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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Box “The best of The Box”

(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 Box
Album Title: The best of The Box
Year released: 2024
Details: RSD2024 release, 2 x LP, fluorescent orange & fluorescent green, foil cover, gatefold sleeve

The skinny: I’ve been participating in Record Store Day festivities for more than a decade but with the diminishing amount of exclusive releases to catch my interest, it’s been a number of years since I’ve actually ventured out early enough to get stuck in lines and get involved in the crush and the rush of the crash and grab. This year, though, there were a few on my wishlist and I ventured out before the clock even reached ten. I got coffee and queued up for hours outside and inside a couple of my local shops and in the end, found three of the four that I had my eye on*. One of these was a Canadian RSD release of a new compilation called “The best of The Box”. I wrote recently how I realized that I was a fan of The Box (without even knowing it) when I posted about their single “L’affaire Dumoutier (Say to me)” for my Eighties Best 100 Redux. Listening to this vinyl the other night only reinforced for me how underrated and how talented the Canadian new wave band was at writing an ear worm that stuck with you throughout the decades. This release is pressed to two discs in fluorescent colours (orange and green)** and comes in a foil wrapped gatefold sleeve. Definitely a successful RSD for me.

Standout track: “Ordinary people”

*I wasn’t expecting to find the fourth one here in Canada but am still on the hunt for it and closing in.

**They were an 80s band, you know.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Strokes “Is this it”

(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 Strokes
Album Title: Is this it
Year released: 2001
Year reissued: 2024
Details: Original cover, transparent red vinyl

The skinny: Here’s my most recent vinyl purchase, having just received it in the mail a few weeks ago. The Strokes’ debut album “Is this it” has been on my wishlist for a while but every time I saw a copy in stores, I already had something else in my hands. And of course, it always seemed to be the US version of the cover, which I did not want. The album probably up there with some of the best debuts ever, certainly ranking amongst those released in the 2000s. I distinctly remember that there was a lot of excitement with its release, breathing new life into American indie with its blistering take on garage rock. I wasn’t as enthused with the albums that came after, however, with the exception of The Strokes’ most recent release, but I never lost the love for “Is this it”. So when I caught the news of its reissue on transparent red vinyl with the international cover art, I didn’t second guess – I put in the order.

Standout track: “Last nite”

 

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Neutral Milk Hotel “In the aeroplane over the sea”

(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: Neutral Milk Hotel
Album Title: In the aeroplane over the sea
Year released: 1998
Year reissued: 2018
Details: gatefold sleeve, 180 gram

The skinny: I’ve not just been away from blogging over the past week or so but also from work and home and have been out living the dream. I returned just a few days ago and almost immediately reacquainted myself with my vinyl shelves, one of the very few things I miss while being away from home. So it made most sense to me to share one of these ‘vinyl love’ posts as my first upon returning from this brief hiatus and I chose Neutral Milk Hotel’s classic sophomore album, “In the aeroplane over the sea” because I just happened to be reading about it of late in the 33 1/3 books treatment of the band and album. I personally came to the album years after its 1998 release but it quickly became one of my all-time faves, landing at number three on my best albums list of that year. And the book is giving me so much more context to chew on that I felt giving it a fresh listen was overdue. The reissue in my collection was repressed to 180 gram vinyl by Merge Records twenty years after its initial release and came in a gatefold sleeve. I’m fairly certain it was one of the last records I ever purchased from Amazon, an add-on to another purchase to bring me over the free shipping threshold, but I’m even more certain that it gets more spins on my turntable than that other record*.

Standout track: “In the aeroplane over the sea”

*Indeed, I don’t even remember with which record I purchased it.