(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: James Album Title: Hey ma Year released: 2008 Details: original pressing, standard black vinyl
The skinny: James, one of my favourite ever bands, was recently announced as part of the lineup for this year’s CityFolk festival, one of the local music festivals, but unfortunately, I will unlikely be able to make the show given the timing. Still, it got me thinking about the other two times I saw the band, especially the first, when my wife and I drove to Montreal for their stop there on the tour supporting 2008’s “Hey ma”. We had already been big fans of their earlier work but this*, their 10th studio album and their first since reforming after an almost six year absence, made us even bigger fans. It was my very favourite album in the year of its release and this wasn’t just a nostalgia vote. “Hey ma” was a return to the sound of their best work and kicked off a string of very good albums that continues to this day. I picked up this original pressing more than five years after its release from one of my favourite local record shops. I just happened to be flipping through their racks one day and there it was. No hesitation, purchase made and there have been no regrets. It’s hit my turntable more times than I can count. So good.
Back when I was a young man, especially in the years just before, during, and immediately after my time at university in Toronto, I was a proverbial night owl. I would often stay up all night and only go to bed a few hours after the sun rose on the new day.
This behaviour likely had its roots in the job that I started the year after I graduated high school, working at the local 7-Eleven. I often worked the midnight shift because I was the new guy, was young, and appreciated the meagre shift premium. And often on those shifts, my good friend Bowers, who was also a late nighter, would pop into the store on the nights he wasn’t himself working at the paint factory, coming in during the wee hours to rock the Addams Family pinball machine, shoot the proverbial poo with me and whichever young lady was my shift partner on the night, and we’d walk home together when my shift ended around 7am. On those nights when we were both off work, I’d head over to his place and we’d watch movies all night in his basement over pizzas and beers.
During university, I had no lack of friends who also enjoyed partying late into the night, drinking, listening to tunes, laughing, and generally being ridiculous. On those later evenings, there was always a point where others would disappear off to bed and only the hardy few remained. Those were the moments where the decision was made either to pack it in or realize that you might as well wait to make sure the sun came up. Of course, it was usually the latter.
And when the sun did peak its bright rays over the horizon, it was magic.
It was pure perfection. The air was crisp. The streets were quiet. The skies were replete with a myriad of colours. It felt like the world belonged to you (and your friends) and nobody else. There was a joy. But there was also a sadness.
This song, “Perfect” by The Lightning Seeds, perfectly* encapsulates this feeling, this mood, this magic. Frontman and driving force, Ian Broudie puts into music and words exactly how we all felt in those moments.
“Now tomorrow’s here today
And yesterday’s today’s just fade away
Watch the morning chase the night
Rolling home, it’s getting light
Feeling sleepy, full of wine
Fall in bed, just in time.”
“Perfect” is track one on the Liverpudlian indie pop band’s third album, “Jollification”. It starts off with low level music already in progress, sounding off in the distance like a faraway bird, a shadow in the bright blazing sunrise. Then, the song proper starts, a jolt of life, that second wind, roaring guitars and dancing synth washes and a drum beat that matches the beat of your heart. The song feels bright and wistfully happy – a song of hope for a new day but sadness for the night we’ve lost.
*Sorry, not sorry.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.
If you’ve been following along, you might have guessed this album to be here at number one, given its conspicuous absence thus far.
I’ve been a fan of The Cure for many years, close to four decades in fact. Yeah, I’m aging myself here but what can you do? I first got into the post-punk legends led by Robert Smith when I was in high school, shortly after the release of their seminal album, 1989’s “Disintegration“. Alternative music became a passion amongst me and a few friends, with each of us introducing the others to the latest bands, in a time before the internet. I’m pretty sure it was my friend John* that shared “Disintegration”, along with early singles compilation “Staring at the sea”, both of which I dutifully dubbed to blank cassette and quickly wore out from playing.
When “Wish” came out in 1992**, I wasted no time in purchasing it for my burgeoning CD collection and obviously played it to death. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for 1996’s “Wild mood swings” on either count. I did try to make amends with “Bloodflowers” in 2000*** but that was mostly because I had bought tickets to finally see the band live with my youngest sibling for that tour. I still don’t believe I have heard an ounce of either of the two albums Robert Smith and company released between that album and this year’s release.
