So yesterday was a fun day for me. I started the day ready to tackle a list of four annoying bugs that needed to be sorted out, and instead of ending the day with eleven bugs I actually managed to solve all four. How unusual!
Encouraged by this success I decided to tackle all of my inboxes today and to my delight found an email from Jamie K Sims of the Cosmopolitans updating me on their retrospective album which is now released on vinyl! You can get your copy at Beloved - I already did as soon as I finished reading her email, naturally.
You may never have heard of the Cosmopolitans, but I have been obsessed with the song "(How To Keep Your) Husband Happy" ever since my older brother put it on a tape for me when I was ten years old.
Decades later, I tracked Jamie K's email down, explained my obsession with that particular song and the whole album, and asked if I could please have permission to use a snippet as the intro to my Adland Podcast. I am a stickler for asking for permission, the worst that can happen is that you get a no or no reply. A bit ironic that I, who is so picky about permissions, was taken down by a “Nuisance DMCA” request sent to our host by an ambulance-chasing lawyer at Holland & Hart LLP. Both Reclaimthenet and Techdirt noted that this request was a load of claptrap. Adland was resurrected but with data loss and now I'm on safer, but much slower, servers as I no longer trust the majority of hosts or any cloud out there. Good thing I know how run my own machines, still.
But wait! There's more! See the vinyl album also has two previously unreleased recordings, and a 32-page zine! The fanzine is very likely the labor of love by Jamie K Sims herself, as she shared with me that she was digging up data from old hard drives, photos, flyers, and press clippings. So the 32-page zine promises historic visuals and information, as well as photos suitable for framing. How fun! Like the album itself which is all about having fun and dancing and a 10/10 workout soundtrack, to be honest, as you'll just bounce around naturally when you hear it.
Right, so now that I've come out as a superfan I'll end on this time capsule video that'll take you back to the height of the punk/New Wave era scene in New York in 1980. They even played CBGBs, just like Blondie, The Ramones, and all the other greats.
I wish I had a time machine - and this is why I collect vinyl. Unlike the music you have stored in someone else's cloud, nobody can change or alter the songs that you have on physical media. So whenever I want to I can hear that version of the Cure's "Close to heaven" with the jaunty saxophone (1990 release) that is nowhere to be found on Apple music these days.
The Cosmopolitans - (How to Keep Your) Husband Happy - Shake Records 1980
