PETE PAPHIDES
I don’t know what Noel Coward had in mind when he declared that there’s nothing quite as potent as cheap art. But I suspect he wasn’t imagining the dramatic scenes being played out in the record department of Debenhams in Birmingham on the day my mum told me to amuse myself for 15 minutes while she went to try on a dress. I arrived just in time to see a shop assistant emerge from a door behind the counter with a large box of newly stickered singles and transfer them into a browser which said, “EX-CHART CLEARANCE. 20p”.
Instantly, I could feel my heart pounding out a tempo from inside my ribcage that, years later, I would only be able to replicate with two double espressos, my hands and a Shy FX record. 20p! At that price, you could even take a punt on one or two songs you’d never heard! Baal’s Hymn by David Bowie was recorded for a Bertolt Brecht play and came in a sleeve that featured Bowie in character, looking like the tousled, tanned and straight-up hot proto-rock star he was tasked to portray. I had no idea what I was listening to, but I loved it.