LATEST ADDITIONS

Christine McVie, vocalist/keyboardist and one of the principal songwriters in Fleetwood Mac, passed away in her native England yesterday, November 30, at age 79, following a brief illness. McVie — who made her initial impact on Britain’s blues-centric concert and recording circuit in the late 1960s under her given name, Christine Perfect — was perhaps best known for chart-ready singalong Fleetwood Mac hits like “Don’t Stop,” “Little Lies,” and “Over My Head,” but her musical legacy runs much, much deeper than that. It seems only fitting that we here at AnalogPlanet salute such a stellar six-decade recording and performing career with highlights of McVie’s work on vinyl — some, if not many LPs and 45s of which are likely in your own collections. Read on to get our take on the legacy of this truly unique songbird on LP. . .

Who doesn’t like German design and manufacturing when it comes to turntables? It’s certainly hard to argue with the pedigree behind Rekkord turntables, which have been handcrafted in the company’s factory/facility in the Black Forest for close to a half-century. Read on to find out more about the company’s all-new North American distribution deal with VANA, and then check out all the specs you’d want to know about Rekkord’s reasonably affordable lines of automatic and manual turntables alike. . .

Bryan Adams is a consummate and restless performer, so when the lockdown happened, he got right down to work in his home studio to keep himself busy. Not only did he come up with an album of all-new material — March 2022’s So Happy It Hurts, a 180g 1LP offering via BMG — but he also took a long, hard look at the four-plus decades of his recording career and decided to recut over a dozen of his favorite tracks under the umbrella of Classic. Initially, these classic Adams songs, with all the vocals sung anew and essentially all the instrumentation played by the man himself, were released digitally in two increments as Classic and Classic Pt. II, and they will soon enough be combined into a 180g 2LP set in January 2023. Adams got on Zoom with AP editor Mike Mettler to discuss why he not-so-secretly always wanted to be a drummer, why vinyl remains such an important touchstone to him to this day, and what songs of his might make the cut for the next installment of Classic — and, of course, much, much more. . .

The notion of Bruce Springsteen releasing a vintage soul and pop covers album this late in his stellar career is not all that surprising, really, if you’ve been following The Boss since the beginning like we have. But does the notion of Only The Strong Survive being a truly good and vital Springsteen album that stands proudly next to the rest of his storied catalog hold sway? Read Mark Smotroff’s review of the 180 2LP edition of Survive to find out if Survive has what it takes on wax. . .