Category Archives: HMV years

Thirty Years On: October 1996

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I’d say for the first month or so of this new job of mine, I took the same somewhat longer route to work as that was the easiest. That would change within a few months of course, once I got used to the area and learned several of the backroads. I also remember briefly contemplating finding a place closer to the store. Mind you, that was mostly a lingering itch to head back out on my own that I didn’t take entirely all that seriously, knowing that it was more important for me to continue getting out of debt, ensuring this job stayed permanent, and that I could perhaps save up more.

Mind you, when your position is the lone shipping/receiving clerk for the entire store and every single CD, cassette, import and box set goes through your hands, the temptation to spend said money on new releases is pretty damn high, I can tell you that. Thankfully I did get an associate discount of 30% off (basically buying it at cost) and the promos coming into the store were plentiful. This was back when there were six major distributors (I can still rattle them off: UNI (Universal), EMD (EMI), BMG, Sony, PGD (PolyGram), and WEA (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic), and UNI and PGD would merge in 1998), and I got to know their sales reps really well over the course of my stay there. Not only did I acquire several promos, I’d also get free tickets to shows! I pretty much owned that back room, having laid it out for ease of access for both me and my coworkers, and I got to know the UPS driver really well with all his daily visits.

It’s funny, really, how such a simple thing as a job I truly enjoyed would lift my spirits so much. Until then, I had no idea that could ever happen. I was still feeling out of place, caught between friendships that were slowly fading into obscurity, a crowded house with little privacy, a past I was trying to move on from, and writing projects that I was losing interest in. Yet I now had this bit of personal freedom that I could explore for the first time now that I had the time, money and impetus to do so. I found myself escaping more and more, even if it was just for a few hours, whether it was one of those backroad trips or a visit to Boston or to the Pioneer Valley. I had to do get out there and do something. And I had the perfect soundtrack for it now.

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Fountains of Wayne, Fountains of Wayne, released 1 October 1996. This band from New Jersey (named after an actual store in Wayne NJ that sold fountains) featured none other than songwriter Adam Schlesinger, who we’d met previously as the writer for The Wonders’ “That Thing You Do”. “Radiation Vibe” got a lot of airplay on WHMP and WFNX and became their calling card until a some years later when the hugely popular “Stacy’s Mom” dropped. Their smart and clever pop sound is super infectious and they’re well worth checking out.

Republica, Republica, released 5 October 1996. This was the very first CD I bought at my own store via a gift certificate I’d won during an employee meeting for knowing way too much music trivia, heh. “Ready to Go” was a monster hit for the band and got played everywhere, both on alternative and commercial radio, and the vertigo-inducing video got a ton of play on MTV as well. It’s a super fun album that isn’t just great for partying but playing super loud.

Sneaker Pimps, “6 Underground” single, released 7 October 1996. Sometimes you hear a song on the radio and you literally stop in your tracks to say “what the hell am I hearing…??” This was one of them, and it was extremely popular on WFNX. The band offers up its own version of trip hop on this track from their debut album Becoming X that was originally released on 19 August in the UK, but wouldn’t be released in the States until the following February. It’s one of my top favorite tracks of the 90s and the album is highly recommended.

Elysian Fields, Bleed Your Cedar, released 8 October 1996. This was a promo I picked up purely out of curiosity as the sales rep had enjoyed it. They were like sultry and stylish slowcore, more noirish than Low but not quite leaping into goth grimness either. “Jack in the Box” was the single featured on WNFX but it was the swampy “Lady in the Lake” that became my favorite track. Singer Jennifer Charles would soon show up on several albums over the years as a guest vocalist, including Tweaker, Lovage, John Zorn, Foetus, Live, and more.

They Might Be Giants, Factory Showroom, released 8 October 1996. This band kind of fell by the wayside for me for a few years, partly because of their foray into much more serious music with 1994’s John Henry and their hiatus while John L and John F worked on solo projects. This, however, was a fine return to form with the funky single “S-E-X-X-Y”. This was another promo I picked up early on.

