โImagineโฆa worldโฆwhere time drifts slowlyโฆโ
For laughs, I pulled this copy of Pure Moods out of the free box while record shopping at End of an Ear.
The minute I saw the cover, I remembered that โReturn to Innocenceโ song blasting during the infomercials:
I didnโt even bother looking at the tracklist until I got home โ sure, there was Enya and Kenny G, but also Morricone, Vangelis, Badalamenti and Brian Eno?!? This thing is wild:
I wanted to know more about this crazy artifact from 1994. Luckily, Mina Tavakoliย wrote a great review for Pitchforkย a few years ago that delves into its weird history:
These were tracks and artists never designed to be played alongside one another, tracks and artists, for all intents and purposes, mostly foreign to one another except in essence. Their clunky but satisfying cohesion can be attributed to the cataloguing done by the Virgin heads, who arranged the piece on a lark, โstumbling into the projectโ as an experiment to determine if an album could be successfully telemarketed and sold far before its release date. The model, deemed โa huge buzzโ after selling more than 2 million copies prior to its formal drop, would be replicated five times over with a tetralogy of sequels in the releases of Pure Moods II-IV.
โBut what mood?โ Meg asked me after I played her a few tracks.
โPure moods,โ I said. โPlural! There is no one mood, but theyโre all Pure.โ
I thought it would be hilarious to play my 10-year-old the album after pizza night. He got really into it, especially the infomercial.
โThis is so cringe,โ he said. โMy classmates would love it.โ
We started reciting some of the lines around the house. โDirect from Europeโฆโ
He even went so far as to make a parody of the compilation called Cringe Moods:
Masterful parody of PURE MOODS from the 10-year-old ? pic.twitter.com/L7AJcjClwO
โ Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) February 23, 2023
And this is why you shop at your local record store.