Category Archives: album

Vinyl: More Than Just a Scratch in the Music Industry

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A lot of people are making videos about vinyl these days…a practice I’d like to encourage by promoting them here. Sure, a lot of them are collectors talking to other collectors about, um, collecting. But any interest in living la vida vinyl is a damn good thing.

Floating around on YouTube, you might run into this little podcast about, “the resurgence of vinyl sales and its impact on the music industry” by Stephen Babcock, Mike Thal, and Jeanette Wall. While there is an awful lot of classic butt-rock featured in this and not really a LOT about the actual vinyl’s impact on the industry (apart from rising sales stats) it is REALLY gratifying to see people geeking out over vinyl records.

And not just a bunch of fogey-ish collectors, either. Make no mistake–there is nothing wrong with being a record collecting fogey, exactly the opposite, but seeing a new crop of young, excited faces proclaiming their love for records is a sure sign that LPs aren’t going away…ever?



…by the same token, the voices of record fogeys are a damn fine thing when they speak clearly and intelligently about all things vinyl. I love the take on record collecting presented in this YouTube clip by WatchMojo.com, though I am bewildered by the “How To Collect Vinyl Records” title–there is minimal how-to going on here thankfully –do we REALLY need a primer on this? But it’s good to get the vinyl seller’s side.




If you know of any vinyl-related YouTube clips, I’d love to get links…share!

–Joe Wallace

Beat at Cinecitta Series

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The Beat At Cinecitta series, issued by the utterly fantastic label Crippled Dick Hot Wax, is a collection of Italian soundtrack sounds from the sexier, steamier side of Italian cinema. There are three editions of Beat At Cinecitta, both on vinyl and CD. Volume three was limited to 3000 vinyl copies so if you find one, scoop it up fast.

These sounds are addictive–once you start, if your ear is so inclined, you won’t be able to stop collecting them. For me, the gateway drug was a CD called Women In Lounge, which features the same kinds of sounds you’ll get from the Beat At Cinecitta collections…naturally I couldn’t stop there!

To whet your appetite, have a listen to some of these clips–they truly are amazing. Lounge-y, groove-a-delic, with a surreal tinge at times that makes you wonder who spiked the punch at the go-go club. All three of the Beat At Cinecitta releases are essential.

–Joe Wallace


The second clip takes a moment to get started, but it’s worth the wait.

The third track is much more lounge-driven…short, sweet, and should be listened to whilst in a swanky airport departure lounge sipping cappuccino.

WTF Records: Pink Panther, Frankenberry Disco and Paul Klee

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by Joe Wallace

I am a rabid fan of bad album art, but I am also a collector of weirdness on vinyl. Sometimes weirdness manifests itself by goofy juxtapositions of style and content–the Ethel Merman disco album or the Lord of the Rings Disco Theme are two great examples. And then there are the vinyl record projects that are so brain-crushingly odd they defy reason.

For example, why did the artists choose to create an album where they musically interpret the work of abstract painter Paul Klee? That’s exactly what The National Gallery decided to do on the record titled “Performing Musical Interpretations of the Paintings of Paul Klee”.

What’s more, it’s going for upwards of $65!! Apparently Chuck Mangione–famous in the 70s for being a horn blower in the same way Kenny G was famous in the 90s for saxophone warbling–wrote some of this. What I want to know is WTF exactly was going through their heads (acid?) when they decided the project should be committed to vinyl. Maybe it sounds awesome–I have no idea, but as a CONCEPT it’s amazingly left-of-center. Bravo.

What would you say if you were sitting in your record executive’s office and someone approached you about releasing a vinyl LP, presumably aimed at the kiddies, featuring a then-famous cartoon character? Good idea, right?

But there’s just one problem with Pink Panther Country as a concept–the Pink Panther character in those original cartoons NEVER SPOKE. And on top of that, the music the show was known for was a very jazzy, hepcat sort of sound–not country. Regardless, somebody saw fit to issue this little nuttiness on vinyl–as a picture disc to boot!

And finally, there’s my favorite of the bunch in this post–something which now seems so wrong-headed and insane that I can’t imagine it ever looking like a good idea unless you were in the middle of a bag of blow.

In the 70s, when disco exploded and everybody and their grandma dropped ‘ludes and wore silver lame, some marketing genius thought it would be a good idea to get the KIDS emulating their drugged-out parents in some fashion, no doubt pretending the local Rotary Club was Studio 54. If only they had thought to combine quaaludes with breakfast cereal, this might have actually made sense in a sort of Doctor Evil context:

The breakfast cereal monsters snort coke off naked hookers! The breakfast cereal monsters crash a car into a concrete pillar on the highway after too many highballs and spliffs in the men’s room! The breakfast cereal monsters hallucinate spiders crawling all over them after taking one too many toots from a bag of cocaine laced with angel dust! So none of that actually happens on this record–but it SHOULD have.

I do not own ANY of these records…yet. I am now on a mission to locate them so I can report more fully on the contents. This nonsense deserves to be heard. Credit where credit is due–I discovered ALL this insanity at the super-awesome FrankLaRosa.com vinyl gallery, which is fearsomely impressive. My mind has been permanently damaged by his collection of amazingly weird records. I highly recommend a visit.

 

WTF Album Covers: Amazing Grace

WTF?

by Joe Wallace

For reasons I’ll never understand, gospel records are a particular type of awful. The covers do a GREAT job at communicating that you really, really, REALLY don’t want to listen to what’s on the record, don’t they? I mean, LOOK at this crap. For people who are all ate up about sarrrvan tha lawwwourd, they don’t pay ANY attention to how they’re presenting the message they want to get across. Behold, my bretheren, the warped nonsense of gospel album cover hell…

…partners in an INTELLECTUAL SUICIDE PACT.

An amazing BUMMER. Put this one on the next time you desperately need to clear out a room. That party going on too long? Whip this little beauty onto the stereo and watch your friends FLEE IN TERROR.

Camp Meeting Resurrection? Seriously? Are you telling me there’s someone out there who takes one look at this album cover and ISN’T looking for the purple Kool-Aid? Cuz this has Jonestown written all over it. As in, you’ll be PLEADING for the Kool-Aid after listening to this for five seconds.

Ever notice that all these album covers that are shrieking about Jesus always have somebody ELSE’S FACE on them? It’s easy to understand why some people might get confused into thinking Jimmy Swaggart is God–the album titles are all about the Jesus, but it’s Jimmy’s hambone face. LOOK at this guy–I definitely would NOT buy a hot dog from him.