The Heads, No Talking Just Head, released 8 October 1996. This was an odd project by the now Byrne-less Talking Heads, recording an album full of guest singers like Johnette Napolitano, Debbie Harry, Shaun Ryder, Andy Partridge and more. It was apparently a sort of experiment to see if they could still carry on as a trio, yet nothing further came out of it.

Spice Girls, Spice, released 9 October 1996. I’ll admit I was not a fan of “Wannabe” partly because I could not escape the damn song. And yet somehow I found myself intrigued not by their sort of manufactured public image but their surprisingly catchy songs. The single “Say You’ll Be There” is a breezy and fun track full of soul, and the ballad “2 Become 1” (yes, it’s what you think it’s about) is actually quite a lovely production. It was so ridiculously popular at the store that I don’t think we ever returned any unsold copies for at least a couple years.

Phish, Billy Breathes, released 15 October 1996. I was of course familiar with this Vermont jam band via my college years, but I’d never actually gone out of my way to pick them up as that kind of thing wasn’t, well, my jam at the time. Although getting this as a promo changed that when I kept hearing the track “Free” on the radio. It’s a surprisingly catchy track that pulled me in. I was finally hooked and I’ve been a fan since. This album became a favorite during my writing sessions in the next few years.

The Lemonheads, Car Button Cloth, released 15 October 1996. This, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly the big hit they’d hoped it would be, and while it had a minor alt-rock radio hit with the single “If I Could Talk I’d Tell You”, it received mixed reviews and didn’t really do much afterwards. He’d put the band aside for the next several years and not resurface until 2006’s self-titled record.

The Monkees, Justus, released 15 October 1996. After their highly successful 1986 reunion and the occasional tours (often minus Mike Nesmith) thereafter, they decided to reunite once more for a full-on multimedia event celebrating their 30th anniversary, with not only an album of new tracks but also a TV special played up very similar to their old show of yore.

Paula Cole, This Fire, released 15 October 1996. You will of course know this album from its two huge singles “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” and the theme from Dawson’s Creek, “I Don’t Want to Wait”, but it’s a surprisingly deep and varied record that’s worth checking out, such as with the spooky “Mississippi” (my favorite track off the album) and the sexy “Feelin’ Love”. Later in 1997 when I went to the Lilith Fair concert, she ended up being one of my favorite performers that night. She’s put out several other great records since.

Beth Orton, Trailer Park, released 21 October 1996. Another singer-songwriter that got a lot of radio play on WFNX and other alternative and AOR stations, the dreamlike and delicate “She Cries Your Name” is a lovely track and one of my favorites of that year. It’s an intriguing record that seamlessly marries electronica and folk in a way that no one expected, and it works amazingly well. Highly recommended.

The Beatles, Anthology 3, released 28 October 1996. The third and final volume alas did not feature a third “new” song, with its opening track instead being a George Martin overture that was originally written as an intro to Ringo’s “Don’t Pass Me By”, but instead showed up as incidental music near the start of the Yellow Submarine film. The rest of the album features both the well known and the obscure (and much bootlegged) from the White Album and the Abbey Road projects.

The Rutles, Archaeology, released 29 October 1996. Meanwhile, Neil Innes’ spot-on Beatles pastiche project riffs not only on the band but the reunion with tracks once again sounding almost but not quite like the original. The Pre-Fab Four’s music is a treat.

Wilco, Being There, released 29 October 1996. While their debut AM did capture the interest of the fans of their former band Uncle Tupelo, it was this unexpected double-disc project that brought them a much wider audience. They’d remain an alt-country band with a heavy Big Star influence, but they’d remain a huge favorite with every release.

Luscious Jackson, Fever In Fever Out, released 29 October 1996. I used to hear the “Naked Eye” track on WFNX all the time on the drive to work, and by this time they’d become a band to be reckoned with. They still had that inner city groove they’d created with the In Search of Manny EP only they’d become glossier and poppier in the process. This was a favorite at my store and we’d play it over the system quite often.

