A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Circle Jerks’ debut album, Group Sex. At this point, six years after the band that Keith Morris, Steven McDonald, Dimitri Coats and Mario Rubalcaba started took off (ahem – no pun intended) and brought hardcore punk into a much brighter and broader spotlight before a much larger audience, the history of where OFF! came from and the circumstances which got them started have been well-documented. It is already a matter of public...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into a vinyl copy of Sore by Dilly Dally. As music in general, Dilly Dally’s debut album, Sore, is incredible (not for nothing did it end up appearing on this writer’s Top Ten of 2015 list) – but the vinyl presentation of the album transcends such praise and offers listeners an experience several steps beyond that of the compact disc. It’s unbelievable. It’s a game-changer. Such claims may read as unlikely, but it’s...
Leave it to David Bowie to wrap a perfectly tongue-in-cheek idea in populist medium and make a celebration of it. That is, of course, precisely what the singer has done in licensing Earthling for a fresh vinyl pressing now, almost twenty years after the album was originally released. Confused, reader? Let me clarify it for you: when Earthling was first released in 1997, much ado was made about how the music was recorded as well as the equipment which was...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Record Store Day-pressed reissue of Earthling by David Bowie. Leave it to David Bowie to wrap a perfectly tongue-in-cheek idea in populist medium and make a celebration of it. That is, of course, precisely what the singer has done in licensing Earthling for a fresh vinyl pressing now, almost twenty years after the album was originally released. Confused reader? Let me clarify it for you: when Earthling was first released in...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the untitled Street Dogs/Noi!SE 10” split record. There has never been a point in music history when two bands issuing a split release together hasn’t been a gamble. The nature of the format is competitive by nature; both bands are in a position where they have to try and outshine the other, and that someone is going to come in second is guaranteed; whether it’s by an inch or a mile is...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Gary Clark Jr.’s Live double album. Listening to Gary Clark Jr.’s Live album on vinyl, listeners will find themselves suddenly overcome by a wave of nostalgia. Images of Mick Jagger jumping next to a jackass (as he did on the cover of Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!) and Dylan at Royal Albert Hall, KISS shouting it out loud on Alive, At Budakan, Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps and The Who’s Live At Leeds...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Different Class reissue by Pulp. It’s hard to place Pulp in the Britpop explosion of the 90s. They arguably made a larger impact than Supergrass, they didn’t become the big joke that Oasis became, they didn’t spawn strangely successful offshoots like Blur, and they certainly didn’t redefine music like Radiohead. No, Pulp exists mostly in the static environment of the 90s. They haven’t continued to put out music (their last album...
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000167 EndHTML:0000005605 StartFragment:0000000484 EndFragment:0000005589 A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Different Class LP by Pulp. It’s hard to place Pulp in the Britpop explosion of the 90s. They arguably made a larger impact than Supergrass, they didn’t become the big joke that Oasis became, they didn’t spawn strangely successful offshoots like Blur, and they certainly didn’t redefine music like Radiohead. No, Pulp exists mostly in the static environment of the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 4 colored Essentials LP set by Reducers SF. Looking back, it’s pretty incredible how fertile punk’s creative soil was in the Nineties. Sure – everyone knows the mid-Nineties as being the period which broke punk into the mainstream pop punk and made bands like Lagwagon, Propagandhi, Green Day, NOFX, Offspring (I’ve written this list out several times before) and innumerable others household names and/or institutions who would help shape how punk...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the American Spring LP by Anti-Flag. It might sound a little silly to say, but the first great thing about the vinyl pressing of Anti-Flag’s ninth studio album, American Spring, is the scale of the presentation. Before a note is heard, those who buy the vinyl will get an eyeful of the bright and beautiful album cover which looks like an artistic statement of blossoming artistry rather than appearing as though the...