My place: Meaning from music (Part 1)
Get a glimpse into the vision behind our HIX 2024 campaign as our director, Sam Samuels, shares his personal connection to music.
It was November 1981 and I was 11 years old, counting down the days and hours until the weekend arrived. I remember the wait very distinctly; everything was focused on getting through the week, with plans put in place to make sure I would wake up a little earlier on that Saturday morning to catch the 142 bus into Edgware, Middlesex. I had my eye on a particular album and had thought of little else that week.
On typical Saturdays I would hang out at a local record store with friends, spending hours looking at vinyl, flicking through the racks looking for artists I knew or just album covers that took my fancy. The record store was Loppylugs and the countless hours I spent there meant it played a huge part in my life - developing my love for music, getting to know the owners and the guys who worked behind the counter. It was a constant to me during those years - any arrangement in the 80s always began with an agreement to ‘meet outside Loppylugs’.
Back to this weekend in November. I was after a particular record. At that time, like many kids my age, my bedroom walls were adorned with posters pulled and carefully cut from magazines such as Smash Hits - my collection was centred on Adam and the Ants. I had discovered their album, Kings of the Wild Frontier, which went on to be the UK’s number 1 selling album of 1981. I found everything about Adam and the Ants mesmerising, spending hours in my bedroom being absorbed by the pop punk sounds of two drummers and chanted lyrics. The band’s image and aesthetic were captivating - with hindsight, they trailblazed the New Wave and New Romantic styles that followed.
I listened to this album on repeat for most of 1981, sitting on my bedroom floor, with the record playing, listening to the tracks whilst reading the credits on the sleeve. At that time I had no idea about Rockfield in Wales where the album was recorded, nor did I know who Merrick - aka producer and drummer Chris Hughes - was, but I absorbed all of these details and more, hungry for the music, words and images that were part of the band’s creative output.
In May 1981 the first single from their third album was released. Adam and the Ants were enthusiastic adopters of the nascent video age, and with weekly plays on Top of the Pops, the video for Stand & Deliver made an immediate impact. The visuals reminded me of Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes video from the previous year, using a process that altered the colour palette of what was being shot.
The ‘dandy highwayman’ swagger struck a chord, but it was nothing compared to the next release - the wildly popular Prince Charming featured a Cinderella-esque story with Adam Ant as the hero and Diana Dors as a suitably camp and glamorous Fairy Godmother. There was a dance copied in every school disco and playground, and the make-up and costume remain instantly identifiable over 40 years later.
These sounds and visuals were all consumed and committed to memory at home in my bedroom. I would really listen to the records, picking out bass lines or specific beats and very rarely lifting the needle to skip a track. The album covers were always alongside, and studied relentlessly. Both of those albums have the artist Stuart Goddard looking right at you; while not classic portraits, the covers are arresting and the strong visuals are as core a memory to me as the songs.
Album covers were important and had an effect - they made an impact depending on where you first saw them, your age at the time, whether you recognised a shoot location. Records were beginning to have double sleeves so you could open them out and be treated to more images of your favourite artist. There was a weight to these records and an element of interaction that I really loved.
If you weren’t listening to records in your bedroom you were in the lounge, where the rest of your family could come in and stick anything on. This was an essential element of your musical education, as you might even hear something that an older sibling had stashed away in their room - I think my introduction to Earth Wind & Fire and George Benson came that way.
As I got older and technology improved, listening to music could be done pretty much anywhere thanks to the Sony Walkman and Japan’s incredible influence on global culture, synonymous with miniaturisation and high technology. My journeys on the bus were now made all the more pleasant thanks to my soundtrack, staring out the window as I selected a cassette to listen to. Without the cover artwork or videos, the focus was solely on the music - I can remember hearing specific records in specific places along that particular bus route. Whenever I hear those songs today, I'm transported straight back - those memories will be etched in my mind forever.
Photos by Unsplash. 142 bus by Au Morandarte.
