Music Arcades: It's Immaterial: Life's Hard and Then You Die

I had a fair idea what I was going to write here before I listened to the album. It was all about how, twenty odd years ago, we had not option but to buy at risk, or on a whim, and that's how I ended up with Life's Hard and Then You Die — based on 'quite liking' that quirky single, you know the one: you got excited about it because it mentioned the M62 and you'd been on the M62, so you felt almost famous by proxy (I've been on it, too, now). Nowadays, I'd have just listened to the album once or twice on We7 or Spotify, and then decided it wasn't for me, thus saving me some pennies.

Then I listened to the album (on Spotify!) and thought it was actually rather good. End of neat little story. Or was it? The second listen didn't impress so much, so I decided a third was necessary, and this time from my original vinyl, on headphones. The final verdict was that Side 1 is above-average '80s pop song, like a more mordant Tears for Fears, while Side 2, which is more up-beat, dilutes the miserable charm that the album's title captures.

So is that an argument in favour of the old style of risk-ridden purchasing, because it leads to reevaluation? No. Ice Cream for Crow is just that argument, because the first listen was so off-putting that there might never have been another one if I hadn't had to justify the purchase to myself. But by the time I got Life's Hard… I already had enough albums that I could afford to ignore new ones if they didn't impress. Were it not for this Music Arcades exercise, I might never have listened to it again. And last night could still turn out to be the last time.