14 'til I die: remembering the teenage me's music habits

As we approach the end of 2020, the UK is a virus-ridden pariah country, its coastlines rammed with stranded lorries, its inhabitants throwing ungifted Christmas presents into shopping trolley-infested canals.

No wonder we prefer to look to the past instead, when everything was sunshine and happiness and ice cream. Take the current meme in which you post albums from when you were 14. That's nice, isn't it: thinking of the music at a formative moment of your life rather than the current apocalypse.

For the teenage-era albums, I chose Pet Shop Boys' Actually, the Mel & Kim album, a Richard Clayderman collection and Introduce Yourself by Faith No More. Richard who? Ask your great, great grandparents. I was very into piano when I was a kid.

The truth is I can't remember what I listened to when I was 14. Those albums sound about right, but remembering that far ago is like looking through frosted glass that's been encased in bubble wrap then wedged between two slabs of lead.

I do know that the 14-year-old me listened to classical music, enjoyed drawing and photocopying comics, was very involved with the local church, and was thoroughly addicted to the daytime soap Neighbours. I definitely had a musical ear to the ground: I remember T'Pau and La Bamba and George Harrison and Starship (overwrought emotions pictured above).

But despite my ongoing obsession with A-Ha's Hunting High And Low, I was a bit too young for albums. I was more likely to make my own albums by taping the charts, then editing those tapes using my dad's tape-to-tape recorder. I have an entire crate of these cassettes somewhere. Or if I did buy an album, it would be a greatest hits, like the scene in which Alan Partridge reveals his favourite Beatles album.

I slowly learned that albums could be a complete expression: a journey from A to B – literally, considering the formats of the time. By the time I was 18, I was an album aficionado: I even wrote a music column for a local paper. And by "aficionado", of course, I mean "naïve and egotistical mess" because that's what a lot of 18-year-olds tend to be.

In fact, it's horrible looking back. Being a teenager then wasn't good. When I was 14, in the year 1987, the world was only just starting to tackle the HIV / AIDS pandemic, while political superpowers were still brandishing nuclear warheads at each other. I've just looked up 1987 on the internet, and there were plane crashes and a tsunami and political kidnappings and the birth of Marcus from Mumford And Sons. 1987 sounds terrible.

As for me? I was horrible too. I was a disease-ridden social pariah, my messy bedroom rammed to the rafters with tatty comics: I produced so many teenage juices – mainly pimple goo – that I might as well have been sleeping in a shopping trolley-infested canal.

As we approach the end of 2020, I'm looking to the future. There's not much sunshine and happiness and ice cream right now, but it'll come. I'll also be writing up my annual Best Albums list because I'm dead good at albums, me.

Further Fats: The Stone Roses and the seriously stained alley of nostalgia (2011)

Further Fats: Cassette tapes are back, which is why I've got my sausage out (2020)

Do you remember the first time (with your own money)?

Any group of friends socialising over drinks will, at some point, raise one very particular question. That question is: what was the first record you bought with your own money?

It's a good question because the key bit is "your own money". Spending your pocket change in a record shop was step towards independence, and a stride away from hand-me-down records from your goth sister, mod-obsessed dad, or creepy uncle who dresses as Gary Glitter. It's one of your first stamps of identity.

For young generations these days, this question is obsolete. They're saving up to buy limited Record Store Day vinyl box sets encased in walrus hide: the £10 punt on a CD is increasingly rare. The modern equivalent of this question is "what's your favourite shuffle button" or "how many times a day do you skip the YouTube premium trial".

My memory is as decrepit as an old wardrobe left in a hedge, but I think my first bought album was Five Star's debut. I can't even remember its name. I listened to it once then swapped it with a neighbour for A-Ha's Hunting High And Low. "There's no eeeend to lengths I'll gooooo."

A-Ha became my world. I had their lyric posters. I had their duvet set. I made an A-Ha photo book by cutting up magazines, which I left in the school library only to be destroyed by what I can only assume were jealous Wham! fans. A-Ha was the first album I owned, and the first one that turned me into a fanboy.

But it wasn't, was it. I never bought it. The true answer is Five Star, a record of which I have no memory at all. I'm not sure even they can remember what it was called.

I like a good chunky shuffle button, preferably with an orange background. But never mind that. What was the first record YOU bought with YOUR own money? And did you get the duvet set for Christmas?

Further Fats: Do you pay for your record collection? (2009)

Further Fats: While my guitar gently sods off (2010)

A-ha-actually...

Someone playing Take On Me.
Kid to dad: "This is such an obscure tune."
Dad to kid: "Obscure? It got to number one!"
Me: holds tongue.
Me: holds tongue.
Me: holds ton-- "Actually, it only got to number TWO."

