new purchases - Mary Chain, Duffy, Monks

I made the following three purchases, for the following reasons, at Rocking Horse Records this morning.

1) Jesus And Mary Chain - Pyschocandy $9.99
Difficult as it might be for some to believe, I've never really heard this album. I fell out pretty badly with Alan McGee and his cronies around the time this was released, and so obviously life coloured my judgment of music (as it always does). I do remember being fond of their first couple of singles - in a Phil Spector, Ramones way (I wasn't particularly aware of The Velvet Underground at the time) - and always intended to get round to enjoying this. It's just taken a while. (In the interim, bad blood continued - I recall seeing a quote from Jim Reid on an early Internet site where he listed me as the journalist he most wished were dead: and I certainly tried to express my disgust in print at the way the band seemed to endlessly parade their one idea over and over. But hell, one idea is still more than most artists...)

2) Duffy - Rockferry (deluxe edition) $24.95
I heard one single - the title track - eons ago, and nothing since (I never encounter TV or mainstream radio). The fact this album has won a Brit Award and a Grammy has most definitely put me off from investigating further, until now. But hell, I bought Back To Black after hearing only one Amy Winehouse song (the title track) and that album stayed on my CD-player for months on end. (The fact she liked The Specials, and turned out to be an inspired interpretor came as a considerable bonus.) It occurs to me that Duffy could fill the same spot. I could well be wrong.

3) Monks - The Early Years 1964-1965 $29.95
Too many folk have told me too many times about this band for me to ignore them any longer. The cover quotes from Jack White and Iggy Pop (both thumbs up) put me off momentarily (because I don't respect the music either makes any more - well, certainly not The Racounteurs) but hell - it was either this or Death, and I'm still pissed off no one bothered sending me Death.

P.S. All these were bought on exchange credit, actually. I also ordered some Joseph Spence and an album by a calypso artist whose name escapes me.
P.P.S. Interestingly, the Mary Chain are like a link between Duffy and Monks, don't you think?