A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of the Pack Up The Plantation: Live! 2LP set by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It’s far a far less common occurrence now (when virtually every band in the universe releases a live album and, thanks to digital technology,is able to “fix” every flaw in the show in post-production) but, at one time, the release of a live album meant that the band in question was confident enough...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of the Long After Dark LP by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. In the first half-decade of their association together, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had already hit some pretty spectacular highs and lows on a condensed timeline. Virtually from day one, the group established that they had some great potential to write hits (see “American Girl,” “Here Comes My Girl” and “Rufugee” as easy and fantastic examples),...
The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski I think it’s believed that music nerds often prefer vinyl or analog sound over digital. Like we’re purists somehow who hate change or anything new. And while that’s true to some extent, and those music nerds who swear by vinyl and analog exist by the thousands, I’ve always sides with the format or delivery system that is most accessible to people, the format that goes from the...
Run the Jewels RTJ3 photo: turntablelab.com There was a period in the mid-2000s where I almost completely stopped listening to rap music. I don’t know if it was my ongoing exploration of punk, newly discovered love of folk, or what it was exactly, but I just couldn’t relate with the rap I was hearing on the radio or seeing on TV. Then, a conversation with Dillinger Four shed some light on the situation for me. As their bassist Paddy Costello...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of Hard Promises by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. When it comes to making a follow-up for a career-defining release, the catch is that whatever comes can often feel like a diminished return no matter how good it might be because the new music simply does not have the same spark which ignited the breakthrough of the previous album. It’s kind of heartbreaking to concede that possibility, but...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of Damn The Torpedoes by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. It might sound like a grandiose claim to say something like, “Truly and genuinely rare is an album like Damn The Torpedoes – it has really introduced some of the biggest and most respected institutions in the modern music industry” but those who think so simply do not know the whole story of the album. First, it’s important...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP edition of Legacy by David Bowie. On the surface, the existence of Legacy – the newest compilation of the greatest hits from David Bowie’s songbook – likely comes off as a little confusing. The set arrived almost two years to the day after Nothing Has Changed (a.k.a. The greatest hits comp which was curated by the artist himself) and, name-for-name, features a very, very (very – it’s about 75% the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP Beggars Arkive Edition reissue of The Closer You Get by Six. By Seven. By the time the ‘century’ portion of the calandar rolled over seventeen years ago, rock was already beginning to mutate in some pretty interesting ways. By then, the “rap-rock” fan had already come and helped to administer a hefty injection of fresh, crotch-grabbing energy to the form, goth was bigger and more mainstream than it had ever...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP+1CD deluxe edition of the Singles soundtrack. While there are several great soundtracks which were released in the 1990s (the Tank Girl, The Crow and Great Expectations soundtracks all leap to mind), arguably the greatest and most culturally important of the lot proved to be that of Cameron Crow’s first “rock memory scrapbook” picture, Singles. The reason for that is pretty easy to explain; released in 1992, Singles happened to come...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Sleeping Through The War LP by All Them Witches. They might not actually be from the desert (in fact they’re from Nashville, TN), but that doesn’t mean All Them Witches haven’t channelled the heat, aridity and all the weirdness normally associated such a landscape and front-loaded it onto their fourth full-length album, Sleeping Through The War. This time though, no introductions get made (none are really necessary – the band had...