Tag: Reissue

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Strokes “Is this it”

(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 Strokes
Album Title: Is this it
Year released: 2001
Year reissued: 2024
Details: Original cover, transparent red vinyl

The skinny: Here’s my most recent vinyl purchase, having just received it in the mail a few weeks ago. The Strokes’ debut album “Is this it” has been on my wishlist for a while but every time I saw a copy in stores, I already had something else in my hands. And of course, it always seemed to be the US version of the cover, which I did not want. The album probably up there with some of the best debuts ever, certainly ranking amongst those released in the 2000s. I distinctly remember that there was a lot of excitement with its release, breathing new life into American indie with its blistering take on garage rock. I wasn’t as enthused with the albums that came after, however, with the exception of The Strokes’ most recent release, but I never lost the love for “Is this it”. So when I caught the news of its reissue on transparent red vinyl with the international cover art, I didn’t second guess – I put in the order.

Standout track: “Last nite”

 

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Neutral Milk Hotel “In the aeroplane over the sea”

(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: Neutral Milk Hotel
Album Title: In the aeroplane over the sea
Year released: 1998
Year reissued: 2018
Details: gatefold sleeve, 180 gram

The skinny: I’ve not just been away from blogging over the past week or so but also from work and home and have been out living the dream. I returned just a few days ago and almost immediately reacquainted myself with my vinyl shelves, one of the very few things I miss while being away from home. So it made most sense to me to share one of these ‘vinyl love’ posts as my first upon returning from this brief hiatus and I chose Neutral Milk Hotel’s classic sophomore album, “In the aeroplane over the sea” because I just happened to be reading about it of late in the 33 1/3 books treatment of the band and album. I personally came to the album years after its 1998 release but it quickly became one of my all-time faves, landing at number three on my best albums list of that year. And the book is giving me so much more context to chew on that I felt giving it a fresh listen was overdue. The reissue in my collection was repressed to 180 gram vinyl by Merge Records twenty years after its initial release and came in a gatefold sleeve. I’m fairly certain it was one of the last records I ever purchased from Amazon, an add-on to another purchase to bring me over the free shipping threshold, but I’m even more certain that it gets more spins on my turntable than that other record*.

Standout track: “In the aeroplane over the sea”

*Indeed, I don’t even remember with which record I purchased it.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Airborne Toxic Event “The Airborne Toxic Event”

(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 Airborne Toxic Event
Album Title: The Airborne Toxic Event
Year released: 2008
Year reissued: 2020
Details: Limited edition, 180 gram, white with red splatter, signed by some of the band members

The skinny: I’ve been back collecting vinyl for well over a decade now and have quite a few great pieces in my ever-expanding collection, as you might have noticed by these very posts. And though I do try to spin them quite regularly, what I have found that I don’t do enough of is what my wife might call listening to them “with intention”. So I started changing that this year. Instead of putting on discs while doing something else, I’ve been focusing on devoting time to just listening to the full album, examining the artwork, and reading the lyrics and liner notes. In fact, I started this routine back during the second week of the year, working my way through my collection, from A to Z, a couple of days a week and documenting each with photos on my Instagram* account. The first couple were Adorable’s “Against perfection” (for which I’ve already done a ‘Vinyl love’ post) and this one, The Airborne Toxic Event’s self-titled debut. I was all over this album when it was originally released back in 2008, mostly on the back of the excellent track referenced below, and then, I got to see them live at V fest that fall. I’ve seen them live a few more times since and enjoyed their following records as well, but never quite as much as I did the debut. So when they announced a reissue in late 2020, pressed to coloured 180 gram vinyl and signed to boot, I was all over it.

Standout track: “Sometime around midnight”

*If you’re interested in following along, go find and follow me on the Insta and I’ll likely follow you back.