'SEND'

I don't know who these little fellows are, or what their purpose is, if any, or why Booths chose to stock them, but I figured they made for a more interesting photo than that bags and bags and bags of CDs and DVDs that we ended up with this evening after the Minx and I cleared down all of the shelves in the living room.

And while that was at least my entire DVD collection - now mostly destined for the charity shops - there are still stacks of CDs around the house. These days, though, apart from the very occasional boxed set, I mostly buy music digitally, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to let go of the CDs yet: they can go up in the attic.

That said, I don't feel particularly nostalgic about CDs, not the way I did about my records*, although that was more to do with the sleeves than the vinyl itself, which, I maintain in the face of its huge popularity, is a crap medium.

I'm not sure there have been any classic CD covers, but the one in today's Extra is my favourite. It's 'Send' by Wire, released in 2003, and which was, for my money, their last great album, certainly in terms of creativity.

My friend, Bill, had a small hand in its gestation, actually. He was working at the time for a distribution company called Dental Records, who handled Wire's albums. Bill got to know the band pretty well, and I think somewhere in my early Blips (or maybe Tumblr) is the story of when he introduced me to the band.

Anyway, during this period, one of the chaps from the band, Colin Newman, went into see Bill. He had with him a demo he'd been working on, which featured what would become the archetypal sound of 'Send'. Colin wasn't sure about it, but Bill told him it sounded great and that he should stick with it.

Would I recommend 'Send' to you? Hm. It's possibly a bit of an acquired taste, although I love it. Maybe start here, with 'In The Art Of Stopping'.

*I could never have sent my vinyl to a charity shop but I knew I was never going to play it again. In the end, I found a home for it with my vinyl loving Twitter friend, Chris. It was a decision that I was - and remain - entirely comfortable with. I'm very happy knowing that all those records, those manifestations of cherished memories from my youth and developing love of music, are with someone who cares.