Soundtrack, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, released 29 October 1996. I’ll admit I’m not the biggest Baz Luhrmann fan, as I find most of his movies cloying and over the top, but I’ll admit that he hit paydirt with this version of the Shakespeare play. He managed to be clever about it in several ways, and the soundtrack is full of favorite radio hits like The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” and the peppy “You and Me Song” by the Wannadies. But it was the Garbage deep cut “#1 Crush” (originally the b-side of the “Vow” single) that caught my interest — it’s a seriously sexy track even though the lyrics get progressively more unsettling as it goes on.

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Coming Up: Ending the year on a slightly curious and strange note, and looking forward

Thirty Years On: September 1996

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The answer to my job frustrations lay in a newspaper want-ad my mom saw in the Sunday paper in the early half of September. A new record store was opening in the recently opened new mall in Marlborough — out in the middle of nowhere yet perfectly placed where I-280 and Route 495 meet, two major highways in the state. Solomon Pond Mall had been built earlier in the year and was still bringing in new tenants when the HMV chain chose to open one there. They’ve long been a UK institution yet began expanding in the US in the early 90s. I’d gone to the one in Harvard Square in Cambridge a few times during my time in Boston. And their selection was excellent: they weren’t afraid to carry titles that weren’t on the national charts, and many music nerds like me loved that.

Me? Work at a record store? I mean, come on. Have you met me??

Especially since I had both retail and shipping/receiving experience, which they were looking for. I sent in a resume immediately. They responded back quickly with interest, first with a quick phone pre-interview and then a second in-person interview later on with the manager. That would take place in the food court of the mall, and by the end of it I believed I was a shoo-in. They would call about a week later with an offer, which I of course accepted!

And then came the next problem to be solved: how the hell do I get there? That was also answered by my mom who knew a few car dealership owners due to her job and asked around. In short order, so we found a beater for me: a 1992 blue Chevy Cavalier for $2000. Paperwork signed and filed, I was ready to go on my first day, which was 23 September.

How do I know this date without looking it up? Because my first day was actually getting training at the Harvard Square store the day before Sheryl Crow’s self-titled second album came out. That was the first CD I ever processed, tagged and price-stickered for the company. I’d start the very next day at the Solomon Pond Mall store.

The next four years were going to be interesting. And my finances were definitely going to suffer damage if I wasn’t careful with my purchases. Thank heavens for promo copies, then!

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The London Suede, Coming Up, released 2 September 1996. I’d loved their first album but felt the second was a bit too out there for me, but this third album hit the sweet spot: the glam rock of the first album, the quirkiness of the second, and some stellar songwriting. This is fascinating, considering this was the first without their original guitarist Bernard Butler. It’s my second favorite album of theirs right after the first one.

REM, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, released 10 September 1996. This band, on the other hand, had fallen from my obsession radar by the time this album came out. While I did like Out of Time, I thought Automatic for the People was merely okay and Monster was a noisy mess. This album was a head-scratcher for me then, a collection of songs written and recorded during long and grueling tours fraught with health issues and whatnot. It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s patchy and contains a lot of filler. And yet this is the one that a lot of latter-era fans think is one of their best, and critics couldn’t say enough great things about it.

Billy Bragg, William Bloke, released 10 September 1996. Bragg hadn’t had a radio hit in a while and this one suffers from not really having one on it. He was a new dad now and he’d temporarily backed away from his overtly political lyrics in the process, making this one sound rather calm and sedate. It’s got some great deep cuts on it, however, including the lovely “Sugardaddy”.

Kula Shaker, K, released 16 September 1996. I first heard this band when WHMP played the “Tattva” single and I was immediately hooked by their 60s psychedelic pop sound that was less a caricature and more a loving nod to the style. I was also taken by the brilliant album cover created by comic artist Dave Gibbons (known for his work on Watchmen at the time). It’s pure psych-out bliss and one of my favorite albums of the 90s. They’d break up a few years later, but would reunite in the 00s, and their latest (this year’s Wormslayer) is another favorite I often revisit.

Space, Spiders, released 16 September 1996. Yet another one-hit wonder, at least on this side of the Atlantic, with the 60s inspired single “Female of the Species”, which would end up on the soundtrack for the first Austin Powers film. But it’s catchy as hell and worth checking out the rest of the album. It’s good 90s fun.

