It’s been FORTY THREE years since the magic of Into Battle with the Art of Noise has been banging around in my head. Forty three chuffing years. Blimey. And now I’ve finally got a copy on CD.

I still proudly own the cassette EP that I first bought from Selectadisc back in the Fair City in 1983. It was the first official release on ZTT. I have vague memories of seeing a video on The Tube the night before, and taking a punt.

That cassette has long since been knackered and worn out. I rinsed it to death on an old Walkman whilst carrying out a paper round for a year or so. I remember it being such a cinematic sound as I walked around the family village, shoving some free sheet shit through the letterboxes as the light faded.

The CD that landed this morning contains the glorious 23 minutes of the original EP, plus 17 other tracks to stretch out the release. The beats still sound industrial, yet somehow soulful. Moments in Love remains LUSH.

Atomizer is a very rhythmic album, and not the clusterfuck of noise that I was expecting. It even sounds a little like Nu Rave, some twenty years too early. I swear I heard some bagpipes. Big Black had some soul. They just didn’t want you to know it.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

This sounds like a diluted version of that horrid rock / rap crossover. Not that there’s any rap on it, but you get the point. It’s Lenny Kravitz outtakes, with all the original soul and energy sucked out with a clinical production style.

⭐ ⭐

There’s an awful lot of waffle on this album. Indian Sunset in particular had me losing the plot. It’s partially saved by the delights such as Tiny Dancer. This is why punk needed to happen.

⭐ ⭐

Uncle Joe’s 001 double CD. It’s a collection released after his death, capturing various bit and pieces across his pre and post Clash career. It stretches all the way from the early 101ers through to his final Streetcore album. There’s twelve unreleased tracks on there, with the usual disclaimer that demos are demos. I still find it impossible not to listen to the early pub rock of Keys to Your Hear without keeping my feet still. Oh how we miss him.

When I want dumb ass rock ‘n’ roll I turn to The Ramones. I’m finding that I want dumb ass rock ‘n’ roll more and more as life gets ever complex. This is the sound of a band learning how to play their instruments. They never really mastered this, but that’s not the point. It’s all about the attitude. It’s not Year Zero punk, either. There are some glam hangovers to be found in the guitar riffs. It could easily be a bastard version of Mick Ronson cutting out the chunky chords. This album makes me want to wear back leather for the rest of my life.

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I was very late in finding Wild Wood. I was so pissed off with the way TSC came to an end in 1990, that I dismissed the early Weller solo output as treading water. How wrong I was. I’m pleased that it took me around fifteen years later to pick up on Wild Wood. The hype had died down, I was left with the music alone. Yes, it’s rustic, laboured in places. Even bucolic. But that was the intention. A back to nature bollocks, yet still trying to plot a way forward for Weller, who was still very lost at the time. Yes he, ahem, found his way out of the Wild, Wild Wood. So did I.

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This was a bit of a weird one. I was convinced I already had some Buddy Holly in my collection. But nope. No worries. There’s endless options on ebay. But where to start? Most of the Best Of collections looked like telly advertised K-Tel quality. I took a punt with this at £2 and hoped for the best.

Something wasn’t quite right when it arrived. It was box fresh and sealed. I pressed play. Mmmm. That doesn’t sound like Buddy. Is it a covers band? ChatGPT tells me not so. I’m not convinced. The sound quality went downhill for the final six tracks or so. It sounds like a bad pressing, distorted as fuck. No one wants that from Buddy.

A replacement was arranged, which I’m still waiting for. The lesson here is not to disrespect Buddy with cheap as chips crappy CD compilations.

B.A.D. II’s Kool Aid usually sells for a price range that is out of my reach. This copy appeared on ebay for £6. I managed to get the seller down to a grubby fiver. Small wins, etc.

Kool Aid is far from grubby. It captures B.A.D. in transition from the original band, to Mick Jones reinventing himself once again with a new set of players around him. It’s also VERY rave, not to mention a little chill out in places.

£5 seemed like a fine price to pay. My wish list still has an original B.A.D. corduroy cap. No cap is worth £100, mind.

This sounds more like a mix tape than an album. I love the chopping and changing of styles and references points between each track. You can’t imagine it being recorded anywhere but East London during a particular time. Like all the best albums, it borrows from just about everyone, without ever trying to hide this. It’s disposable music that deserves to be revisited every now and then as a reminder of what was possible.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