Category: Vinyl

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “God fodder”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
Album Title: God fodder
Year released: 1991
Year reissued: 2019
Details: 180 gram, limited edition, reissue, numbered 939/1000, black and silver marbled vinyl

The skinny: The moment that I heard that Music on Vinyl was reissuing one of my favourite albums from my youth on vinyl, I got on the pre-order machine immediately, especially after seeing that the initial pressing was numbered and limited to 1000 and pressed to black and silver marbled wax. Yeah. It’s oh so pretty. For a band with such a ridiculous moniker, their music stands up remarkably well. So well, in fact, that it squeezed its way to number ten in the Best albums of 1991 series that I just started last week. It’s noisy and high energy but still melodic. And it brings back a ton of memories of blasting a bunch of these tunes (including the one below) on my stereo in my basement bedroom while my parents stomped on the floor above, the universal messaging that the music is too loud. I rarely turned it down, though, and sometimes turned it up. It just begs to be played at a high volume, which is why I always dig out my high quality headphones when I place this disc on my turntable these days.

Standout track: “Kill your television”

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: My Bloody Valentine “Loveless”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: My Bloody Valentine
Album Title: Loveless
Year released: 1991
Year reissued: 2018
Details: 180 gram, gatefold sleeve

The skinny: Back on Thursday, I started a new series that I plan to drag out for full enjoyment because, yeah, I am counting down my favourite albums of one of my favourite years for music. If you love the early 1990s as I do, definitely check it out. But I will forewarn from you now, as I did on that same post, this iconic album by shoegaze noisemakers My Bloody Valentine was one of a handful of very influential albums that I just couldn’t make fit into my top ten. (Indeed, our fellow blogging friend at Aphoristic Album Reviews was nearly as surprised at this as I was.) However, rest assured that “Loveless” was very. very, very close to making the cut. It is an album of which that I liked only some of its songs back in the day but in the thirty years that have since passed, it has grown so much in my esteem, that now nearly every tune within is a classic. Indeed, I am very glad to have acted fast on the pre-order for this record back in 2018. I remember catching wind that that Kevin Shields was reissuing the group’s first two records on vinyl, doing the remastering himself using some esoteric analogue process that my own tiny brain can’t comprehend. Notwithstanding, it is a very sweet listen, intense and clear, well, as clear as it was meant to be. And the fact that the album cover arrived a little bent out of shape in the post doesn’t even bother me that much. The disc is perfect and that’s what matters.

Standout track: “Only shallow”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Cranberries “No need to argue”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Cranberries
Album Title: No need to argue
Year released: 1994
Year reissued: 2020
Details: 2 x LP, 25th anniversary, limited edition, clear vinyl, gatefold sleeve, essay printed on inner sleeves, bonus tracks

The skinny: I’d been wanting to add this record to my collection for many years now but the only pressing that seemed to be readily available was the one by Plain Records that by all accounts, is subpar at best. Then, The Cranberries’ debut album, “Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?“, was reissued in 2018 for its 25th anniversary (which I bought) and so I figured if I could just be patient, a 25th anniversary reissue of “No need to argue” would soon follow. And this release is definitely worth waiting for. The sound and the packaging is impeccable, the album proper pressed across three sides and some bonus tracks included on the fourth side. My wife Victoria and I were both fans of the album back when it was originally released. Of course, we were both quite young back then and were still getting to know each other but we had this album in common. When I lost interest after “No need to argue”, Victoria continued to follow them. However, she’s yet to listen to the record with me since I got it last fall because she is haunted by how frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan passed a couple years ago. But maybe soon…

Standout track: “I can’t be with you”