The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense - Tom Clancy
LOST TUNES is a new music download service from Universal which will keep anyone who grew up in the 70s or 80s very happy indeed.
You won't find a single cheesey boy band or TV game show contestant warbling into Antares Autotune here. Just honest to goodness musicians playing real instruments.
Admittedly, some of it is a bit obscure (Growers of Mushrooms by Leafhound anyone?) but there are some classic gems here, a lot of them not available anywhere else.
Anyone under the age of 30 would be well advised to check out all or any of the following:
The Tubes by The Tubes
Live and Direct by Aswad
Nightclubbing by Grace Jones
Street Songs by Rick James
Kilimanjaro by The Teardrop Explodes
All of which are absolute classics without which your record collection is, quite frankly, not worth considering.
Tunes cost 99p each or around £6.99 for an album, are encoded as high quality 320kbps MP3s, and are totally DRM free. Nice long live previews of all tracks can be streamed straight from the website.
You can pay for your tunes using the usual plastic, Click and Buy, or Paypal. µ
L'Inq
Lost Tunes
I use eBay for CD's of old bands. Got the likes of Blossom Toes, Edgar Broughton Band and The Pink Fairies for £5 + £1.50 P & P.
Looks very good in terms of artist roster.

Shame there seems to be no FLAC option and it also seems to require ActiveX. I guess that the latter would account for a browser full of unstyled XML when I try and listen to anything.


I think I'll still be listening to the Tubes' White Punks On Dope from the original vinyl for a while yet.
We old geezers have all the tunes on the original media: vinyl platters of various speeds, 8 Track, and Cassettes and even some reel-to-reel. And unlike the throwaway players of today, the ones to play these still work fine.

Ahhhh the mellow sounds from my tube-type system still warms my old heart and amazes those who hear it for the first time.

Even the buzz and hiss of physical contact with the media is comforting in its own way.