Tag: 12″

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Vinyl

Vinyl love (revisited): Arcade Fire “The suburbs”

(I started my Vinyl Love posts pretty much right after the launch of this blog to share photos of my growing vinyl collection. Over time, the photos have improved and the explanations have grown. And looking back at a handful of the original posts in this series, I found myself wanting to re-do some of them so that the posts are more worthy of those great albums. So that’s what I’m going to start doing… not on the regular, mind you, because there’s plenty of other pieces in my collection still awaiting their due.)

Artist: Arcade Fire
Album Title: The suburbs
Year released: 2010
Details: black vinyl, double LP, gatefold sleeve

The skinny: The original Vinyl Love post for this Grammy-winning third album by Montreal’s now infamous indie rock collective was posted to this blog on May 19, 2017*, almost three and a half years ago. I wrote then that frontman Win Butler called it “neither a love letter to, nor an indictment of, the suburbs – it’s a letter from the suburbs.” Two songs from the concept album then appeared on my Best tunes of 2010 list in the months that followed: first, the title track was slotted in at number twelve and the standout song below came a very close second to the number one for that year. For me, “The suburbs” is one of the best, if not the very best album of 2010** so it was a no brainer for me to pick up this original pressing early on in my collecting days. Ten years following its release, it still sounds as fresh as ever.

Standout track: “Sprawl II (Mountains beyond mountains)”

* Don’t go looking for it. As I post these “Revisited” pieces, I intend to rid the internet of the original evidence as soon as I can. This is, of course, the point of these posts.

** I guess we’ll see if I ever get around to counting down my favourite albums for 2010.

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Lush “Topolino”

(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: Lush
Album Title: Topolino
Year released: 1996
Year reissued: 2016
Details: yellow vinyl, disc five in limited Origami box set, Record Store Day 2016 release, limited to 2000

The skinny: “Topolino” is the final piece in “Origami”, the five disc box set of Lush LPs that 4AD put out on Record Store Day 2016. And truth be told, of the five records I’ve posted about over the past five weeks, this one is the least likely to hit my turntable on a regular basis. Perhaps a dour way to end the series but even this record has its merits. If you paid attention to the photos of last week’s subject, “Lovelife“, you might notice that the artwork of this week’s record looks eerily similar. The explanation is a simple one. “Topolino” was a compilation of b-sides recorded during the “Lovelife” sessions and as it turned out, it was the final full-length release by the group. Chris Acland, the band’s drummer, died two month’s after its release and Lush disbanded, save for a short-lived reunion almost a decade later… but that’s a story for another time.

Standout track: “Shake baby shake”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Lush “Lovelife”

(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: Lush
Album Title: Lovelife
Year released: 1996
Year reissued: 2016
Details: pink vinyl, disc four in limited Origami box set, Record Store Day 2016 release, limited to 2000

The skinny: As I mentioned last week, Lush’s third studio album, “Lovelife”, was their Britpop album. Don’t look down your nose at them though. Everyone was doing it at the time. I didn’t mind the change in sound at all because I had gotten caught up in the hype of the scene, just as much as did many of my friends. Still, had you not followed their progression as closely as I did, you might not have recognized this as at all the same band that had us dreaming colours on “Gala” and “Spooky“. Sure, there was some ethereal sounds on “Lovelife” but the guitar driven pop had been amped up and Mike Berenyi’s vocals were without a doubt more obvious here than on any of their previous work. And yeah, she definitely does hold her own in a duet with Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker on the tune below. 4AD’s choice of pink for this fourth disc in the ‘Origami’ box set does not just match the colour palette of the album artwork but also feels in line the with the decidedly bubblegum tone of its sound.

Standout track: “Ciao!”