Animal collective

Yesterday brought a bright and sunny car boot sale with a scattering of vinyl to flip through, and I left with four records.  The first was The Animals' self-titled debut from 1964:

The Animals (1964)

The Animals were originally from Newcastle and were part of the sixties British invasion of the US.

This debut, like so many others of the time consists of nearly all cover versions, with songs from the world of blues and R&B e.g.  John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom", Fats Domino's "I've Been Around" and Larry Williams' "She Said Yeah".

The only original song is "Story of Bo Diddley", with lead singer Eric Burdon doing the spoken word parts not in his native Geordie accent, 

but a faux American one, which is highly amusing.

Oddly, neither of their two first singles from that year, "House of the Rising Sun" and "Baby Let Me Take You Home" (another cover) appear here.

My next buys, for £1 each were a 1980s budget re-issue of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and The Monkees' debut album (like The Animals, also self-titled).

Pet Sounds is often hailed as one of the greatest and most important albums of all time.  It was put together virtually single-handedly by Brian Wilson while the other Boys were on tour and contains some of their best-loved songs; "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Sloop John B" and the magnificent "God Only Knows".

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (re-issue, originally 1966)

Next to these stone-cold killers some of the rest pales into filler, e.g. the instrumental title track, although this is probably an unfair comparison, plus Wilson's compositional abilities and production skills are undeniable and frankly astounding.

The Monkees' debut album was released here in the UK in 1967, the year after it's US release. It topped the charts in both countries and spawned one hit single "Last Train To Clarksville".  I remember taping this song from the radio as a kid in the eighties and it's still a big favourite.

The Monkees (1967-UK)

My last buy of the morning, again for £1 was Talk Talk's second album It's My Life:

Talk Talk - It's My Life (1984)

This album is from Talk Talk's early incarnation as a synth-pop band, before they began to evolve via The Colour Of Spring to their late-period albums Spirit Of Eden and Laughing Stock.  I really like this early stuff as well as their later work, so I was pleased to find it, particularly as I'd bought their first album The Party's Over at another boot sale a couple of weeks ago, also for £1:

Talk Talk - The Party's Over (1982)

My last find of the morning was The Encyclopedia of Albums:

Encyclopedia of Albums - M. Heatley, P. Lester
& C. Roberts (1998)

Bought for £4, this excellent book covers over 1000 albums and is edited by Mojo founder Paul Du Noyer.

In his foreword Du Noyer talks about the different album formats over the years.  Although digital downloads are mentioned, it is dated by his prediction that the Mini Disc would eventually be the format we would take to - who knew?!

Such a book might now seem a bit pointless given the wealth of online information at our disposal, but not only does it provide a concise overview of each album, it's a book that's enjoyable just to flick through - indeed, I got lost in it for a good hour or so yesterday afternoon.