Tag: Amy Millan

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Stars “The north”

(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: Stars
Album Title: The north
Year released: 2012
Details: Gatefold sleeve, blue translucent vinyl

The skinny: Back in 2012, I had just started collecting vinyl, my wife starting things off by finding a couple of fine used picks in Greenwich Village while in New York. After that, I start visiting physical music stores again and rediscovering of the joy of browsing for music, picking up a record here and there, even though I didn’t have a turntable yet. When Stars released a new album, their sixth, in August of that year, I didn’t hesitate to pick it up. First of all, I saw that it was blue and secondly, a sticker pronounced that it included a download card, so that even though I couldn’t spin the record yet, at least I could listen to its contents. Luckily for me, it was another great album by the Montreal-based indie pop band.

Standout track: “Hold on when you get love and let go when you give it”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Stars “The five ghosts”

(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: Stars
Album Title: The five ghosts
Year released: 2010
Details: 6 x 7″ box set, coloured vinyl (pink, yellow, white, pink marbled, clear milky, light blue), wood box, 13 postcard photos (one of them signed)

The skinny: If “Set yourself on fire” was their best album, Stars’ fifth album “The five ghosts” is most definitely a close second, in my mind anyway. Two of its songs appeared in my Best tunes of 2010 list (at #20 and #7) and in one of those posts, I told the story about how I sent out a search party the night it was released to find a copy on CD. And as soon as I started collecting on vinyl, I knew I needed a copy on this format but they weren’t easy to come by. On a whim one day, I checked out the band’s website store and found they were clearing these 7” singles box set copies of the album. I jumped on it and though I don’t spin it very often, given the extra attention required for the listening of it, I’m very glad it’s part of my collection.

Standout track: “Wasted daylight”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Stars “In our bedroom after the war”

(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: Stars
Album Title: In our bedroom after the war
Year released: 2007
Details: Black vinyl, 2 x 180 gram

The skinny: After the brilliance of their third record, “Set yourself on fire“, I was firmly set among those wildly anticipating the next record. Canadian indie popsters Stars released “In our bedroom after the war” to digital stores the day after it was completed in an attempt to foil the leakers and pirates and then was issued physically two months later. If there was to be a complaint to be made about this fourth record, it would only be that it didn’t venture too far afield from the template of its predecessor… but I wouldn’t call that a bad thing. It is more ornate and literate chamber pop, calling to mind The Smiths and The Beautiful South, but perhaps slightly more slanted towards the dancefloor.

Standout track: “Take me to the riot”