The Beatles, Hey Jude (1971)
I love checking out a compilation, or alternate version of an album, or a special release – not the album you grew up with – when it’s a band (like The Beatles) where I know a lot of the music already. It’s fun to hear things where the context has been shifted slightly, the songs stacked up against a different batch of cousins. It’s been the case recently for me with finally hearing/having Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits and, apart from this, my most played Beatles album lately has been The Ballads one. I bought this because I love a lot of the songs on here and don’t have them already on vinyl. I bought this because I love the cover photo, back cover shot too actually. But also – and the main reason – I bought this because recently I had borrowed the American albums boxset from the library and I had the Hey Jude album loaded into my computer to listen to. And I left it there for the morning. And we were burgled. They stole my computer – and the next day, in finding out they’d taken my phones and iPods and other stuff too I worked out that I had lost the library’s copy of the Beatles’ Hey Jude CD. Still had the cover, the rest of the box-set, but missing one disc. I took it back, explained the situation and was promptly told I was liable for a $300 replacement. Fuck that! Not their fault. Not really my fault either. But certainly not their fault. Still – $300! In sorting that out (found a copy of the Hey Jude album to settle with them, to tidy up the box-set once again) I thought about how, in some weird sort of remembrance, I might buy a copy of the Hey Jude album for myself; memento from being burgled. Weird? Probably. Anyway, I then find a cheap – and plays great – vinyl copy. Even better. So, yeah. That’s where we’re at.

Sample Track: Rain
The Vinyl Countdown is a document of every LP I listen to, brand new discoveries and old-old favourites; extremely pre-loved, previously abandoned or with the shrink-wrap having just been removed it’s all here at The Vinyl Countdown