Vintage Vinyl #11

It's BACK! Yep, I've bought some records over the summer so Vintage Vinyl returns with more monthly 7-inches of fun. Fnarr fnarr.

Joan Armatrading - Drop The Pilot 7"
Bought from The Record Shop, Cardiff
Price paid: 50p

I had intended to check out a shop in the Cathays area of Cardiff called D'Vinyl, but parking around there is a bitch. So I drove on into Albany Road, a semi-frequent haunt where my fave Cardiff venue The Globe is located. On my way through, I spotted a sign pointing to a record shop down a residential sidestreet. I vowed to investigate. So I parked up and walked back in that direction. I found the record shop intriguingly named The Record Shop. Clever. It had a table outside laden with singles and albums. I picked a few from there (today's choice included) and then ventured inside.

To say the place was rammed is an understatement. Inside there were boxes upon boxes upon boxes of records, more records and more records. Records on tables, records under tables, records on shelves, records on the floor... It was a real Aladdin's Cave. This is the sort of place Heaven would be like, I thought to myself. I bought a few quid's worth of goodies, all of which will feature in this new run of Vintage Vinyl. I never made it to D'Vinyl that day, but did go a few weeks later.

And so to my first pick. I really should know a lot more about Joan Armatrading than I actually do. Aside from a couple of her big hits, she's pretty much passed me by. I'm not proud of it. I do vaguely remember Drop The Pilot when it first came out in 1983, but aged 12 I just wasn't interested in that sort of thing. I was hoping Adam Ant still had some decent songs in him. And then Relax came out making me an instant Frankie Goes To Hollywood fan.

Listening to it now, while the production is cringingly 80s, there's no denying what a fine song Drop The Pilot is, especially that chorus. It was her second biggest hit (only Love And Affection fared better) reaching number 11 in the UK. It was also her last Top 40 hit. She had made her 8th studio album 'The Key' with Steve Lillywhite but the label complained it wasn't commercial enough. So Joan went away and wrote a couple more songs, one of them being Drop The Pilot. Bingo! Well worth 50p of anyone's money, I reckon.


Soundtrack:

• Drop The Pilot - Joan Armatrading (from 'The Key')
• Business Is Business - Joan Armatrading (b-side to Drop The Pilot)

(I still haven't got round to solving my 'currently unable to rip from vinyl' problem, which means the non-album b-side Business Is Business is missing from this post. It cannot be acquired through legal channels (how daft), and the *ahem* not-very-legal methods have also drawn a blank. If anyone can oblige, I'd be grateful.)