Nothing left to lose (Everything But The Girl) (LP 4625 - 4628)

Everything But The Girl  At Maida Vale (BBC Maida Vale Sessions) (Vinyl, BBC Records, 2024) ***** 

Mike Oldfield  Hergest Ridge - The 1974 Demo (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 2024) **** 

Ringo Starr  Long Long Road (CD, UME Records, 2026) ***

The Moody Blues  Say It With Love (Vinyl, UME Records, 2026) ***

Genre: Alt Pop, Prog rock, Beatle pop

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Choose Love (Ringo)

Gear costume: Long Long Road (Ringo)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7

Active compensatory factors: The Everything But The Girl EP At Maida Vale, The Moody Blues EP, and the Mike Oldfield album were in the Record Store Day reduced price bin at JB. I find the prices on the Record Store Day releases to be crazily out of my reach so I was delighted to find these three items selling for sensible prices.

At Maida Vale has the duo working on four mood pieces - nothing pacey going on but Tracey Thorn's vocals are a treat at any speed. Ben Watt's music is sympatico with the lyrics, the 2am vibe, and Tracey's vocals.

Single is the only song that didn't appear on the parent album Fuse. It fits in well to the EP which is superb on every level.

The Mike Oldfield 1974 demo to his second album Hergest Ridge is wonderful. This could have been released in this form quite easily. Mike plays all the instruments in these recordings from The Beacon studio in Herefordshire before heading to The Manor for the final recordings. The man's a genius!

I played Hergest Ridge straight after it and it's great to compare the two. The demo lays out the path, and the proper album follows that path with gusto by adding further instruments from guest musicians (snare drum, trumpet), strings and voices.

Ringo's latest continues in the country genre with similar approach and personnel to his previous record (Look Up). He does stray from that approach once, on a re-recording of Choose Love from his 2005 album (which is, incidentally, my favourite song here). 

It's an okay album, a couple of mawkish love songs detract a little but the rest is standard weepy country territory. On the whole it's not a peak like Look Up was, but it's hard to be niggly. Ringo is 85 and still firing so good luck to him. 

BTW, I decided on a CD copy because the vinyl version was nearly three times the price at close to $90. That's crazy!

My final purchase was another Record Store Day special - a 12 inch single of The Moody Blues' Say It With Love. That and two songs on the B-side (The Story in Your Eyes/ Steppin' in a Slide Zone) are live versions taken from Days of Future Passed Live.

Where do they all belong? There are still a couple of albums in JB Hi Fi's Record Store Day bins that I have my eyes on (Yes and Joni Mitchell) but they are much more expensive items, so we'll see.

Stop press: I did pick those up when JB had a 20% off sale last weekend.