Tag: Retro

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: The ultimate playlist

Well, hello there. Did the title catch your attention? Did you think it was hyperbole? Or perhaps a bit full of itself? I guess time will tell.

I’ve tried this before and have let the rope drop but somehow, this time, I think the experiment will work. My aim here is to create an infinite playlist, much like that of Nick and Norah, a playlist of songs that just continues to grow and evolve by itself, much like life and love does. I started adding songs to it a couple of weeks ago, just before the COVID-19 scare took hold for real here in Canada. I’ve since been spending a lot of time around the house and slowing life down quite a bit. The spectre of things has been weighing heavy and I’ve found myself wanting (even more so than usual) to rock out to some excellent tunes. I started things off with my favourite Manic Street Preachers tune from the mid 90s and have been letting my mood dictate things from there. Since I started the mix on that Sunday night in mid-March, I’ve added to it over a couple of different sessions while wearing earphones and sipping at a beer and now we’re up just past the 100 song and seven hour mark. A good time as any to share it with you all.

There’s no real theme for this playlist, unless you count that I am trying to include some my biggest and best tunes from across the decades. Of course, it reflects my own tastes, which tend towards the alternative and indie rock side of the musical spectrum, pretty much anything left of the dial.  So far I’ve name-checked punk and post-punk and post-punk revival, ska, goth, shoegaze, dream pop, indie folk, psychedelic rock, Madchester, britpop, new wave, alt-country, and art rock. I’ve danced and dabbled across the decades and I think thus far, haven’t included more than one song per artist. However, I don’t intend to continue that particular trend because a lot of these artists have way more than one good song and I don’t want to impose such strict limitations on this mix.

So depending on when you happen upon these words, whether just after I publish them today or perhaps even a year or two down the road, this playlist could last you a good evening’s drink or perhaps an excellent road trip or a weekend painting the house. It may get super unruly and daunting but that is okay. It could be that you might want to throw it on shuffle, though there is some sort of method to this madness, or you may just want to sample a segment based on a name or two piquing interest.

Give this ole playlist a follow and check in with me from time to time and might I suggest opening a beer as you do so. It might help you get into the spirit of things a bit more because, yeah, it is meant to be a party of sorts. Cheers!

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Smiths “Rank”

(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 Smiths
Album Title: Rank
Year released: 1988
Year reissued: 2011
Details: Remastered, includes promotional poster, double LP, part of box set that includes booklet and poster

The skinny: I’m finishing off this eight-part series (thankfully, for some) with the album that I will rarely be apt to spin, this out of all the pieces in this “Complete” box set. I am not really all that fond of live albums. Indeed, this is one of only three live albums in my vinyl collection and I likely would have never purchased this one had it not come included with the set. “Rank” was an obligatory release by the band’s British and North American labels, coming out over a year after the group split and over two years after the live show at which it was recorded.  It’s an interesting listen but would probably only be that to their most hardcore fans. However, it is one of only two places in this collection where one can hear the excellent track featured below, which as Morrissey admits on the live recording was the band’s newest single at the time.

Standout track: “Ask (Live)”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1992: #17 Adorable “Sunshine smile”

<< #18    |    #16 >>

Vocalist and guitarist Pete Fijalkowski, guitarist Robert Dillam, bassist Stephen ‘Wil’ Williams, and drummer Kevin Gritton formed adorable in 1990. They recorded their debut single, “Sunshine smile”, the following year. It received positive reviews in the music press but the kicker is, it was never released to the buying public. At least, not that version. After Alan McGee signed them to Creation Records in 1992, the song was re-recorded and Adorable finally released this amazing track that we now know and love. Unfortunately for all involved, it was just a couple of years too late.

Adorable likely only managed two albums and four years of existence because the world had already moved on from the noise pop and shoegaze scenes to which they were pigeonholed. Their singles did well enough. In fact, a couple of them, this one included, managed to travel the radio waves across the ocean to get some play in North America. Their debut album, “Against perfection”, was released in 1993 and climbed into the album charts in their native UK but only just barely. When it was released on this side of the ocean, they tacked on the two non-album singles that had been released beforehand. And so when I found a copy of it in the used CD bins, a handful of years later, “Sunshine smile” was the opening track on the playlist of the compact disc I brought home with me to learn and love.*

This song is a great introduction to a band that sadly never really got the due they deserved. “Sunshine smile” starts all chiming and jangly while frontman, Pete Fijalkowski waxes poetic about his subject’s smile. Then, it gets all noisy, guitars move to crunchy and then, seamlessly back to reverberating chimes. The bridge gets all quiet with some taps at the cymbals and Pete goes quiet, too (“how does it feel to feel?”) and the feeling explodes and it all races to a crashing crescendo. It’s got Creation all over it.

And now that I am writing about this song and listening to it over and over, I am kicking myself for not thinking to include it in my Valentine’s Day playlist post last month. It’s quite lovely.

*Sadly, this song was left off the playlist again when Music on Vinyl pressed it to vinyl for a special 25th anniversary edition a couple of years ago but I bought it nonetheless.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.