GUSWORLD
Single Of The Week 27/08/97

Single Of The Week is where I review a single I'm particularly enamoured of at the moment. It might be a brand spanking new release, or a classic from decades past that I just feel like going on about.

Hit The Ground
The Darling Buds
654529 7

At the end of 1988, I lived in London for three months between the end of Year 11 and the beginning of Year 12. This trip was significant in many ways, but perhaps the most important change it made to my life was that it represented the first time in my life that I got sustained access to some decent record stores. Up until then, I'd barely ever shopped in a record store outside regional NSW; the only exceptions had been Adelaide and New Caledonia, neither noted for their stunning contributions to the world of music buying and selling.

London, of course, was a different story, and I spent a very high percentage of my time in the Oxford St Virgin and HMV shops. Here was the holy grail; giant stores devoted entirely to music, and with sales on to boot. Rarely, I think, can I have been so happy.

However, if you think that this means my record collection has an unusually high percentage of imported hits circa 1989, think again. One interesting consequence of my deprivation was that what I bought was mostly older stuff that simply hadn't been accessible to me before. My ABBA, Kate Bush and Wham! collections all got a big boost, but I didn't buy anything by Neneh Cherry or Sam Brown until I got home.

That didn't mean, however, that I didn't listen to a lot of new stuff while I was there; I've just had to wait until now to buy it. One band who were in the charts at the end of 89 were the Darling Buds. I knew next to nothing about them then, and I don't know much more know (for some good basic background, see here. But I did think their single 'Hit The Ground' was an insanely catchy piece of jangly guitar pop, and so I happily picked it up second-hand a year or so ago. All good things come to those who wait.


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