Category Archives: All Vinyl Apocalypse

1,111 greatest records you probably haven’t already heard

952. beyond the valley of a day in the life

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In which the Residents sample the Beatles and make such a glorious mess of things that rumours eventually surface that they are in fact The Beatles themselves, undercover. And all of this at least a decade before sampling-stealing-pirating in the name of art had even begun to achieve hip status. “I actually heard this when it was new in 1977. Not that I was remotely cool at the time, more the opposite. A friend’s big brother heard me talking loud about how progressive rock was the only music that really mattered, because it was so inventive, so ambitious, so strange … so he got me high and set me straight on the fact that there were far, far stranger things going on out there in the name of music than I ever could have imagined.”

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953. I don’t remember

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“Peter Gabriel’s third album was a world changer for me, a 1980 call-to-arms from a guy who’d done more than his share to help define the 1970s. Which in retrospect was an all too rare phenomenon – a 1970s player who didn’t mostly just embarrass themselves in the next decade. What did Gabriel have that so many didn’t (including his own fellow band members, regardless of record sales)? If I had to narrow it down to one thing, I’d say curiosity. He had no interest in sticking with what he already had going. He wanted more. Not in terms of money, fame, whatever – but understanding. Or in the case of I Don’t Remember, enlisting the likes of Robert Fripp to unleash the right kind of heavy and relevant confusion.” (Philip Random)

petergabriel-remember

954. Holland 1945

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“The cut-off date for this list is officially August 2000, because that’s when I started putting it together, though you may have noticed there’s precious little in the way of 1990s stuff included. This is because it’s an all vinyl apocalypse that I’m exploring here and I pretty much stopped buying new vinyl in 1989, mainly because that’s when CDs took over (for worse more than better, I’d argue, but that’s a whole other tangent). One album I did need to own on vinyl was 1998’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. Because the cover’s a damned fine work of art, so I wanted it big, and because it just had to be heard in analogue form, with hisses and crackles, and all manner of other sweet imprecisions. And, in the case of Holland 1945, all that semen staining the mountaintops.” (Philip Random)

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955. fresh garbage

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Spirit never did all the great things that were expected of them in the beginning. Emerging from from the haze of southern Californian at the moment when EVERYTHING was coming in psychedelic colours, with a teenage guitar player named Randy California who was so hot Jimi Hendrix made no secret that he wanted him in The Experience – how could they not someday rule the world?  Probably something to do with drugs and the general excesses of the time. Fresh Garbage, which comes from their first album, speaks of environmental concerns and suggests all kinds of groovy, pop smart possibilities. Led Zeppelin covered it before all those other problems.

spirit-1968

956. my mind ain’t so open

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As the story goes, Magazine got formed because Howard Devoto thought the Buzzcocks were already sounding too “old hat”. Which makes My Mind Ain’t So Open a perfect intro to this new sound he had in mind. A little too smart for punk, a little too vicious for pop. The 1980s were still two years away but stakes were already clarifying. They’d be like the 1960s all over again, except this time it would be love and spite, not peace.

957. smokeless zone

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XTC was never a band that was afraid to pursue a little open experimentation in the name of pop. Smokeless Zone was a b-side that came our way via 1982’s Beeswax, which was all b-sides, all worth troubling your ears with.

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