Tool, Ænima, released 17 September 1996. After three long years, the revered alt-metal band that stormed MTV with its weird-ass Brothers Quay/Jan Svankmajer-inspired videos finally returned with its second record that won over fans (and gained new ones) immediately. I wasn’t the biggest fan but I appreciated them enough to listen to this one now and again while at work. I even had a promo tee-shirt for this album!

Cake, Fashion Nugget, released 17 September 1996. I’d known about this band for a while, but it was the excellent single “The Distance” that got me hooked. [It was also the hilarious one-note guitar solo for their cover of “I Will Survive” that sold me.] I’d borrow the store copy and listen to it up back quite frequently, eventually getting my own copy which I still visit every now and again. It’s a really fun album full of quirky alt-rock melodies that get stuck in your head.

Various Artists, Hang the DJ: Modern Rock 1986, 1987 and 1988, released 17 September 1996. Most compilations revisiting the 80s tended to not be all that daring, staying safe with the same Soft Cell, Thomas Dolby, ABC and Berlin songs you expect. The track list for these three titles, on the other hand, looked like something I would have made back in the day! [In fact, the 1988 volume contains quite a few of the same tracks as my year-end Does Truth Dance? Does Truth Sing? mix.] I found these at the record store and immediately picked up all of them on cassette where they got a lot of play over the next couple of years.

Moby, Animal Rights, released 23 September 1996. Moby took an unexpected left turn far away from his well-known and well-loved electronic music by putting out a hardcore rock album that confused almost every fan of his. He did, however, release a surprisingly decent cover of the classic Mission of Burma song “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” which got a lot of play on WFNX of course. [Sadly, the MTV version would take all the sting out of the song with the alternate line “that’s when I realize it’s over”, which still makes me wince.]

Fatboy Slim, Better Living Through Chemistry, released 23 September 1996. Before songs like “Praise You” and “Rockafeller Skank” permeated the airwaves and wouldn’t go away, he dropped a more sedate and lighthearted album that laid down the path he’d take on his electronic music career. The Who-sampled single “Going Out of My Head” got a significant amount of radio play at the time.

John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey, Dance Hall at Louse Point, released 23 September 1996. This one took me a while to get used to, as it’s not the sound of PJ Harvey that you’d expect. Parish was a former bandmate of hers, and they’d reconvened to put out what would basically be experimental torch songs, including a cover of the Leiber-Stoller song “Is That All There Is?” It was a critic favorite at the time, and I’ve eventually come around on it.

Weezer, Pinkerton, released 24 September 1996. I remember this one dividing fans and critics alike with its crunchier and heaver sound. Those who were expecting light pop gems like “Buddy Holly” and “Undone” instead got weird things like “El Scorcho” and “Pink Triangle”. I for one loved it, and would remain a fan ever since.

Soundtrack, That Thing You Do! released 24 September 1996. I knew this was going to be a pastiche on 60s pop with expected nods to the Beatles, but Tom Hanks pulls it off by making it a spot-on homage to the scene instead of a comic riff. It’s a really well-made film and one of my favorites of the decade. Even the music was bang on, with Adam Schlesinger’s excellent take on jangle pop as well as solo crooners and even jazz. This was one of the first promo CDs I’d get from the store!

Morcheeba, Who Can You Trust? released 24 September 1996. This band’s first album came out of nowhere and captured the attention of both critics and fans of trip-hop and chillwave electronic music with the great single “Trigger Hippie” that got a lot of play on WFNX at the time. I’d be a fan almost from the start.

Lamb, Lamb, released 30 September 1996. Believe it or not, I missed the boat the first time around on this band, though I’d finally catch on a short time later when my coworker Doug introduced me to the absolutely brilliant single “Gorecki”. [Yes, the character of Christine in the Bridgetown Trilogy is indeed named after this song.] By 1998 I was a big fan and they’d be on my “I’ll buy anything they release” shopping list. They’d also have pride of place on the Official Trilogy Soundtrack. Highly recommended.

