Have I mentioned that the internet is a pretty cool place lately?Á‚ No?Á‚ Okay, Imma mention it now!
I mean, first there’s all the porn.Á‚ Granted, some it can be pretty disgusting, but hey, it’s there and without the same of the video rental gal giving you the stink eye when you rent it.Á‚ What were we talking about again?Á‚ Oh yeah, how the interwebs is making it possible for tons of fun stuff to emerge from the vaults.Á‚ Non-porny stuff, too.
Take, por ejemplo, the self-titled debut of Metro.Á‚ Released in 1977 to an indifferent shrug from music buyers, the art-rock, New Wave before New Wave set became a cult item, mostly due to the BBC banning its single, “Criminal World” (download) for “adult content” (there’s that porn again).Á‚ Of course, by 2009 standards, the offensive lines, “The girls are like baby-faced boys” and “She’ll show you where to shoot your gun” are positively tame.Á‚ But the album, crafted by the duo of Duncan Browne and Peter Godwin, slowly gained a cult following.Á‚ However, the definition of “cult following” means puny sales, so Metro quickly slipped out of print.
Five years after Metro dissolved after three albums, Godwin would re-emerge as a synth-pop New Wave artist in his own right, released the classic singles “Images Of Heaven” and “Baby’s In The Mountains.”Á‚ If that wasn’t enough to stir interest in his old band, the biggest motivator to check out Metro came when none other than David Bowie covered “Criminal World” on his mega-selling sell-out (and I say it with love!) Let’s Dance.Á‚ Problem was, try finding a poor-selling album five years after it was out of print.Á‚ As a result, Metro fetched a pretty penny.Á‚ It was eventually released on CD in 1994, but didn’t do much business by that point – used copies fetch around $90 on Amazon, though.
Which brings us to the awesomeness of the internet.Á‚ No, no, no, I’m not talking about downloading a torrent of a shitty vinyl rip.Á‚ Some smart person at the record label (there must be one left) that currently owns the Metro masters has released the album digitally to both iTunes and Amazon.Á‚ So, instead of shelling out nearly a c-note for a great lost art-rock work, it can be yours for a piddly li’l $9.90 (or even cheaper on Amazon).Á‚ Heck, they’ve even thrown in the super-rare single version (download) which tames some of the instrumental excesses of the original – but weren’t those excesses what art rock was about, anyway?
So yeah, yay, internet!
“Criminal World” did not chart.
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