Album Reviews

Original blues vinyl pressings are cousins to jazz and soul LPs in terms of scarcity and availability in super-clean condition, just a few of the reasons why they are often super-expensive propositions in the collector’s marketplace. That all makes these four truly outstanding Acoustic Sounds-pedigreed reissues from Verve/UMe and Craft Recordings’ Bluesville series all the more important — in effect, bringing a quartet of classic LP rarities back into more widespread availability in a high-quality manner. Read Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts combo review to see which of these four 180g 1LP AAA releases from John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, and Lonnie Johnson With Elmer Snowden belong in your collection. . .

The 67th Grammy Awards — sorry, I meant the all-caps GRAMMY Awards — were handed out in Los Angeles last night, February 2, 2025, and we applaud the wide range of actual, great-sounding winning recordings, as evidenced by what we’ve heard of their vinyl incarnations. Over the past year(ish), we’ve indeed reviewed some of those key, Grammy-winning LPs and songs here on AP, so if you’re keen on finding out if they make the grade on vinyl and are worthy of your hard-earned dollars and/or valuable listening time, then read on. . .

Fifty-plus years ago, John Cale effectively drew a line in the sand between his past with The Velvet Underground and his future. Two of Cale’s seminal solo releases from that era — 1972’s The Academy in Peril and 1973’s Paris 1919, both long been out of print on vinyl here in the States — are the subjects of a great new LP reissue series from England’s Domino label, expanded and approved by the artist himself. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if either/both of these remastered vinyl editions deserve multiple spins on your turntable. . .

Another year of LP acquiring, cleaning, listening, archiving, and spinning, and archiving has come and gone — and not necessarily always in that order, either! — so, naturally, before the big holiday week takes hold of our respective calendars, we here at AP feel it’s the exact right time to determine the best of what we’ve heard on vinyl during the past 12 months. Between the two of us — i.e., 1) Mike Mettler, your intrepid AP editor, and 2) chief LP reviewer, Mark Smotroff — we have listened to multiple-hundreds’ worth of albums on vinyl in 2024 apiece, so read on to see what our 20-plus favorite reissues and new LPs of the year are. . .

As the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, legendary British Invasion songwriter, singer, guitarist, and all-around rock icon Pete Townshend of The Who was working hard, reinventing himself as something of a senior statesman clearly not ready to follow the directive of his iconic band’s October 1965 breakout hit single, “My Generation.” To that end, two of his more adventurous solo releases have just been reissued as new half-speed mastered 180g vinyl editions: June 1989’s The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend and June 1993’s Psychoderelict: Music Only — the latter making its first appearance on vinyl ever, and as a 2LP set to boot. Read Mark Smotroff’s combo review to see if either/both of these underappreciated latter-era Townshend solo LPs belong in your collection. . .

A new 140g 1LP reissue series from Elemental Music that’s officially been dubbed the Motown Sound Collection has been underway since this past May, so it’s high time we’ve gotten around to covering some of the LPs that have come out under its umbrella in the interim. Read Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts review to see how five Elemental-reissued vintage Motown titles from The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, and The Supremes all fared on his turntable. . .