The Chemical Brothers, “Setting Sun” single, released 30 September 1996. This duo had become a critic and fan favorite with their debut, 1995’s Exit Planet Dust, but they’d become even bigger with this teaser single that’s an obvious nod to the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and also such a noisefest that you can’t help but blast it out of your car’s speakers. It would be another eight months before the follow-up record appeared, but at that point they’d become an MTV staple in the late 90s.

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Coming Up: The beginnings of a deeper (and more expensive) immersion

Thirty Years On: July/August 1996

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I spent most of the summer of 1996 not quite in stasis but not quite moving in any specific direction, to be honest. It was more of a ‘waiting for something to come along’ that I was slowly getting used to. I’d kept my promise to myself not to once again fall prey to becoming stuck in one place I wasn’t entirely happy being in out of necessity; instead I made it a point to look for new jobs outside of the area. I’d still have to figure out travel arrangements, whether it was to borrow someone’s car or look into buying my own beater. In the meantime I stuck with the temp job at my mom’s bank until further notice and focused all my energy on job searching…and writing.

At this point in time I was still trying to figure out what to do with True Faith, which had stalled since I’d moved home. I was still interested in it because it was related to my original Vigil idea from 1993, but I kind of felt like I’d lost the plot, literally. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it, and I was constantly rewriting and revising it instead of moving it forward. It wasn’t close to my best writing and I knew it, so I was focusing on how best to rectify that. I really felt like I was holding myself back, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to break out of that either.

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Soul Coughing, Irresistible Bliss, released 9 July 1996. WHMP loved this album, especially the single “Super Bon Bon”, and so did WFNX whenever I listened to it during my road trips into Boston. My friend Chris was a huge fan highly recommended them to me, as they were less a straight-ahead alternative band and more of a poetry slam performance, complete with Mike Doughty’s weird yet captivating lyricism.

Soundtrack, Trainspotting: Music from the Motion Picture, released 9 July 1996. The movie was a massive hit everywhere (though I myself didn’t watch it until we rented it at some later point), and even the soundtrack was immensely popular, filled with such a wild assortment of music from Iggy Pop, Underworld, Blur, Primal Scream, and more. This also gave Iggy a huge boost in sales and popularity with the always great “Lust for Life” single.

Tonic, Lemon Parade, released 16 July 1996. This LA band could be seen as a one-hit wonder with the popular “If You Could Only See” single, and yet they’re still going strong today. This debut is a great record — the opener single “Open Up Your Eyes” is also a banger — and it’s worth checking out. I got to see them open for The Verve Pipe later in the year.

Chimera, Earth Loop, released 23 July 1996. I wouldn’t hear this for another few months when I finally found what would then be my dream job, and it was one of the first promo cds I’d snag. They were a sort of alternative-meets-trip-hop with a bit of shoegaze for flavor, and it’s an absolutely lovely record that became one of my favorites of the year.

Hooverphonic, A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular, released 29 July 1996. This is the album that started it all — and the only one with their original name ‘Hoover’ (before they changed it for obvious reasons) — and the amazing single “2Wicky” sold me right from the beginning for this Belgian group. They masterfully took the darker edges of trip hop and added a flair of elegance and beauty to it, and they’ve been a huge favorite of mine ever since. I highly recommend pretty much everything they’ve ever put out.

Eels, Beautiful Freak, released 13 August 1996. I was aware of Mark Oliver Everett’s music under the name ‘E’ (he had a minor alt-radio hit with “Hello Cruel World” in 1992), but I was drawn to his new project with the oddly catchy “Novocaine for the Soul” single. It became a huge hit on alt-rock radio and started a long and still-strong career for him.

Failure, Fantastic Planet, released 13 August 1996. The first time I heard “Stuck On You” was when I saw the video for it on MTV one day and was gobsmacked by just how flipping brilliant it was. It wasn’t just a banger of a track that felt like a punch in the face, the video was a dead-on riff on the opening credits to the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. I bought the album soon after and my mind was fully blown. It really is an amazing record from start to finish, heavy and loud and epic as hell. This album would be one of the first on my Official Soundtrack List to the Mendaihu Universe, and I would play it constantly while writing The Phoenix Effect and then the Bridgetown Trilogy over the next several years. I highly recommend owning this one.