Yes, this happened. I really shouldn't be allowed out in public.

To be fair, the dad was then joyfully forced to hear me launch into my favourite bit of pop trivia, which is this: The act beginning with A that had a UK number one hit with Take On Me was, in fact, the boy band A1 in 2000, and not, as you'd think, A-ha in 1985.

How's that for a bit of slightly depressing pub quiz trivia? It's such a poor cover version as well.

To be honest, I think he stopped listening at "actually".

It was written by Pal Waaktaar you know, and not the good looking one

One of July's most significant electronic releases was Chromeo's Fancy Footwork, their follow-up to 2004's She's In Control.

She's In Control passed me by, like a fart in a strong breeze, but this new album hit me square in the face like a juggernaut full of crap, and the juggernaught itself is made of crap too, just like the whole metaphorical street scene which is made entirely of crap.

If I wanted uber-cool 80s electro funkdaddy disco, I would screw my eyes up like that Japanese guy in Heroes and transport myself to a multi-coloured disco floor full of bad mofos robodancing to the break-down bit of A-Ha's The Sun Always Shines On TV.

Please forget that last paragraph; I never said it.

If faux-retro Prince-wannabe lifeless post-Mika pap is not your bag, then let's move on to look at Night Of The Brain's debut album Wear This World Out.

This leftfield rock album earns its place on an electronica blog because it's the brainchild (geddit?!?!) of Cristian Vogel from Super_Collider (Messagesacomin artwork pictured).

The Theme, puked out as an EP a few months ago, owes a debt to tight post-rock, but much of the rest of Wear This World Out is Pixies-style noisiness with brave side-steps into odd neighbourhoods, such as the disco guitar in Dark Lady.

Vogel's weedy vocals, in strength and drug effect, make this record all-the-more likable.

While I'm doing a bit of catch up, it's worth a skip and a hop back to May's releases and my mobile phone alarm, which is Apparat's Not A Number.

Every morning the drip-drop insistence of that track shoe-horns me into the real world. It's a shame then that Walls, the album it's from, is liable to send you back to the Land Of Nod faster than you can say "quick let's fill this blog with antiquated literature references".

Walls is a hugely listenable album. My ears have even sent me a thank-you card. But it works as backing music for movies, not as a huge artistic statement.

TV and radio producers take note; you need Apparat in your collection. And if you use it in a programme as a result of reading this, make me look really smug and leave a comment.

Dirty tree and a turd

If you were looking for evidence that all DJs are ponces, then look no futher than the Bay Horse last Wednesday.

I had the audacity to celebrate my 33 1/3rd birthday with a Squeaky Productions event called 33 1/3. In all fairness, I didn't ask for cards or presents, although the lovely Lev gave me a treat I shall never forget. It was... erm... hold on now, it'll come back to me... oh yes, bubble blowing stuff that will no doubt liven up my Christmas parties this year as well as providing a serious health and safety hazard. Hurrah!

>Final insult

Back to Wednesday. We pushed the 33 1/3rd theme as far as we could be bothered. We showed Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. We had vinyl LPs all over the tables and walls. We had a tombola with 33 1/3rd prizes.

And we also had a quiz with 33 questions. All the answers relate to the numbers three, 33, a third or, for festive fun, Christmas. You can play the quiz now on the Fat Roland website. Go on. It's really hard (said Santa to the elf) but give it a try anyway.

For those who submitted their answers on Wednesday, we now have a winner with a score of 16 out of 33. That is Rob Telford, and he has won a copy of Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult on Digital Versimilitude Discette (or "DVD" as my great great great great grandchildren call it). Rob and everyone else can also find the answers by clicking on the quiz at fatroland.com [link no longer available].

>Vinyl info

Finally, here is my track listing from Wednesday. I DJed for three hours, and these are the tunes for the first hour only. The second hour was pure vinyl request heaven, so we had such classics as The Cure, Paul Hardcastle and A-Ha. And the third hour was me putting on really long records so I could play pool with my chums.

Boards Of Canada: Alpha And Omega
Deadly Avenger: Black Sun
Up Bustle & Out: Ninja's Principality
Req: Upstairs
EU: Tanya
EU: Sm
Plaid: Get What You Gave
Autechre: Rae
Richard H Kirk: Velodrome
Primal Scream: Higher Than The Sun (A Dub Symphony In Two Parts)

PS - thanks must go to Kol and Fil for making the event happen. I can't live, if living is without you. I can't liiiiive, I can't live anymooooore. Altogether now...