This year is Pink Floyd's 40th Anniversary. Well, kind of. Not quite, actually. The Floyd formed back in 1965, but it's 40 years since they released 'Arnold Layne', 'See Emily Play', 'Apples And Oranges' and Piper At The Gates of Dawn, which is reason enough to celebrate with a lavish box-set (called, with grating mock-modesty, Oh, By The Way...) of all their albums in mini vinyl replica sleeves, retailing at £150 and neatly timed for the Christmas market. Next year, of course, will be the 40th anniversary of A Saucerful of Secrets - so perhaps they'll do it all again.
Isn't this anniversary lark getting a bit out of hand? If memory serves, it all started with Sgt Pepper back in 1987, to cash in on the 'it was 20 years ago' angle. The Who followed suit with a 25th anniversary tour in 1989, but the trend has gone crazy recently, with any rather random career marker being used to gain maximum revenue through tours, DVDs and deluxe album editions.
Earlier this year Cowboy Junkies released Trinity Revisited, a re-run of their 1988 album The Trinity Sessions, and subsequently took the 20th Anniversary show on the road. Anyone labouring under the misapprehension that the band had got their sums a little muddled was informed that the tribute marked 20 years since the recording - not the release - of the original. How about memorialising the day they came up with the idea?
ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again are embarking on a '19th (Very Nearly 20th) Anniversary Tour', celebrating the year when they decided to begin slavishly copying another band, while the From The Jam tour cashed in on the 30th anniversary of The Jam's debut In The City. Bands like the Sex Pistols even reform in order to celebrate significant dates, which is a bit like a divorced couple getting back together again for their wedding anniversary.
The thing is, every day can be an anniversary if you really want it to be. For instance, today, 21 November, marks precisely 15 years since Sade released Love Deluxe in the States (it was 10 days earlier in the UK, but that's the kind of inconvenient truth we can do without). Happy Anniversary! Who'll join me in marking yet another landmark day in the world of popular music...?
