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Thursday, 6 September 2012

It's All Coming Back To Me Now - Here Comes September



Homogenic: The greatest September release of all-time?


Vintage September
by Jo Michelmore


September! You've arrived again. You know what that means? That means I get to annoy everyone I know by ensuring at every opportunity I sing one of my favourite songs of the 70s, which I’m sure will get really old by the end of this month (“ba be ay, say do you remember, ba be ay, dancing in September….” Earth Wind And Fire, why did you release this in November? You fools!) Anyway, the revelation to knowing what month it is led me to the thought that September has often been an awesome month for music. There’s been some great music released in Septembers and the guy that invented the gramophone patented it in September 87. 1887 that is (wow, that’s reeeeeeally vintage). If that guy hadn’t felt the need to hear some hip beats at home (did they have hip beats in 1887?) then we wouldn’t have had the progression of cassette tapes and compact discs and of course, the MP3. Imagine not having music at your fingertips, in your pocket, in your bag, on your phone, whenever you wanted it? Oh, that makes me feel sick, so let’s not think about that. Instead. Let’s think about records released in Septembers closer to our current one, like…

Abbey Road
The Beatles
Released September, 1969 

 

You may love them, you may hate them, but either way don’t tell me you’ve been to London and not done the Abbey Road walk. You’ve not been to London yet? Ok, that’s fine, but when you get there, you need to do it, or you haven’t been to London. It’s one of the most famous and recognised album covers of all time, it’s one of their best sellers, it’s the last album the Beatles recorded together and it contains two of my favourite Beatles tracks. It was released in September. September is good.


Third Album
The Jackson Five
Released September, 1970 

 

What an interesting (terrible) name for an album. It wasn’t even their third album! Was this Michael Jackson’s greatest joke? He did have an interesting and keen sense of humour. I don’t know, but the ridiculous name is forgiven because this album contains one of their best and possibly most recognisable tracks (no, I’m not referring to ‘How Funky Is Your Chicken’). It’s classic Motown, it’s awesome and Michael Jackson performed it throughout his entire career. So many have covered it, but no one has that something like teeny, tiny Michael when he pulls the heartstrings. “If you should ever find someone new, I know he better be good to you, ‘cause if he doesn't, I’ll be there….”

True Colours
Cyndi Lauper
Released September, 1986 

 

I was going to say Bananarama released their album ‘Wow’ in September 87, but I can’t figure out why they bothered. That’s a whole other story though. Cyndi Lauper, now she was where girl pop was at in the 80s. (Sorry, Madonna who? I’m still angry at her for the anti-Australian tour. Yeah Madonna, I see your true colours and I don’t like them.) Come on; don’t tell me you haven’t shed a tear at some stage when this song has been playing? No? Don’t tell me you haven’t sung the lyrics to someone “if this world makes you crazy and you've taken all you can bear, you call me up, because you know I'll be there….” and then cried tears of laughter at the pop genius of it all? No? No? What? You haven’t lived.

Homogenic
Bjork
Released September, 1997 

 

By 97, Bjork had done her cute thing, her pixie thing, her pop thing. They were all great things, but Homogenic, that was a Bjork the world hadn’t seen before and it was a Bjork that was truly amazing. The beautiful strings, the slightly odd beats. Some songs were almost hard to listen to at first and that’s what made it so incredible. Just accept it, I’m not going to say anything bad about this album and I’m the one writing here so what are you going to do about it? This is one of September’s greatest releases, ever. That’s a big statement I know but I’m the one writing here, so what are you going to do about it?

Odyssey Number Five
Powderfinger
Released September, 2000 

 

I decided we needed to celebrate an Australian September release, so Powderfinger won. How could I not include the album with a song named after our blog? Yeah, good work Fanning. Where’s our royalties? Anyway, I digress. It won five ARIA’s, one of its songs was number one on the JJJ Hottest 100, it was certified eight times platinum in Australia and chances are, if you are Australian or you visited Australia at any time in the 2000s, you'd know one of its songs. One of my favourite live music memories? Singing along to ‘My Happiness’ at one of Powderfinger’s farewell gigs, which was, yep, you guessed it, in September 2010. Oh September, I’m so glad you’re here, you're a good month aren't you?

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