Vinyl Reports

At the tail end of last year, we reviewed the inaugural release in UMe’s most excellent new Vinylphyle reissue series — The Velvet Underground & Nico’s 1967 self-titled debut LP — and this week, we’re going to dig into two more offerings from this most excellent series’ first run of releases: a) Bob Marley & The Wailers’ June 1977 global breakthrough LP Exodus, and b) The Band’s underappreciated yet iconic November 1975 original-lineup studio swan song, Northern Lights – Southern Cross. Read Mark Smotroff’s two-fer review to see why both of these Vinylphyle LPs deserve your immediate attention. . .

As the world moves to reopen, record stores are slowly allowing customers back in. Here in Portland, OR, Music Millennium recently held a week of appointment-only personal shopping experiences (charitable donation necessary), then subsequently reopened with a 10 person limit and new safety measures. I shopped during the “be the only customer inside!” period and reviewed below are four recent acquisitions.

Real-life used record shopping is as joyful as it is potentially frustrating. These days, I mostly find used record bins of previous decades’ detritus; however, a recent browse through Asheville’s Harvest Records yielded luck. Following are reviews of three of those finds, plus one used LP ordered on Discogs.

On Record Store Day earlier this year on April 12, 2025, one of those blink-and-you-missed-it releases was the first-time official vinyl pressing of Elton John’s 1977 performance for BBC Radio, Live From the Rainbow Theatre With Ray Cooper — but now, Rocket/Mercury/UMR has deigned to make it available to one and all via a much wider release. Read Mark Smotroff’s review of this fine 180g LP — with an album-cut-oriented tracklist personally selected by Sir Elton himself — to see why Live From the Rainbow Theatre is indeed quite worthy of being on your turntable. . .