(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: There is no love in fluorescent light Year released: 2017 Details: Gatefold sleeve, double LP, limited edition, bone coloured
The skinny: For those of you tired of me posting pretty pictures of the lovely vinyl this Canadian indie pop group keeps putting out, rest assured this will be the last of these posts for a while. “There is no love in fluorescent light” is Stars’ eighth and final album thus far and the last of their representation in my vinyl collection. And to be honest, this is the album by the group with which I am least familiar, this morning’s spin still only brings the amount of times I have listened to it to a handful. Nevertheless, there are some great tracks here, including the one below. And well, doesn’t that bone colour look pretty?
(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: No one is lost Year released: 2014 Details: Gatefold sleeve, signed insert, double LP, pink/black split
The skinny: This Canadian indie pop band’s seventh album was the first record I ever pre-ordered on vinyl directly from the artist for my vinyl collection. If you’ve been following along on the last few “Vinyl love” posts, you might understand why. Stars were a pretty big deal throughout the 2000s and into this current decade in the Canadian indie pop scene. For this record, they went rollerskate paradise retro in pink neon and full of hope in its title, while knowing full well that in reality, we are lost. It’s a good record with some excellent tracks, definitely worth your time if you haven’t yet given it its due.
If and when I get around to counting down my favourite albums of 1991, you know this album’ll definitely be high up on the list. Indeed, “Shakespeare my butt”, The Lowest of the Low’s debut album, is right up there with my favourite albums of all time. Another great track from it appeared just six songs ago at number eleven (“Rosy and grey”) and if this top thirty was a top one hundred instead, I’d say a good deal more of the album would be on here. Already I’m wishing I’d squeezed on one or two more songs from it. It’s criminal that this Toronto indie band never broke it bigger but in a way, it was their own doing.
“Shakespeare my butt” with its folk punk roots, literate and honest lyrics, great guitar hooks, and melodic harmonies won lots of fans and sold lots of copies for an independent release back then. Some of its songs even found their way on to commercial pop radio. Its infamy only grew after they broke up, but mostly in southern Ontario and just across the US border into Buffalo. It’s an album that didn’t reach far but on those it did touch, it left an indelible mark. And if you asked any LOTL fan to name their favourite song, there’s a good chance that they might point to “Bleed a little while tonight”.
Like many of Ron Hawkins’ tunes, it’s a song that ‘shows’ rather than ‘tells’ its story and it’s a story that feels very real and one with which most of us can identify. Here, it’s a love (or perhaps lust) that is unreturned. A universal subject for sure but Hawkins comes by it honestly.
“And I’d forget about you if I could dare but
I just want to make love to you in some dark, rainy street somewhere.”
Its five minutes is a mix of acoustic strumming and careening electric guitars and uneven and crashing drums, the mood rough and passionate and messy, reflecting that of the song’s protagonist. It might almost fall apart if it weren’t held tightly together by the call and response vocals by Stephen Stanley and Hawkins that appear at the bridge and return to close out the song, lines any of us fans can sing along with and drum up all sorts of memories.
“Well, my heart is aching
Damn Damn the circumstance
And my room is spinning
Damn, damn the circumstance
It’s grey without you in it”
Yup. That’s the one.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.
My (life in) music lists 