on to my Joy Division vinyl, but parted with the rest. Of all the Factory vinyl I did sell, it was only really A Certain Ratio that I regretted, and thankfully I've been able to replace all of that, including most recently their debut single from 1979, All Night Party. and debut album, To Each from 1981.
A Certain Ratio - To Each, Factory records, c.1979
As an aside on Factory records, I managed to miss out on Durutti Column at the time but have been able to track down a few of their original vinyl releases, although unsurprisingly not the original, highly sought after, first pressing of The return of the Durutti Column with the sandpaper sleeve, so I made do with a 1981 repressing instead.
The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column, Factory records, c.1980
Moving on to the Britpop era now, I used to own the first three Oasis albums on vinyl but don't actually miss them and am happy to listen in a more digital format. From that era though, albums that I did miss and managed to track down again were 1977 by Ash, Expecting To Fly by The Bluetones, and the debut Elastica album.
Elastica - Elastica, Deception records, c.1995
Gene - Olympian, the 1995 debut album by Gene remains missing from my collection but hopefully not too hard to track down.
Finally a short section on some of what I'll refer to as the second wave of punk where I had quite a few 7" singles of this era, some great and have stood the test of time, others less so. Most of these went a long time ago, but I'm still pleased that I have the UK Decay ones.
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