Issue:  Does a 12” single sound better than an LP cut?

12”/LP:  The Black Keys 12” “Tighten Up”/”Howling for You”; The Black Keys, Brothers LP.

Relevence:  Brothers has been a strong vinyl seller for Edge Distribution, Cleveland, holding steady in their top ten for the last two months.  It makes sense, as vinyl is the perfect format for The Black Keys’ blissful blend of punk swagger, sonic backwater blues, and 60s soul.  Even surface noise (the snaps and pops on dusty records) adds to the throwback ambience of this group. (more…)

LP:  The Roots, How I Got Over

Relevance:  Justifiably praised released from this established, Philly-based hip-hop group.  Tough urban subject matter goes down easier in How I Got Over’s sunny, 60s throwback groove, ala Curtis Mayfield and Sly and Family Stone.

Why the vinyl is better than the digital:  This one is a toss-up.

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Is 180 gram vinyl better than 150 gram vinyl?

Matt Earley of Gotta Groove Records, a vinyl phonograph pressing plant in Cleveland, Ohio, believes that there is.

One difference, Earley states, is that there is less surface noise—the pops, crackles and scratchiness—on 180 gram records than thinner records.  Earley notes that the surface noise difference is minor, but discernable.

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LP:   Radiohead, OK Computer.

Relevance: Prior to OK Computer, Radiohead was known a primarily a guitar-oriented alternative band with the 1995 modern rock hit “Creep.”  While a classic in its own right, this 1997 release plays with the more electronic/sound treatment path the band would embrace on subsequent releases. (more…)

Jay-Z, The Blue Print 3

Album: Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3.

Relevance:      Huge 2009 seller still a force in 2010.   A chest thumping, self-promoting adulation of all things brand-named and consumable.  For example, the song “Off That” is Jay-Z’s declaration of what’s hot (“black President/green presidents” “Louis Vuitton hat”) and what’s not (“chains and oversize clothes/fighting in a club/whatever you about to discover”).  The albums succeeds on the album’s brash, testosterone-infused energy,  infectious melodies and creative, 70s soul-soaked arrangements. 

LP:  Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street (40^th anniversary remastered edition)

Relevance: huge media attention on this 40^th anniversary remastered/reissue, as it includes several previously unfinished tracks from these sessions now completed by Mick Jagger and producer Don Was. (more…)

LP: Johnny Cash, American VI: Ain’t No Grave.

Relevance:  More tracks from the last of Cash’s Rick Rubin/American sessions, recorded during The Man in Black’s last years of life.    His song repertoire for the lp—“Redemption Day,” “I Corinthians 15:55,” “I Don’t Hurt No More” and the title track—are indicative of both his struggle with the neurodegenerative disease that took his life and with his consuming spiritual quest.

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Lp: Hole, Nobody’s Daughter.

Relevance: Courtney Love’s first musical effort in 12 years is remarkably engaging.  “Nobody’s Daughter” is a confrontal celebration of all things vacuous, temporal and catty (the title of one song, “Skinny Little Bitch” just about sums up the lp’s outlook).  One is amazed at Love’s energy:  she’s four years away from getting an AARP card and this rocks as hard as Hole’s 1994 debut Live Through This.  This guilty delight is what we’d expect from this E! Channel/TMZ denizen.  (more…)

Dr. Dog, Shame, Shame

 LP:  Dr. Dog, Shame, Shame.

Relevance:  Philadelphia-based hippie/Americana act that crosses tinges of psychedelia with goofiness; runs the spectrum of NRBQ good-time bar band with the off-kilter outlook of the Flaming Lips.  In fact, vocalist Scott McMicken sounds a lot of the Lips’s Wayne Coyne.

Shame, Shame was the #20 seller vinyl LP for Hearsay/Edge Distributing, week of 5/8/10. (more…)

The Privileges

We listeners of vinyl are indulgent.

At least that’s what author Jonathan Dees seems to imply in his latest novel, the justifiably acclaimed The Privileges.  The novel is a complex but decadently entertaining story about the obscenely successful Adam Morey, who has a Nietzschean contempt for convention and law in his private equity dealings. His wife Cynthia’s concurring disdain for her Manhattan contemporaries unifies their marriage. 

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