Tag: Best albums

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Wonder Stuff “Never loved Elvis”

(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 Wonder Stuff
Album Title: Never loved Elvis
Year released: 1991
Year reissued: 2021
Details: Limited edition, HMV 100th anniversary exclusive, OBI strip, brown

The skinny: I hereby interrupt our regularly scheduled ‘Vinyl Love’ programming of my favourite albums from last year to bring you one of my favourites from thirty (!) years ago. The Wonder Stuff’s third album, “Never loved Elvis”, is what our friend Aaron over at KMA would call a grail find for me. It’s the only album from my Best albums of 1991 list that wasn’t already on my record shelves and was one that I never thought I’d find. It was almost by random that I discovered it had been reissued last November as part of an HMV anniversary series in the UK, the only problem for me was that it wasn’t available for purchase here in Canada. Not to be deterred, however, I managed to procure a copy with the help of a fellow vinyl addict named Jim, whom, some of you may remember, used to run an excellent blog named Resurrection Songs. I gave the record a spin within hours of receiving it in the mail and it immediately transported me back to those days of walking around my small hometown while my Walkman transmitted these very tunes to my earbuds. Needless to say, I sang along with good old Miles Hunt for the album’s entirety.

Standout track: “Welcome to the cheap seats”

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Du Blonde “Homecoming”

(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: Du Blonde
Album Title: Homecoming
Year released: 2021
Year reissued: 2021
Details: Limited edition (limited to 500), signed, reissue, transparent with black, neon yellow and bright pink splatter, came with a small magazine, stickers and two cards

The skinny: Continuing my ‘Vinyl Love’ series that’s highlighting my favourite records of last year, here’s the album that placed number eight on that list. I liked the sound of “Homecoming”, the third album by Beth Jeans Houghton as Du Blonde, right off from the get-go. I hesitated, though, and didn’t pull the trigger on its purchase right away. As time wore on, the grrl-rock-ravaged, salacious glam wore upon me, and I found the collaborations with Ezra Furman, Ride’s Andy Bell, and Garbage front woman, Shirley Manson too much fun to bear. I finally decided the record should be on my shelf, but by this time, it became apparent that I wasn’t the only one to come to this conclusion. All of the initial pressings and variants had sold out. Luckily for me, Du Blonde decided to do another limited run late in the year and this time, I did not hesitate. It’s signed by Du Blonde herself and includes a bunch of stickers and postcards and a hand-drawn zine that explains how she came to create her own record label. And of course, the “Lil Petey’s Pick’n Mix Puke” spatter vinyl looks much lovelier than it is described.

Standout track: “Medicated (feat. Shirley Manson)”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Goat Girl “On all fours”

(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: Goat Girl
Album Title: On all fours
Year released: 2021
Details: Limited edition, gatefold, double LP, pink transparent vinyl

The skinny: The first 2021-released record that I bought last year was Goat Girl’s sophomore album, “On all fours”, and it ended up as my fifth favourite album when I counted them down at the end of December. I had never heard of the band before but the track below caught my attention when it popped up on one of those “Release radar” playlists on Spotify last January. I checked out the rest of the album and then, checked it out again. The next thing I knew, I was hunting down a copy to order for my vinyl collection and found this limited edition pink transparent pressing. This all female quartet is post-punk, but less in the sense that we’ve come to know of late. They are their own thing, beating to their own drum, giving no f*cks, and that ethos feels truer to me to the original movement than so much of the music being put out by their peers and that is so much fawned over by the music press. Goat Girl is colourful and unique, much like the album art suggests.

Standout track: “Sad cowboy”