In case you’ve been hiding under a glam rock for the last few months you can’t have helped but notice that music journalists and highly-successful BCB disc jockeys with up to 3 listeners alike have been getting into something of a froth with regards to the new album by a young man from South London. The Next Day, David Bowie’s first album since Reality in 2003 was released this week following something of a biscuit game by the great and the good among musos, among whom The Independent‘s Andy Gill referred to the new Jones long-player as “The greatest comeback ever.” Clearly the likes of Greg LeMond, Bobby Ewing, and, this week, FC Barcelona have something of a claim themselves to this title, but to argue whose was the best is a pointless task partly because it is a largely meaningless phrase and partly because I’m not entirely sure what a “comeback”, in musical terms, actually is. To comeback to something you surely have to have indicated that you were, by choice or by default, stopping doing whatever it was that you were doing in the first place. I recall no such suggestion from The Thin White Pensioner. Admittedly, 10 years between albums is something of a significant gap – particularly for someone who not only released 14 albums in 13 years between 1967 and 1980, but some of those albums were the most influential records of all time. A couple of the records after were a right load of old pelt as well, but we’ll skirt over that. However, for whatever reason our pop idols are more pop idle than they used to be – whereas releasing two albums in a year was not uncommon in the 1960s and 1970s, we think little now of artists taking 3 or 4 years between releases, which really begs the question as to why they aren’t generally a good deal better than they were 30 years ago.

Is 10 years a comeback, then? Or is it just a sustained period of sitting on your arse squeezing blackheads watching Columbo repeats before you decide you ought to get back to work for a bit? Who cares. The new Bowie album is tremendous, and I’ll wait until the next day and the next and another day for the comeback after the comeback.

Selection Box Show 255 (Listen Again HERE)

Transmitted 13/3/2013

1. David Bowie – If I Can See You
from: The Next Day

2. Will Bradley & His Orchestra – Rhumboogie
from: Bands That Can Boogie Woogie (various artists)

3. Clinic – Seamless Boogie Woogie
from: Free Reign

4. Lady – Good Lovin’
from: Self-Titled

5. Portico Quartet feat. Cornelia – Sleepless
from: Live / Remix

6. Laurel Aitken – Bad Minded Woman
from: The Original Cool Jamaican Ska

7. OMD – Metroland
from: English Electric

8. Billy Jack Wills & His Western Swing Band – Troubles (Those Lonesome Kind)
from: Heroes Of Country Music Volume 1: Legends Of Western Swing (various artists)

9. Outer Minds – Look Behind The Mirror
from: Behind The Mirror

10. Ralfe Band – Horse To The Hinterland
from: Come On Go Wild CD single

11. Soweto Kinch – Invidia
from: Traffic Lights EP

12. Cloud Control – Hollow Drums
from: There’s Nothing In The Water We Can’t Fight CD single

13. Sophie Hunger – Like Like Like
from: CD single

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_XP34gohS4

Selection Box Show 254 (Listen Again HERE)

Transmitted 6/3/13

1. New York Dolls – Vietnamese Baby
from: New York Dolls

2. Dan Bau Vietnam – Rider In The Sky
from: Aquarium Drunkard Presents Ghostcapital (various artists)

3. The Brothers of Soul – I Guess That Don’t Make Me A Loser
from: Brown-Eyed Soul: The Sound of East LA Vol 1 (various artists)

4. S Express – Special & Golden (Parts I & II)
from: Original Soundtrack

5. Woodkid – Iron
from: The Golden Age

6. Washboard Rhythm Kings – Call Of The Freaks
from: Western Swing Roots 3: Jug / Washboard Bands (various artists)

7. The Family Cat – Sandbag Your Heart
from: Tell Em We’re Surfing

8. Nick Drake – River Man
from: Five Leaves Left

9. The Beat Club – Security
from: The Hacienda Classics (various artists)

10. The Flaming Arrow – Weary Head
from: Bomboclat! Island Soak Volume 1 (various artists)

11. Villagers – Earthly Pleasures
from: {Awaylands}

12. A Tribe Called Quest – Scenario
from: The Low End Theory

13. Robyn Hitchcock – Devil On A String
from: Love From London

Patrick Thornton presents Selection Box every Wednesday at 9pm.