UNKNOWN PLEASURES

Re the issue of charity shops not stocking much great music (Letters, RC 402): I find that charity shops tend to stock a lot in the way of terrible music, vanity pressings and outsider music. I love to go to charity shops to pick up records and CDs by people that I have never heard of – and usually quite rightly so. Great chestnuts like The Great Keyboard Orchestra, The Laser Sound Orchestra, Dr Jazz, Eddie Williamson. As a fan of really dire music, I love finding the undiscovered. In fact, I buy your magazine to read about musicians that I would never have heard of otherwise – although the music you have turned me on to is not terrible. On the less obscure side, I often pick up CDs from mainstream acts that music history glosses over (and the underground really is more interesting than the MOR pap of Eurovision) and only very occasionally will I find fantastic CDs in a charity shop such as some early Candlemass. I too have found great Mancini classics such as the OSTs to The Race and The Party, and library music and easy listening crop up fairly often. I find charity shops a great way to pad out my collection from my usual compulsive purchasing of anything post-punk, new wave or from the 80s. Once again, thanks for creating such a thorough magazine that lifts up the slabs of unexplored musical terrain – how could I never have heard Barrence Whitfield And The Savages in my 25 years?

by Allan Murray
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