Better Than Ezra, Friction, Baby, released 13 August 1996. After their popular debut, this was their equally great yet not exactly popular follow-up, and yet tracks like “Desperately Wanting” and “King of New Orleans” got significant amount of play on alt-rock radio for a good couple of years there.

Reel Big Fish, Turn the Radio Off, released 13 August 1996. Yet another ska-punk band of the 90s that cluttered up rock radio and MTV at the time, it was a super fun record regardless. “Sell Out” is one of my favorite songs of the late 90s and I remember I used to sing along to this one in the car all the time.

K’s Choice, Paradise in Me, released 20 August 1996. Another Belgian band, this time firmly entrenched in that 90s radio-friendly alt-rock sound complete with (yes) a one-hit wonder, the excellent “Not an Addict” that got play all over the place, even on VH1. I picked this one up on cassette and listened to it quite a bit at the time.

Tara MacLean, Silence, released 20 August 1996. Another singer I discovered during my upcoming new job, this Canadian singer was unfortunately overlooked by US radio at the time. She’s still going strong and has put out several albums, and recently a memoir. This one got a lot of play during my writing sessions as well.

Pearl Jam, No Code, released 27 August 1996. How do you follow up the massively popular Vitalogy album, all while very publicly boycotting Ticketmaster? By putting out something even weirder! It’s all over the place, containing both wonderful radio-ready singles like “Hail Hail” and “Who You Are”, folky tracks like “Off He Goes”, and dense soundscapes like “Lukin”. It remains a head-scratcher for a lot of people for it being all over the place. It’s the album of theirs I listen to least, but only because it can be a hard listen at times. They’d bounce back with the excellent Yield a few years later.

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Coming up: The start of the HMV Years

Thinking About: more early 90s techno

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Another thing that showed up in early 90s electronic music was the seemingly misplaced vocal sample that somehow fit perfectly in the song. I used to love those, partly because I enjoyed the game of ‘hey I know that bit!’ and how creative they slid it into the track.

Like “Papua New Guinea” by The Future Sound of London, whose main vocal line was lifted from Dead Can Dance’s “Dawn of the Iconoclast” (a track off my favorite DCD album, 1987’s Within the Realm of a Dying Sun). Several of my classmates at Emerson loved this track, and they’d play it all the time at the clubs on Landsdowne Street.

….or Utah Saints’ “Something Good”, which made liberal use of Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting”. I loved cranking this one up in the car when it came on the radio.

Then there’s Apotheosis with “O Fortuna”, lifting the famous choral movement from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. This one I remember well because they’d lifted the sample from a classical recording and hadn’t gotten clearance, making the single hard to find.

And then there’s just the downright silly “Sesame’s Treet” by Smart E’s. Somehow they made this work despite how ridiculous it is. Peak Gen-X retromania here, mixing our present and past into one.

Much later in the decade, a friend of mine introduced me to the equally silly “Speed” by Alpha Team, and I literally had a coworker at the record store writhing on the floor in laughter when I played him the breakdown part of the Hardcore Mix (about 3:30 in).

I suppose this is partly why I eventually latched onto electronic music in the 90s, because it wasn’t always about the scene or the vibe. It wasn’t always serious. Sometimes it was just about having fun being creative with the technology you had, even if the output was more for laughs than anything else.

Catching up on music…with Pulp

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It’s been a long twenty-four years since their last album, 2001’s We Love Life, though like The Cure they’ve been busy off and on in the interim, doing various tours and shows when they can. I’d been a passing fan during their 90s heyday, aware of the classic “Common People” single but little else until 1998’s This Is Hardcore, one of my favorites from the HMV Years. They were yet another band I’d finally get into just when they’re on the back end of their cycle.

Anyway, it’s great to see them back in the spotlight, with a lovely lead single that feels like they haven’t missed a beat at all. I’m yet to sit down and fully experience the new album More, but I’m looking forward to it!

