Monthly Archives: February 2012

How To Grade Vinyl Records: Another Point of View

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Recently I posted an introductory post about grading vinyl records. A lot of people don’t care about vinyl grades; “Good”, “Very Good”, Near Mint” and other ratings don’t mean anything to some as they prefer just to pull the album out of the sleeve and run an eyeball over it.

Which is great until it’s time to buy a record sight unseen on eBay, Discogs.com or elsewhere, and then suddenly those vinyl grading terms mean a hell of a lot more.

This video is one point of view on grading vinyl records, and the background music is fun, too. There is a great amount of personal preference built in to grading vinyl records, but once you get used to the grading systems and know what to look for this whole topic is much easier to deal with. Again, some of this is really down to personal preference–how much wear is acceptable to you?

–Joe Wallace



WTF Album Covers: Fortran 5 Avocado Suite

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Maybe it’s just me having some kind of visual allergy to looking at people squatting on the toilet? Or is this a pretty lousy way to sell an electronica record?

I have to say though, I enjoy tracks on Avocado Suite. It’s blippy, noisy, abrasive, yet listenable and fun. Sort of Aphex Twin-y, but on operating on different substances…

Fortran 5 fans have a contingent of haters for this particular release, but in spite of the crap cover (sorry) I dig tracks like She Knows The Lot, and Radmen. Listen and decide for yo’self:

–Joe Wallace



Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass…On Fire

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This video is supposed to be funny, but today it just seems a bit depressing for some reason. Maybe if there was an explosion involved or a bit of shrapnel-related head trauma? I have to admit, I DID laugh at the point in this video clip where the guy felt the impulse to explain that they weren’t actually setting fire to America itself, just a record with a SONG called “America”. Thanks, boys–glad we got that cleared up and squared away.



WTF Album Covers: Space Age Bachelor Pad Sexism

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I’m sure Elliot Lawrence didn’t think he was a sexist pig when he saw the cover for his own album, Music For Trapping, sitting there in the shrink wrap. But it’s hard to imagine the era where this sort of nyuk-nyuk lunkhead imagery didn’t even raise an eyebrow even a LITTLE.

The trophy heads are SO Norman Bates…this guy definitely seems like a serial killer in the making. He’s one step away from an episode of Dexter, to be sure. If Dexter had a time machine and a martini shaker, that is.

By the way, if you like the Turntabling WTF album cover collection, why not join us on Facebook for regular updates of atrocious album covers, bad album art, and etc? We’d love to have you in this growing little community of bad album cover lovers.