A couple months back, I had the good fortune to post an article on Ultimate Classic Rock about great rock records that are currently unavailable on vinyl in the U.S., but which deserve reissue in spinning black circle format. It was a fun way to vent frustration and also discuss some cool music.
(It also resulted in my friend/Duran Duran authority Annie Zaleski informing me where I could find one of the albums on my list [Velvet Crush’s Teenage Symphonies to God]. Thank you, Annie.)
There was only so much room to work with on UCR, though, and I wanted to focus the piece on records and artists people were likely to have heard of, so there were many selections I did not cover. I would like to remedy this circumstance by listing some more great albums currently in need of a vinyl reissue.
Patty Griffin, Flaming Red (1998). Griffin’s first record, Living with Ghosts, was a solo acoustic affair, with sparse accompaniment on a couple tracks. This follow-up effort is an expansive, full-bodied, and dare I say rocking collection, full of great songs and performances. “One Big Love,” “Blue Sky,” “Christina,” “Change,” “Mary”—these are some of her best cuts and concert favorites (“Blue Sky,” in particular, is a stunner in the live setting), and they are the highlights here. It’s never seen a vinyl release—an egregious omission that should be rectified tout de suite.
The Story, The Angel in the House (1993). The second release from Jonatha Brooke and Jennifer Kimball’s early-’90s duo is a collection of fine singer/songwriter material, set in rich instrumental textures with surprising bursts of percussion and understated jazz passages. Think late-’70s Joni Mitchell or early Paul Simon solo records, with songs that stand up to those high standards. Brooke went solo thereafter (her solo debut, 1995’s Plumb, was credited to “Jonatha Brooke & The Story”), releasing her early-career classic 10 Cent Wings in 1997. All these records deserve a reissue as spinning black circles, but if forced to select one, I’d vote for The Angel in the House, if for no other reason than its instrumentation and the duo’s vocal harmonies would best benefit from an analog presentation.
Ozzy Osbourne, Speak of the Devil. Randy Rhoads’ sudden death during the 1982 Diary of a Madman tour left Ozzy Osbourne high and dry, without his six-string secret weapon/onstage foil. In walked Night Ranger’s Brad Gillis—not someone Ozzy was going to be able to lift on his shoulders in an arena, but a knockout guitarist who could hold his own playing some of the best hard-rock cuts of the day. This record is a compilation of Black Sabbath songs played live by Osbourne, Gillis and the rest of Osbourne’s solo band as a contractual obligation, and to be honest, it’s kind of a mess. I’ve always enjoyed it, though, and it would be nice to have a reissue of it, if only to replace all the banged-up copies in record-store used bins.
The Beatles, Let It Be … Naked (2003). Though the Let It Be: Special Edition box set has rendered this 2003 curio somewhat superfluous, it’s still a terrific self-contained release of the album, free from the mush of Phil Spector’s strings and choirs. Let It Be … Naked is unlikely to see re-release, which is a shame.
The Smashing Pumpkins, Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music (2000). Bits of this record wound up on subsequent Pumpkins releases, and you can find bootlegs and electronic copies of it on the Web pretty easily. But the original vinyl run of Machina II was a super-limited, 25-copy stack, which the band handed out mostly to friends, with instructions to rip it and post it (there’s a pretty thorough explanation here). Essentially, its release was an extended and artful temper tantrum from head Pumpkin Billy Corgan (whose record company refused to release its two LPs and 3 EPs); Machina II contains some of his most aggressive (“Dross,” “White Spyder,” “Cash Car Star”) and sublime (“Real Love”) songs. It also features one of my favorite of his creations, a version of “Let Me Give the World to You” that sounds like a soundtrack smash looking for a movie to which it can attach itself.
Sloan, Between the Bridges (1999), 4 Nights at the Palais Royale (1999), Pretty Together (2001), Action Pact (2003). Many categorize this Canadian quartet as a power pop group, but even though they have the gift for melodies and vocal harmonies that such a label suggests, they’ve always struck me as a bit more complex (though, in fairness, what’s harder to write than a memorable pop song?). The studio albums on this list find them quite engaged in pop stylings, but also adept at resonant moments that stretch beyond the nouveau Raspberries/Big Star plays for which they’re best known (listen to “All By Ourselves” or “Losing California” from Between the Bridges, “If It Feels Good, Do It” from Pretty Together, and/or “I Was Wrong” from Action Pact). The live 4 Nights is just shy of shambolic, but the Sloan four bring energy that is difficult to contain. It’s all great stuff, and all worthy of reissue.
Velvet Underground, VU (1985) and Another View (1986). These collect late-period outtakes from the grandparents of art-rock, some of which were re-recorded and used on VU records or early Lou Reed solo albums. They’re curiosities, for certain, but curiosities of a very high quality, primed for repeated spins.
Waterboys, Universal Hall (2003). Universal Hall finds head Waterboy Mike Scott at his most ponderously spiritual, but the manner with which he guides the listener through the soul’s labyrinthine passageways is as comforting as it is challenging. Coming as it did after the volume and force of 2001’s Rock in a Weary Land, Universal Hall strikes the heart and mind with quietude and calm. “Silent Fellowship” is the exemplar of this approach—a meditation of few words and a simple melody, with so much communicated in that simplicity. It’s had a vinyl reissue in the UK, but a US release has yet to materialize.
Felice Brothers, Tonight at the Arizona (2007). Over many years, free-form deejay Vin Scelsa served the sacred purpose of turning listeners on to new and mostly excellent artists and songs, via his radio show Idiot’s Delight, in its various locations on the FM dial and, later, online. In 2007 or so, he introduced the Felice Brothers, a band of folkie savants from upstate New York that sounded like they dressed like Larry, Darryl, and Darryl from Newhart, and grew up living on or under someone’s front porch, with their guitars and accordions, translating their collective mongrel muse into sound. If that year’s Tonight at the Arizona has ever been available on hard copy media, I’ve missed it, but it really should be (Loose Recordings in the UK apparently pressed it on vinyl, and according to Discogs, something called New York Pro reissued it on CD in 2008). Songs like “Your Belly in My Arms,” “Roll On, Arte,” and “Rockefeller Drug Law Blues” sound like they should have been recorded direct to acetate by some ethnographer a hundred years ago. And I mean that as a compliment.
Keene Brothers, Blues and Boogie Shoes (2006). Not the erstwhile David Foster-produced teenybopper band and variety TV hosts (those were the Keane brothers); this duo consisted of Guided By Voices mad scientist Robert Pollard and the late, great power pop master Tommy Keene. Blues and Boogie Shoes‘ genesis reads like a typical, brilliant Pollard brainfart—written and rehearsed with little fanfare and recorded quickly, yet forever etched in the brains and souls of all who hear it. It is an exquisite sample of whimsy and melody, and it’s a shame no more ever came from the collaboration. Old Pollard and GBV albums tend to get reissued regularly – here’s hoping this one does, too, and soon.
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