Intense Records

Join the 100 Club - 100 records worth £100 to add to your collection

£5.79 (£6.94 incl. VAT)

For this month’s cover story, to coincide with the publication of the 2024 edition of the Rare Record Price Guide, we present the ‘100 Club’: a list of the 100 most interesting and/or collectable records (and occasional CD and cassette) with a current market value of £100. From New Order to Pentangle to the Mary Chain, we’re sure you’ll be fascinated by our choices. Continuing with our ‘century’ theme, on the departure of RRPG editor Ian Shirley (he’s off to work at Ace Records), we send him to a record shop near his new paymasters in Letchworth to see how much music he can buy with our leaving gift of £100.

Elsewhere, we interview Hugh Cornwell about his work with The Stranglers and solo and include a Stranglers discography straight from the brand-new RRPG. Brian Auger talks about everything from Hendrix to acid jazz/Acid Jazz and there’s another RRPG discog. We locate original members of The Beau Brummels and asses their 60s pop transitions. William Bell tells us about being a soul survivor. Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll guides us through their pioneering techno albums. And we meet some of the prime movers behind the post-Monkees 70s ‘supergroup’, Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart. 

In News, we hear about a vinyl mastering controversy in the States and celebrate the return to studio and live duty of Alphaville. In RC Investigates the spotlight is on the long-forgotten but valuable Nu-Disk format. In Value Added Facts the focus is on queries about Dark, Gil Scott-Heron and the Small Faces vinyl. Diggin’ For Gold unearths information about Janice Nicholls, a music venue in north Watford, Post Office discs, miniature plastic singles, and Ronnie Hilton. And we bid farewell, in Not Forgotten, to Lamont Dozier, Olivia Newton-John and, sadly, too many others.

Our columnists – Luke Haines, David Quantick, Bob Stanley and Ian McCann – are their usual provocative, opinionated selves. Talking Heads finds Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, The Godfathers’ Peter Coyne and othersopening up on the vinyl-shrink’s couch. We spend 33 1/3 minutes in the company of Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham. Our comprehensive album reviews section includes new releases by Dead Kennedys, Jellyfish, Joe Meek, Wilco, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, Suede and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. There are books under inspection by Simon Williams of the Fierce Panda label, synth/electronic pop pioneer Martyn Ware of Heaven 17/BEF, Lush’s Miki Berenyi and Marillion’s Mark Kelly. We review Brett Morgen’s forthcoming “exploratory meditation” on David Bowie. Singles going steady include new ones from The Wild Swans, Rhoda Dakar and Black. Elton John and Christina Aguilera are among the performers reviewed in Lives. We go Under The Radar with the Blue Hat label and enter The Engine Room with The Vernons Girls. Mick Talbot reveals his formative discs in Birth! School! Work! Death! And producer extraordinaire Trevor Horn is the featured artist in 10 Of The Best.

Meantime, we’re already working on the 11th issue of 2022/RC537, due 6 October. On the 70th anniversary of the British singles chart, for our cover story we nominate the 70 Most Important Singles Of The Last 70 Years and speak to some of the creators of those crucial 45s. The RC Interviewee is Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. We find out what Meat Loaf got up to Before He Was Famous. Laibach and Hot Chip explore their back catalogues. On the return of Creem, their editor Jaan Uhelszki picks the magazine’s “greatest hits”. And we (re-)discover lost singer-songwriter Valerie Carter.

And that’s it!