(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: R.E.M. Album Title: Document Year released: 1987 Year reissued: 2018 Details: Limited edition, Limited to 2500 copies, 180 gram vinyl, orange translucent vinyl
The skinny: Six albums into this mini R.E.M. ‘Vinyl love’ series and here is the first sign of any coloured vinyl. Lovingly pressed to a 180 gram disc like all of the albums we have already seen, it was advertised as ‘gold’ but it sure looks like translucent gold to me. I purchased this pressing of R.E.M’s fifth studio album and first with Scott Litt producing right from the R.E.M. store back in 2018. It was an impulse buy. I saw ‘limited to 2500’ and didn’t see it anywhere else so I pulled the trigger. Of course, it was fated to be a part of my collection eventually. “Document” is one of the albums that I had to go back to discover after falling for the band with their next big three. Of course, there were a few tracks here with which I was already familiar but the rest were just as great. There’s just one more to go. See you back here next weekend.
At number ninety-eight on this Eighties’ best 100 redux, we have the first of two songs that weren’t on the original edition of this list, because at the time, I hadn’t heard of either of them.
Young Marble Giants’ “Brand – new – life” came to me late last year, sometime in October or November 2021. Around that time, I was spending a lot of time listening to Spotify playlists ‘made especially for me’ based on my previous listening history and after weeding through the chaff, I actually discovered quite a bit of good new music in this way. One of the mixes that I returned to pretty often was an ‘Early alternative’ mix that mined a lot of the post-punk of the early 1980s, most of which I was already familiar with and some of which will appear later in this list. But the first time I heard this particular track, I was arrested by its atmospheric and haunting sound and had me reaching for my iPad to learn who was behind it.
If you’ve never heard tell of the Cardiff, Wales trio before, you could have been forgiven, given their extremely short lifespan and their minimal output. In the two to three years from their inception out of the remains of a previous band to their dispersement to various projects, brothers Stuart and Philip Moxham and Alison Statton released one full-length album, a couple of EPs, and appeared on a handful of compilations. In spite of this, they had a huge influence on a swathe of indie rock, especially on those future musicians that would be lumped under the so-called ‘twee’ umbrella. They’ve been cited by artists as varied as Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love and Belle and Sebastian and Neutral Milk Hotel.
“Brand – new – life” is track number fourteen of fifteen on “Colossal youth”, the aforementioned, lone LP by the group. Recorded in a handful of days, the songs on the album all range in the two to three minute mark and rely on little studio trickery. In spite of this austere approach, their songs burst forth with just as much energy as their angrier and darker contemporaries. “Brand – new – life” begins with the insistent and almost unrecognizable rhythm of a homemade drum machine, but this is quickly joined by a tight rickenbacker and a muscular bass, duelling and cavorting with the beat. And Alison Statton’s vocals are just there, like a soft croon, not assuming anything, not demanding anything.
All of this adds up to this infectious piece of joy that I didn’t know I was missing in my life.
Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a
Favourite lyric: “And now we are a lonely two / Sit at home and watch the tube.” Boob tube, YouTube, it’s a pretty universal and dare I say, timeless sentiment and reaction to heartbreak.
Where are they now?: After reforming with the three original members in the early 2000s and playing numerous gigs at festivals and the like, Young Marble Giants were announced as “no more” on Facebook in 2016.
For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.
(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: R.E.M. Album Title: Green Year released: 1988 Year reissued: 2013 Details: 25th anniversary, 180 gram vinyl
The skinny: Onwards and backwards chronologically through my collection of R.E.M. records, we have now come to their sixth record. “Green” was where I came in, was properly introduced the band, and the first physical album by the band that I ever owned. Originally purchased on cassette tape, metal cassette tape to be exact, it found a home in my Sony Sports Walkman for many days at a time and at various points in time throughout my high school years. I later replaced it with a used compact disc at some point because I no longer had a means to play the cassette, though I am pretty sure I still have it packed away somewhere in my basement. As for this 25th anniversary reissue of the record on 180 gram vinyl, I actually only procured it early last year when I ordered it, along with the self-titled debut album by Fleet Foxes from Pop Music Toronto’s online store. So yeah, I’ve paid for this album three times in three different decades during my lifetime but each has and will continue to earn its keep. Just an excellent and timeless rock record.
My (life in) music lists 