Have Shed, Will Travel

Writer Andrew Hultkrans, in a small volume about the under-rated album Forever Changes by Love, wrote the following passage:

As a lifelong music addict, I have reached the point where I can be 99% sure that if a record doesn't grab me within two or three plays, it doesn't deserve a place in my collection. My ear isn't foolproof, but it's close. I say this because I've only encountered two albums in my adult life that have proved my instincts absolutely, laughably wrong. One is Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (1997), which I bought and returned twice before it completely flattened me on the third try.

Hultkrans went on to explain that the other of the two albums was Forever Changes, of course. I agree with him completely; I was extremely chuffed when I read this book, as I'd had a copy of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea for several years at this point, but had never come across anyone - apart from reviewers and critics, and we all know they don't count - who loved this album as much as I do. Hell, I'd never come across anyone who had even heard of it. Forever Changes only fares slightly better.

With both records, just like Hultkrans, it took me several attempts before I realised just how bloody amazing they really are. I would add a third album to the list: Barafundle, by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is now, and I suspect forever will be, my absolute favourite album of all time. Forever Changes and Barafundle aren't far behind. If you don't have any of these records... well, go out and get them! Even if you have to put your own grandmother in a pawn shop to afford them, you won't regret it. You might take a while to get them into your head - it took me a good six months before realising that Barafundle deserves huge praise - but once they're in your head, they're not leaving. These aren't earworms - they're much, much better than that.