Well there it goes, January, the difficult first month of the year has passed. It's gone quite well so far, having released a new book, started a new podcast for The Maze, written four of the six editions of Steve's LP Box series 2, and crow-barred my way into a new radio and television venture. If the rest of the year is as productive as this, then I'll be happy. There was a spike in paying for downloads today, so I assume it to have been payday.

I'm as yet undecided on the remaining two albums for Steve's LP Box, having already written the first four editions. A Smiths album would be cool, but I don't know whether to go with Meat Is Murder or The Queen Is Dead. The same problem applies to The Wedding Present, do I do Seamonsters or George Best? Or something more recent? They don't have to be classic albums as such, just that I have to own them. That rule means that one particular choice will be a major surprise, as I'm doing a very commercial pop album that I bought when I was eleven and still have on vinyl. Although I was always the weird NME and Melody Maker reader, I kept my finger on the pulse when it came to the hit parade, certainly to a greater extent than nowadays, when I wouldn't identify half of today's pop stars if I tripped over them in the street.

The whole series kicked off with an anniversary special show about Appetite For Destruction, still one of the best rock albums of all time, and I'm reluctant to revisit the same band. I have said before that the two Use Your Illusion albums represented one great album spread thinly over two mediocre albums, so I like the idea of doing an LP Box that explores combining the two to make one good album.

Part of me also wants to visit the Top Of The Pops series, as I have a huge collection of them. It intrigues me that this was once a serious music series, and that people actually bought them. The marketing was a work of genius, albums were expensive and perhaps only contained a few songs you knew, so a collection of hits from the charts at a much lower cost was ideal for house parties and such. I wouldn't really know where to start regarding the songs to play, so that wouldn't work.

In other news, I found out today that Andi Osho has gone to live over in LA for a few months. As rejections go, this has to be my best one.

===

My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

My daily blog is available as an audio book, either free or name your price (link)