Macarena to The Madness of Love

"Macarena [Bay Side Boys Mix]"  Los Del Rio  The Best Latin Party Album in the World . . . Ever
"Machine Gun"  Slowdive  Souvlaki
"Machito Forever [Cut Chemist Remix]"  Tito Puente  Brazil Classics: Belaza Tropical Vol. 2
"Madder"  Groove Armada  Lovebox
"Madder Red"  Yeasayer  Odd Blood
"Madeline"  Yo La Tengo  And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
"Madison Square"  Lettuce  Fly
"The Madison Time"  Ray Bryant Combo  Hairspray [Original Soundtrack - 1988]
"Madness"  Miles Davis  Nefertiti
"The Madness of Love"  Graham Parker  Beat The Retreat: Songs by Richard Thompson

Another cover of which I don't currently own the original.  Which is particularly strange because there was a point in the past where I had practically everything in Richard Thompson's catalog - including this, which was on a cassette-only collection of RT obscurities.  But the grind of time, travel, and a general disrespect for most of my possessions and things go away.  The cassette - Doom and Gloom from the Tomb, Vol. 1, was a fan-club only distribution that the owner of this record store I went to all the time offered up to me in the late-80s because he noticed I kept coming in and buying Richard Thompson and Fairport stuff.  When you are catching up on a 25-year catalogue in a matter of months, I guess.  I regret the loss of a lot of my old music (it feels like I have somehow built-up and lost my music collection several times through my life, and then had to re-create it from memory), but this one in particular stings.  My rule of downloading the original when faced with only having the cover is thwarted - the Doom and Gloom cassette doesn't show up anywhere on the internet.  The version on that tape is a Richard & Linda recording that is not available anywhere else.  There is a live version available as a bonus-track on later reissues of Live, Love, Larf & Loaf by French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson, so getting that might be as close as I get . . . but the bonus tracks are not available for download.  So I might be getting that whole album - which isn't all bad since it is one that I used to have (pre-bonus tracks) and needs replaced anyway.

For all the music of the 80s I have lost, so much music of the 90s just kind of went past me the first time through.  Shoegaze is becoming something of an infatuation recently, about 20 years too late, but just in time for a new MBV album for the first time in a thousand years.  We may also be reaching a shoegaze revival ("newgaze?") in the nostalgia/influence cycle - see Tamaryn - so maybe I can keep up with this sudden new trend the second time.  I can take solace in the idea that if the radio seems content to have missed most music in the last 40 years, trying to catch up to shit that I missed 15-20 puts me ahead of the curve.

It is a testament to its ubiquity that even my sad self could not miss the Macarena, and '94-'95 was probably as deep into my cave as I ever was.  Having a well-marketed earworm is as good a path to financial security as any I guess.