Tag: 1980s

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Joy Division “Substance”

(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: Joy Division
Album Title: Substance
Year released: 1988
Year reissued: 2015
Details: 2 x 180 gram

The skinny: It’s all hallow’s eve but with everything going on, the celebrations will be tempered and the amount of trick-or-treating children will likely be very, very low. We can still spin some dark and haunting tunes, though, in honour of all the ghosts and goblins that will be on the prowl tonight. For me, it’s going to be Joy Division, not necessarily a goth rock band but definitely a big influence on all of those that followed on the darker side of the alternative spectrum. “Substance” is a 1988 compilation that was released by their label, Factory Records, several years after Joy Division’s dissolution. (Interestingly,  it was a year after a compilation with the same name was released by Factory for New Order, the band that Joy Division’s remaining members would go on to form after the suicide of their frontman, Ian Curtis.) The original release of Joy Division’s “ Substance” collected the band’s four non-album singles and b-sides, as well as an early EP and this remastered reissue that was released and purchased in 2015, was not only pressed to two 180 gram slabs but included three additional tracks.

Most would’ve thought I would pick their classic “Love will tear us apart” for the standout but instead, I kept with today’s theme and shared the track Nine Inch Nails chose to cover for the soundtrack to the film “The crow”. Happy Halloween all!

Standout track: “Dead souls”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Depeche Mode “101”

(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: Depeche Mode
Album Title: 101
Year released: 1988
Year reissued: 2016
Details: 2 x 180 gram, gatefold, 16-page booklet

The skinny: “Good evening, Pasadena!!!!” I don’t have a lot of live albums in my collection and typically, I’m not a big fan. However, in a case like this, I get away with it because I’ve got a lot of history here. “101”, so named because the recordings are culled from Depeche Mode’s 101st show on their “Music for the masses tour”, was the closest thing the band had to a “best of” compilation around the time that I was just getting into them. I recorded a copy off my friend John’s compact disc and I listened to it pretty non stop for months. I know every nuance, every bit of banter with the audience, and how the live versions differ from the studio versions of these songs. In some cases, I even prefer these live recordings. So yeah, it was an important one to add to my collection and I was especially happy when I saw the 16 page booklet, designed by regular collaborator Anton Corbijn that was included with this reissue.

Standout track: “Everything counts (Live)”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Depeche Mode “Some great reward”

(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: Depeche Mode
Album Title: Some great reward
Year released: 1985
Year reissued: 2007
Details: remastered, 180 gram, gatefold

The skinny: Back at the end of January, I posted the first in a three-part series that I thought I would have had wrapped up by now. My plan was to do three Top Five Tunes posts on three different eras of Depeche Mode’s storied past but here we are at the beginning go August and only the instalment on their 1980s output has been published to these pages. I’ve been putting off finishing part two (Mode’s top five tunes of the 1990s) for so long that I every time I sit down to it, I find myself rewriting everything I had previously written. It’s getting silly now, though, so I thought I might spin some classic Depeche Mode to get myself in the mood to finish it. “Some great reward” was the first of the synthpop quartet’s albums I purchased with my own money and perhaps not coincidentally, was the first piece of theirs that I purchased for my vinyl collection back in 2013. It’s a 1980s classic that hosts many of their iconic tunes, including two which placed in part one of the aforementioned series. This reissue was a remaster by Rhino Records, pressed on 180 gram vinyl, and includes a write up by producer and founder of Mute Records, Daniel Miller. (I can feel the writing juices starting to flow again…)

Standout track: “Blasphemous rumours”