Dividing Lines: When the Trilogy Soundtrack Really Started

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I’ve been going through my music library for the year 2000 to revisit what I would be listening to in the Belfry, and I think I’ve figured out the point where I knew the HMV days were truly over and when the Belfry days kicked into high gear. It’s actually a surprisingly stark line that jives with when I was given the quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from my terrible boss. It’s August of 2000, and by the end of the month I’d be gone.

The Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, 1 August 2000. Although I’m almost certain I bought this in my final days at HMV and listened to it around that time, I want to say this was an album I spent more time listening to in the Belfry. I wasn’t even the biggest DW fan; by this point I’d heard their earlier hit “Not if You Were the Last Junkie On Earth” for the zillionth time on WFNX and did not like it to begin with, hearing “Godless” turned the tables for me. I remember listening to this one a lot during the summer evenings and weekends while figuring out what I wanted to do with The Phoenix Effect.

Between then and the end of the month, I did pick up a handful of CDs both from the record store and from Newbury Comics — by then my weekly comic book run had started to include a quick stop there to look for things my own store might not carry (or sell cheaper).

Goldfrapp, Felt Mountain, 11 September 2000. I’d left the record store by this point and was just starting at Yankee Candle — a westerly commute instead of an easterly one, and twenty miles shorter at that — but I really didn’t want to disconnect from my weekly accumulation of music. I could just as easily buy copies of my favorite music magazines, CMJ (College Music Journal) and ICE (an industry magazine featuring news on new releases) at Newbury Comics. I think this was one of the first that I bought there after starting the new job.

VAST, Music for People, 12 September 2000. I know I bought this one the same day as the Goldfrapp album (and the Barenaked Ladies album Maroon as well). I’d been a big fan of Jon Crosby’s first album under the VAST moniker and while this one felt slightly more upbeat and less steeped in Nine Inch Nails-esque gloom, it featured some amazing tracks that got a lot of play in the Belfry.

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I actually wouldn’t start writing A Division of Souls for another year and a half, maybe early 2002 after the frustrations brought about by The Phoenix Effect and its sequel The Mihari, which I was writing at the time. The two books do have a lot of similarities to A Division of Souls, however, and it was simply a decision to stop work on both TPE and TM and completely start over from scratch. [Very similar to what I’d done recently with Theadia, actually.]

The music that inspired the project, however, started around this time when I switched day jobs. It wasn’t a clean switch of course, as I actually worked second shift for my first couple of months (3 – 11pm or thereabouts) and wouldn’t move to first shift until sometime in November. It would be around that time when my writing sessions would truly become more stable and frequent, as would my weekly trips to Newbury to pick up new music.

Revisiting music from the trilogy

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I said I was going to do it and I’m doing it now: I’m currently going through the albums and singles from 2000 onwards as a soundtrack to the Bridgetown Trilogy Remaster Project. I started the revisit on Monday afternoon on my day off with William Orbit’s remixed take on Barber’s Adagio for Strings, one of my all-time favorite classical pieces.

I know, this is sort of an arbitrary place to start and doesn’t really line up with the writing chronology. I’d started and finished The Phoenix Effect (the early ‘demo’ version, if you want to continue the music analogy) but hadn’t yet started writing its aborted sequel The Mihari (that would take place that summer if I’m not mistaken), but the actual day-one of A Division of Souls wouldn’t take place until late 2001 or early 2002.

So why start the relistening at January 2000? Partly because I knew my days were numbered at the record store by then. I still loved the job and wished I could stay there forever, but a) I could definitely see the downturn of the music industry happening in real time, and b) I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle the store manager without eventually ragequitting. It was also a bit of a weird time musically; grunge had long given way to adult alternative which had given way to meathead alt-metal, and pop was having a huge resurgence with its sugary overproduced electronica.

A lot of music I listened to at the time felt a bit out of place. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to listen to, because very little of it was resonating with me at a deep level, as it once had just a few years previous. That could very well be due to personal issues and changes, and at the time I was feeling unmoored.

Still, I was willing to see where it all took me. Life changes and all.