Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

May 17

Afflatus – The Polyphonic Spree[#671]

by stegzy

So something bollocks happened between the last entry and this one. I had been mooching about on my PC exploring a box of old hard drives I had come across which contained quite a lot of music that had, for what ever reason known only to Apple Music, removed itself from my Apple Music Library. I copied some of what I found into my iTunes – album by album – before I got bored and tried to move several at once.

Bad mistake.

In doing so, iTunes decided to rejig my library, import folders from my usual drives that I had excluded and retag around about 100 albums to be under the tags VARIOUS ARTISTS and the album GOTHIC EROTICA .

Great.

I rage quit and did not dare look at my PC’s iTunes library again for several months until such time as I had completely forgotten what I’d done, logged back in and knackered up my library even more.

Even then it took me the best part of a year to get back to some normality. In the process of re-tagging well over 1000 tracks I started to notice I had albums I had no idea that I had – moreover albums I’d never even heard of before. One such album was Afflatus by The Polyphonic Spree

Afflatus was released in 2021 which kind of indicates to me that this isn’t one I’d downloaded back in the grand old days of YoHoHoery. I can only assume that Apple Music added it out of generosity – something I’ve noticed has happened a fair bit since the great Tagging Disaster of 2025. Never the less, the album is in the library so it must be included in the music project.

The album comprises of 10 tracks – all slightly jollified Spreesque cover versions of songs such as the Bee Gee’s Could It Be Magic and Rush’s Spirit of Radio. I’m not certain if it’s because the moment of cheesy tambourine clapping uplifting music has passed, much in the same way that long haired hippy “we’re all entering a new spiritual age” 1960s music did by the 1980s or if its just a terrible album – but Afflatus really does set the cringe glands on edge.

I don’t know, to me it just feels like the band lost a little “something” after Fragile Army but I can’t really put my finger – or ear – on it.


You can buy/listen to the album on:

2021 Good Records Recordings Plastic pop Polyphonic Spree Psychedelic

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Dec 31

Left of the Middle – Natalie Imbruglia [#668]

by stegzy
Album art

That actor from Neighbours jumps on the “Actors from Neighbours who want a pop career” wagon and releases an angsty “men are utter shits” album.

Not entirely sure why I have this as it’s not really my usual fayre but that said there are some catchy tunes that capture the late 90s zeitgeist here.

From Torn (a bitter ballad describing the emotional fallout from the realisation that the man the singer fell for turned out to be the asshole) to Big Mistake (where perhaps the same guy comes back) the album covers a whole load of relationship complications. No mean feat for a 22 year olds first album.

1997 Australian Pop Natalie Imbruglia Plastic pop

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Apr 17

Impossible Princess – Kylie Minogue [#616]

by stegzy

Kylie_Minogue_Impossible_PrincessMrs Gnomepants V1.0 is the keeper of this album of which I have a digital rip. Weirdly, and possibly because of you know “internet downloading”, I appear to have a fusion of two versions of this album: the original 1998 CD rip and the 2003 Special Edition.

Of the two versions, it’s the original I prefer, I’m not sure why producers think remixing things is something people want to hear. I mean imagine someone going into the Louvre and remixing the Mona Lisa the making the remix the only version people could see. There would be uproar!

Impossible Princess is a marked divergence from Minogue’s usual pop princess style and, I think at least, is her best work. She has said of the album that she would never do another like it and it is her least favourite. Also, sadly, exposure wise, it didn’t fair as well as other albums, especially in the UK, as its release coincided with the death of Princess Diana, so was renamed Kylie Minogue and release was delayed until the buzz had died down.

This and Air’s Moon Safari are two albums that define a period where there were a lot of changes in my life every time I hear songs from it, fond memories are invoked of people I’ve not seen in ages and events and activities partook.   It still, even nearly 20 years since its release and about ten years since I last listened to it, sounds amazing.

1997 2003 Kylie Minogue Plastic pop

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Jun 23

Hormonally Yours – Shakespear’s Sister [#590]

by stegzy

ShakespearsSisterHormonallyYoursalbumcoverIn a time when many still missed the polka dot skirted weirdness of Strawberry Switchblade and were adjusting to the gothness of Robert Smith’s Cure while still enjoying on the sly, a little bit of Bananarama, along came a duo of musicians as if to answer that call.

Shakespear’s Sister, that band with the woman from Bananarama (Siobhan Fahey) and that scary looking American woman looking like a cross between Cruella De Ville and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark  (Marcella Detroit), last appeared on this Music Project at #172 with their “best of” compilation, which, as the band had only released about two albums anyway, pretty features the songs of this their second album.

Highlights from this album include their two “hits” I Don’t Care and Stay With Me. As a spotty youth when this album was doing the rounds, I was drawn to the catchiness of their music which helped me blend in with my contemporaries, but I was still at a stage where I didn’t feel safe stepping out of my musical comfort zone of Yes, The Tubes and Chris Isaak  so I never bought the album at the time of release. Indeed, it wasn’t until much later that I plucked up the courage to obtain this album and their “Best of” an action, I suppose, that was done purely out of nostalgia.

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1992 Plastic pop Pop Rock Shakespears Sister

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Jun 20

Hit Factory: Pete Waterman’s Greatest Hits – Various Artists [#587]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2017-06-10 at 11.33.40.pngBack in the eighties and nineties, when he wasn’t that wrinkly dude off the talentless shows on a Saturday night, Pete Waterman was a successful record producer. Polluting the airwaves with hideous plastic pop.

Of course, growing up in the eighties meant that hideous plastic pop was de rigour and many of the songs played at family occasions and parties came from the Hit Factory stable. It is difficult to not listen to examples of this music without being transported back in time thirty years to a wedding or school disco, where teenage hormones raged and lessons in social interaction began.

Hit Factory features artists such as Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Mel & Kim, Steps and 2Unlimited. It is truely dreadful. And yet, I believe that everyone’s record collection should contain at least one example of youthfully contemporaneous music. That way our memories persist and from our memories, we learn and develop.  Indeed, many of the artists featured have either returned to obscurity or seen sense and improved without the Stock Aitkin Waterman interference in their art.

Kylie Minogue Pete Waterman Plastic pop Various Artists

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