HOOKED ON 45.

I've always been in love with music. Right from an early age, not much else mattered. Of course there were the distractions of toys (i grew up in the golden age of Transformers and He-Man) cartoons and the like, but i always came back to the music. Born in the red hot summer of 1976, i grew up listening to my Dads record collection - with additions from my Mum -, which consisted of, mainly, 7" singles from the 70's - glam rock titans like Bowie, Slade, T.Rex, Suzi Quatro, Mud, (and a now unmentionable singer who was huge at the time, but whose crimes have rendered his contribution to music obsolete), amongst pop bands, Status Quo, a couple of Motown singles, and later stuff such as The Police and Squeeze. Also, there were several of those cheap K-Tel compilations, which i suppose were the NOW! albums of their day, containing the hits of the time, interspersed with some real oddities. And as my Mum had left work to bring up me and my 2 younger brothers, this music was often on in the house. As the oldest, i later inherited this collection, as well as my Dads Ferguson record player - one of those that allowed you to stack singles to play one after the other, smoky perspex lid - although, regrettably, i didn't take much care of them! Ensuring they remained in good condition was far from my mind: i was more interested in the sounds contained in the grooves, fascinated with how the music got there, and who all these people on the labels were (very few of them were in sleeves of any sort, let alone ones with pictures). One of the first songs i can remember is Madness' "My Girl", my favourite track to this day, and my favourite band since my teens, when the band reformed for their triumphant Madstock concerts. I remember pestering my Mum to put the few Adam & The Ants singles we had on in a morning before i went to school (i was about 5 or 6 at the time), and feeling that all familar tingle you get down your neck when you hear 3 minutes of pop perfection. And it wasn't just the hits i listened to: i often played the b-sides, sometimes preferring them. The b-side to "Stand And Deliver", the punky ode to S&M that is "Beat My Guest", was (and still is) a particular favourite, although at that formative age i had no idea what it was about! As i got older, and started getting the odd single for a birthday, and later buying my own with paper round and pocket money, my interest grew. I've grown up through a change of formats: vinyl, cassettes (the 80's really were the era of the blank C60 and C90, made for taping the Top 40 on a sunday!), CDs, the ill fated MiniDisc - which i liked for its long playing format, allowing you to record about 4 hours of music - downloads and MP3s, and back to the vinyl revival of today. There are those who will argue the superiority of one format over the other, and to be honest they all had or have their good and bad points. But when you get down to it, what matters is the music. That rush that you can only get from a great song. Sticking the headphones on and getting lost in the self-contained world of the LP. Sitting on the bus to work with your current favourites playing on a Walkman or iPod. Hearing it live, or blasting out of a radio somewhere. You can't beat it.