Here's 100 recommended all-analog LP reissues worth owning. The video runs two hours so unless you are masochistic, you might want to watch in shorter segments but covering 100 LPs took time! Plus there are the usual fun stories interspersed throughout. Okay, I got wrong the The Who's "Tommy"'s original issue date (I said November '68, was May '69) otherwise all of the information should be correct. Yes, too many superlatives, but that’s video!
The first AnalogPlanet video in months is an hour plus worth of weird and unusual records in the editor's large collection. What makes an album "weird" or "unusual"? A wide variety of possibilities as you'll see in this amusing and entertaining video in which the website's editor literally lets his hair down.
1)Simon and Garfunkel Sounds of Silence. Columbia CS9269 (“360 Sound label).
Their first “electrified” album features ultra-clean, natural sound on both electric and acoustic instruments. Check out the harpsichord on “Leaves That are Green” along with the deep acoustic bass and the tightly focused and well articulated tambourine. And both voices are absolutely natural sounding, mixed to blend and yet remain individually discernible. The two track master tapes have been lost by CBS. Original pressings are plentiful and relatively inexpensive. But just because you find a “360 Sound” label doesn't mean you have an “original” pressing. -1A is an original. Then -1B, etc. Past a certain number it goes to -1AA, etc. There's great variability to the sound of these different pressings with -1A being best, of course.
For those who want to collect all of Wilson's recorded work, and are willing to put in the effort, I thought I'd describe Wilson's other recordings not already mentioned.
This updated feature originally ran in Listener magazine and was re-published here in 2004. We brought it back to accompany Sundazed's reissue of Gene Clark—ed.
Gene Clark simply didn’t fit in. While a member of The New Christy Minstrels during the early ‘60s, the young mid-westerner heard “She Loves You” on a jukebox and realized his place wasn’t in a folksploitation group. He quit and headed West where he joined up with McGuinn and later Crosby at Doug Weston’s famed Santa Monica Blvd. folk club, The Troubador.
This Rolling Stones discography written for issue 4 of The Tracking Angle, may have gathered some moss, but it still has some valuable information for Stones LP collectors (Photo shows Decca UK FFSS Their Satanic Majesties Request
This Rolling Stones discography written for issue 4 of The Tracking Angle, may have gathered some moss, but it still has some valuable information for Stones LP collectors
(Photo shows American distributed UK pressed FFRR edition of Out of Our Heads)
Earlier this year, I wrote a four-part series about Yellow Magic Orchestra, the seminal synthpop trio of Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Of course, that’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg; between solo records, collaborations, other bands, productions for others, and session credits, hundreds of wildly varying releases encompass the YMO-centered extended discography.
Punk rock is a subgenre of rock and roll with roots in garage rock, but it's generally faster and more aggressive than garage. Punk was a rebellion against the hippie culture's idealism and appearance. The flower children’s righteous idea of making the world a better place was met with the stark reality of the punks' world in disarray. New York, the birthplace of punk, was almost bankrupt in the early 70's and when the Sex Pistols appeared in England, unemployment was severe with well over a million people out of work. Crime and drugs were rampant in NYC; parks were littered with used syringes. England incurred inflation, oil shortages and strikes. So bell bottoms were out, replaced by tight pants and those beautiful long locks were gone, replaced by hair cut short, and even cut off as skinhead culture emerged.
This is the part one of a multi-part exploration of Japanese synthpop pioneer Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) previewed in the recent “Yellow Magic Orchestra: Prologue”. This week, I’m dissecting the group’s albums from the 1978 self-titled debut through November 1981’s Technodelic. While I did as much research as possible, in the English-speaking world little verifiable information about YMO exists. Earlier this year, Ryuichi Sakamoto associate Eiichi Yoshimura published YMO 1978-2043: Definitive Story Of Yellow Magic Orchestra, but no English translation exists (and I’ve not yet learned Japanese). Much of what’s on Wikipedia has no traceable citation; to avoid inaccuracies any info from there will be mentioned as “supposed” or “presumed”.
Concluding our multi-part exploration into pioneering Japanese synthpop group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), this week we’ll analyze the trio’s work from 1983’s Naughty Boys to the present day. We’ll only focus on the core catalog albums; as good as non-album tracks like “Chaos Panic” and “M-16” are, coverage of those would interest only maniacal completists. Those who aren’t yet caught up can view the series’ previous features below: