Yazoo. A best of. I bought it on sale for appx $8, since the reissue of "Upstairs at Eric's" garnered rave reviews. Yes, I can be swayed by critics! It turns out I recognize a couple of the hits, but when I bought the CD, I couldn't name or remember a single song by them. And I did not know that Alison Moyet was in this band. But there you go, an '80s synthpop exploration for me. Don't say I don't take chances. Well, I like them better than Eurythmics, I feel they are a little more cutting edge. I've got nothing by Eurythmics, only like a few songs by them. But of course Eurythmics sold more records than Yazoo. "Yazoo" is also the name of a banana milk drink I used to drink to soothe the throat on balmy summer nights back in '95-'96. But then the grocery stopped carrying that product. Too bad.

Can't remember offhand. Most of my blind purchases are obscure 60's garage compilations.....sometimes it works out, sometimes I only listen once.

My favorites are the Girls In The Garage Series Volumes 1 & 3.

An 1895 recording of "Yazoo Dance" by Sousa's Grand Concert Band (yes, I said 1895 - 114 years ago!) is available on a compilation CD called "24 Popular Selections From 1895-1897 - The Post-North American Phonograph Company Era".

Hey, do any ICErs actually own a cylinder recording as pictured in Gary's post above? I've got a lot of records, CDs, and tapes, but none of those.

My grandfather had a bunch of cylinders and a player for them. I have no idea what happened to it.

My last blind purchase was the Dan Castellaneta CD Two Lips - The Lost Album.

I also made a blind purchase called "Late Flowering Love" recently after reading about an album of the poetry of Sir John Betjeman set to the light orchestral and northern brass arrangements of Jim Irwin.
I actually read about this in Mojo after a band called British Sea Power I think it was,were praising the album.Betjeman was poet laureate in the UK in the 70s/early 80s and the original vinyl record came out in the late 70s.It's actually quite good and the man wrote some pretty saucy poetry,which sound good with the arrangements.It's even like Serge Gainsbourg in places with a low funk orchestral vibe.Anyway it was less than a fiver.

I've never head any Yazoo,but might like it.
Alison Moyet I do know had the odd nickname of "Alf" when she was in that band.

The grocery store never carried that product.

No, can't say I have owned any cylinders, piano rolls, or even 78's. I don't even know if I have any cylinder recordings on CD. I don't think I go back further than the '10 and '20s, King Oliver is the earliest music that I've got. Louis Armstrong was in that band before he formed his own bands. I've also got a beautiful poster of King Oliver plus an old hc bio on him.

Apparently the first recording ever was Thomas Edison reciting "Mary had a Little Lamb". Can anyone confirm this?

I remember John Betjeman from the '80s. I think he was made Poet Laureate back then.

-I own quite a few cylanders, but nothing to play them on.

-I just started reading Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, and they claim Edison's reading of MHALL was the first recording.

-Bought the new Phoenix because someone here compared it to Sparks. I haven't warmed up to it yet, but will be spending more time with it.

GodsComic, you should look for a cylinder player, you could even press some CD's of that music. You might make a few dollars out of them.

Unless there's something earlier that's unknown, this is, theoretically, correct. I have an .mp3 of the recording.

Blind purchases - all the time actually. A lot of jazz. I bought a slew of stuff from an oldies.com recently, and many were from folks that I heard of by reputation or found interesting, spot check against allmusic.com reviews, etc. When prices are kept low, it makes it pretty easy.

Yeah, oldies.com have some great value offers, like 5 for 25 dollars.

I didn't like the Tinfoil remaster of the Sousa cylinders--it sounded much too bright, and I HATE the Edison eco-friendly packaging. There's a teriffic Japanese bootleg of mono Sousa needledrops out there with NO noise reduction--and the cylinder comes in a rice paper sleeve. Sweet!

Nicely done, AMW. Your hoffmanesque post made my day.

If comps count, then I've been blindly and happily picking up "Little Steven's Underground Garage Presents The Coolest Songs In The World" every three months for 8 volumes now.

AWESOME series.

The last one was probably IQ's album "Dark Matter". Nice modern prog rock.

I rarely hear new music before I buy it, unless it's online samples.

Regina Spektor. Heard one song on the radio then bought Far and Begin To Hope. Best albums I've bought all year. Apparently had an album on the charts a couple of years ago, but she slipped right by me.

I've just listened to samples of The Yazoo (pron.Yay-zoo)"Upstairs at Eric's" om last.fm and do think it's quite good and might well add it to my collection in the future.If there's one genre from the 80s I like it's synth pop,Alison Moyet also has a good voice.

There's also one song on there "Only You" I remember being a big hit at Christmas in 1983 for a band called The Flying Pickets who did it a cappella, and remember this vid from Top Of The Pops.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgDKtLPp46s[/youtube]

"In My Room" turned out not to be a Beach Boys cover though.

In a Yay-zoo stylee! Oh, yazoo...