Artful Dodger 'It's all about the Stragglers'

I'm back again, after taking some time off and being a bit lazy. I've been inspired by reading some wonderful blogs so here I am again. I suppose blogging is a bit like Twitter. It can take a while to 'find ones voice' and 'sometimes one can't be arsed' with it all. I'm not going to think of this as blogging, I'll pretend I'm writing a column for a really cool magazine that no one reads...

I've pulled out a couple of CDs from my stash. Artful Dodger is playing at the moment. It's been on repeat since 9.30am. Here's a little recap as to why I'm doing this little exercise. I've been listening to and buying music nearly all my life and I love love love music. However, I stopped strongly connecting new music to events and memories a few years back. The old stuff's fine, but nothing new. I'm certain that this coincided with the purchase of my first iPod. Too much music on tap, too much choice and not spending enough time listening to 1 thing. Sure, there's still the odd piece of music that I can hear that transports me straight back somewhere however I feel this is getting rarer and rarer these days with current music.

I'm revisiting every CD I own and writing about the feelings and memories it evokes. Sometimes it does nothing.

'It's All About the Stragglers' is one of those albums for me. I've had it playing now for nearly 4 hours now and I don't really get a sense of time or place from it. I know I didn't buy this, I'm sure it was from the insurance company after we were burgled. It's the only album of this genre I own. It's good though. Richly produced, clean, bright and bassy. I'm listening to it on my proper hifi in my office and it sounds quite fat and organic... Do you know what I mean?

My mate Ben called me earlier and I told him what I was listening to. He actually booked Artful Dodger a couple times to gig at his Uni a few years back.

I'm glad I pulled this out. It's definitely a HIFI cd. You need space to appreciate this kind of sound. The really annoying thing about this CD is that it has 99 tracks. 12 real ones, followed by 86 silent ones and then 1 last hidden track. What's the point? It's just annoying.

2 things you must know about this CD

1. Craig David's on it (not too annoying either)
2. It's where 're re wind when the crowd say Bo Selecta' came from

It's 10 years old you know?! Blimey, that surprised me...