Question for you: Sleeve Nimels walks into a cash-only record store and sees these four LPs in a bin. With only enough money to buy one, which LP, providing he doesn't already own a copy, ends up going home with him?Well, and speaking as a born-again vinyl guy -- as a result, as faithful readers are aware, of having been gifted a turntable (my first in decades) for my last birthday -- the above, shall we say, quite intrigued me.1) Warren Zevon's Excitable Boy; (2) The Rascals' Groovin' (the original 1967 version); (3) The Cars debut LP; (4) or The Pretenders Learning To Crawl.
I listed these in the order I think you might grab them, but just guessing so please give me your version.
Thank You!
PS: Choose carefully...there's a lot riding on your #1 choice! 😎
Not to keep you in suspense -- and I suspect said faithful readers will be able to guess -- my top choice would be the Zevon album.
And primarily for this little power pop ditty, which is pretty much my definition of sublime (although I deeply love just about every other song on the record).
BTW, this is not to disparage the other three of Phil's nominees, all of which are killer (and which I would probably choose in the same order. Although I might move the Cars up to number two.)
It's just that I was a total Zevon fan after his splendid debut LP (it doesn't get more astoundingly gorgeous than "Desperadoes Under the Eaves"), but when EB came out, I was particularly delighted that it had as much to do with the then current punk and New Wave stuff happening as it did with the somewhat critically out of fashion LA/Topanga Canyon/Jackson Browne-ish singer/songwriter scene Zevon was primarily identified with.
Anyway, enough of my yakking,
And now to business. To wit:
...and the contemporary or classic album you would most love to have a first-rate vinyl copy of in your personal collection (but don't already own) is...?
Discuss. And I'll let you know what Phil has to say further after today's post.
Also -- have a great weekend, everybody!!!
12 comments:
The Johnny Burnette Rock & Roll Trio - The (only) ten inch version.
Captain Al :-) !
This is a tough one. For those of us that never got rid of their vinyl, I for one have most of said classics already. But I did switch to CDs for about ten years or so, and a few things have never been released on vinyl. I would have said "I Am Shelby Lynne" which I own on CD and absolutely deem a classic, but I just recently bought a vinyl repress from Sal at Burning Wood. I sold off my original first four Elvis Costello albums when the CD box set came out, but I ended up buying them all again, including both the US and UK versions of "This Year's Model" (I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea is only on the UK version). I have a crappy San Francisco Sound label vinyl copy of the first Moby Grape record. I'd like a better version of that one. I'd like to have The Proclaimers' "Persevere" on vinyl. It's a favorite and I only have the CD. Also I'd like a vinyl copy of Kirsty MacColl's "Titanic Days", a classic I only own on CD. Maybe this isn't as tough as I originally thought.
OK, not an album but a single: No subsequent version ever sounded quite like the original single release of John Lennon's Instant Karma. The booming reverb/echo that almost sounded like a living, breathing thing in its own right - that was never equaled in any other medium and gave the single a unique, hypnotic sound.
I have owned the original single version of "Achin'" by The Plugz three times, and have sold it for really good money all three times. Of all the records I have owned and sold, this is the only one I truly regret parting with. I want it back!
Moby Grape's Wow/ Grape Jam
BB King's Indianola Mississippi Seeds
Used to own these albums but lent them out and were not returned. Miss them dearly.
rs
The Don Friedman Trio's A Day in the City; any of the Beatles Pepper-through-Let it Be; the original 1969 Aoxomoxoa by the Grateful Dead.
Well, I most definitely have NOT gotten back on the vinyl train - I had a great stereo system in the early ‘80s, including a superb Apt/Holman preamp which was reviewed rapturously in TMFKASR for, among other things, the purity of its phono section, and including a JVC quartz-phased-locked-loop speed control turntable and an Ortofon Concord cartridge, which was also reviewed rapturously in TMFKASR. I had the whole ritual down: carefully extract the 12-inch disc from its sleeve, handling only by the edges; gently slide it onto the turntable spindle; attach the clean-lint-and-remove-static-as-it-plays arm from Audio-Technica (vastly superior to that Discwasher drek, and the turntable’s quartz PLL ensured that the slight extra drag didn’t affect the rotational speed, keeping it locked onto the holy 33-1/3 RPM), gently place the stylus (only the unwashed call it a “needle”) on the lead-in groove, and if you’re fortunate and your vinyl objet d’art was not too warped, had a good fill in the stamper, the lacquer stamping master had been cut with care, and a thousand other random variables hadn’t been off that day, I could rejoice in a state-of-the-art for 1983 playback experience.
Then, in 1984, Yamaha came out with the first of the second-generation CD players, for the princely but not kingly sum of $449; I had been working a shit-ton of paid O/T, heard a demo of that magical machine playing Ry Cooder’s “Bop Till You Drop” CD (one of the first fully digital recordings), and I immediately whipped out my checkbook (remember those?) and left the premises with the player, the Ry Cooder CD, Peter Gabriel’s “Security” on CD, and a Telarc CD of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. Never looked back; the dynamic range, the frequency response, the totally inaudible noise floor, the lack of clicks and pops and pre- and post-echo (unless it was on the master tape)…I was sold.
But I’ll play along: well, I already own a copy of “Life in the Foodchain”, and when I downsized my LP collection about 30 years ago I realized I would never play it again so I got rid of my copy of “Metal Machine Music” (got $50 for it! that was real money back then!)…I would say a pristine copy of Quadrophenia would be my holy grail, mostly because when I discovered that album as a late teen in the late ‘70s on the basis of the two songs from it the local AOR station played, namely “The Real Me” and “Love Reign O’er Me”, I was hooked but it took weeks to find it in local record stores, and when I did, it was invariably warped (an occupational hazard of two-disc sets), so it took quite a while to find an acceptable copy, so having a pristine copy would be cool. And the whole package is cool too, with Townshend’s stage-setting piece, the booklet and all.
But…y’know, that’s all I miss about LPs, the packaging. Digital forever for me.
As an East Coast, NY/New Englander both the Rascals and Warrens album were both artists 3rd album.
Grew up a Rascals fan, at 15 owned their albums. One of my fondest memories is sitting side stage and watching Dino Danelli play. Shades of Gene Krupa.
Now to Warren - this is an album that makes the neighbors bang on their walls, makes you drop the top on your
car and rattle store windows. In addition his album stronger than the Rascals track for track.
So...has to be Warren for my milk money
rob
PS - thankfully this list did not include Exile On Main Street.
West Side Soul by Magic Sam
Never owned "Shoot Out The Lights"
Richard and Linda Thompson
Released 1982 - how did I let this one get by me ?
rob
Well, I can tell you the one album that I will likely never buy again because last year I picked up the 50th anniversary MTH 'All the Young Dudes.' This is the third time I've gotten it in LP form, in addition to 8-track, cassette, CD, remastered CD and CD box set.
By the way, I'll rock the boat and say the Cars second LP 'Candy-O' is better than the much-revered debut.
I still have most of my albums, but I had to put my vintage Denon turntable--originally won by my grandmother in a raffle in 1970-- into storage to accommodate our then-new TV (it's complicated). These days, however, I listen to MP3s and FLACs--of which, I have tens of thousands--almost exclusively. And while I definitely could use a better set of speakers, the ones I have are good enough for now. What I need most is another HD to back up my collection. I'd lose it big time if this one croaked.
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