50 albums: 1999 - Guerilla by Super Furry Animals

Before Spotify and iTunes made it easy to listen to everything, deciding what music to invest my time and money in was a tricky business. I had a tiny bit of late-night radio to help, and the music inkies (although of course by the late 90s they were getting hard to trust), and pals on mailing lists were key. But generally I had to make my decisions on sometimes strange and arbitrary criteria.

When Welsh indie had a late 90s surge, my head pretty much decided that my life had room for one representative to love, and I picked Gorky's Zygotic Mynci to fill that gap. The reasons were probably muddled and ill throught out (the name, the fact that they were slightly more obscure (SFA were huge by comparison), the fact that they played some shows with Luna probably helped) but I was happy with the decision. I loved, and still love GZM.

It meant that my awareness of Super Furry Animals was superficial, I knew them, and liked what I heard, but when money was available it was used to fill gaps in my Gorky's collection.

Now, it seems insane (and possibly a little immoral (or racist???!)) that I only allowed room for one WELSH act, and in my defence it was a subconscious decision, but if the line had to be drawn somewhere that's where I drew mine.

Thankfully the 21st century has allowed me to fix that. Guerilla is wonderful and there is a tiny little bit of guilt that I made the decision that I did, and I think of all the awful albums that I DID buy instead to it.

(play on YouTube)

And just to convince myself that even though I was stupid enough to impose a choice upon myself, at least the choice I made was the right one... here's Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

(play on YouTube)

50 films and 50 albums