PETE PAPHIDES
Pete Paphides is a music journalist, record collector and broadcaster. Catch him on Soho Radio every Tuesday, 12-2pm
Half the time, anniversaries routinely pass me by before I even register them. But this month, I’ll be making an exception. It’s 40 years since the release of the first album I ever bought. And, if I was only allowed to keep one record from my collection, that same record – K-Tel’s big TV-advertised 1979 compilation Hot Tracks – would be the last disc standing. It was my big Christmas purchase that year: 20 songs, 10 per side, housed in a sleeve depicting railway tracks through a blue filter, two of them coloured bright red to signify their titular heat.