All that to say, I certainly wasn’t expecting a new Cure album to be my favourite album of the year when the calendar turned to 2024 last January. But it certainly is and I’ll tell you why.
It could be just me but Robert Smith seems a completely different musician and person than he was in the early 2000s. I remember seeing them for that aforementioned show for the “Bloodflowers” tour and walking away disappointed. The setlist seemed more designed for him than for the audience. Contrast that with the next time I saw the group at Osheaga in 2013, when organizers had to pull the plug to get them to leave the stage, and even then, they performed “Boys don’t cry” without sound. I’ve heard that this is pretty much how all his shows go now. Playing everything he thinks his fans want to hear and having a great time doing it. And he’s been touring lots without releasing anything new for years, though the rumours of new material have been swirling faster and faster of late.
“Songs of a lost world”, The Cure’s 14th long player was finally released in November and it explodes through the speakers. It exudes all this passion that Smith performs with while on stage. People talk about how Cure albums waffle between goth records and pop records but this one feels like it nestles and nuzzles itself snuggly in between both. It is big and bold and is unabashedly The Cure.
At just eight songs, our number one album feels way too short, like we wouldn’t have minded it go on for another 45 minutes at least. However, Robert Smith has assured us that he’s got enough material in the can for a few more albums to come soon. Until then, let’s listen to this again and again and you could do worse than go with any of these, my three picks for you.
“Alone”: “This is the end of every song that we sing.” Quite the line to start off an album with. Indeed, it’s the first line on the first song and the first single to be released off the album. And that it comes just shy of the three and a half minute mark of a nearly seven minute song and that it just happens to be the first piece of new music to be released by The Cure in 16 years is both heartbreaking and beautiful. Of course, this was not random. Robert Smith knew he needed a great line to open the album and it might very well have been the reason that the long promised album kept getting pushed back. He’s readily admitted that once this line was written, the rest of the album fell easily into place. And this line, this song, is well worth all the waiting. The sweeping and trudging and haunting darkness that prefaces these words is simply gorgeous, so easy to get wrapped up in, that you almost don’t want any vocals to appear, that they might mar the perfection in some way. But of course, Smith doesn’t let this happen. His words, morose, moody, satisfied, whatever, they make the perfection even more so. How does it get better? Read on friends.
“All I ever am”: “My weary dance with age and resignation moves me slow, toward a dark and empty stage where I can sing of all I know.” The penultimate track on the album sounds like Mr. Smith reflecting on his mortality. But he does so with panache and in a way that only The Cure can do it. Of course, it’s morbid and morose, but it’s also set against an aggressive and tribal beat and haunting synths, ambulance sirens and elevated heart rhythms. There’s soaring guitars demanding to be forefront and twinkling keys content to take the back seat. It’s all very big and epic and romantic. And begs for more.
“A fragile thing”: “Don’t tell me how you miss me, I could die tonight of a broken heart.” This line and so many like it in this song is heartbreaking. The whole song is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking and truthful and real and beautiful. A song about a relationship in trouble, love when love is not enough, love that hurts, a relationship whose story is linear and long foretold. And the music is just as haunting. Menacing keys from an early eighties slasher flick, set against shimmering and blinding cymbals, and a foreboding bass line, the kind that keeps you up at night, cold sweat from a nightmare, reaching for comfort but only finding an indentation where a warm body should be. This is the kind of Cure single we’ve been waiting a couple of decades for and we are more than grateful to be able to crank it up and let all soak over us. Over and over and over again.
*Or maybe it was Tim?
**It was also around this time that I purchased an original pressing of “Mixed up” on vinyl. Sadly, I lost that one to one of my younger siblings when I moved away to university. I’ve since purchased a reissue.
***Thankfully, it was a better album than its predecessor.
I hope those of you that have been following along this mini-series of my favourite albums from last year. I am going to try to get back into a rhythm and a regular schedule after this. For those of you who haven’t been following along, here are the previous albums in this list that you’ve missed:
My (life in) music lists 