Spinning Vinyl

So this session had a theme of 80s vinyl. Sometime between 1988 and 1991, new releases stopped being issued on vinyl except for mega-hits, and CDs took over. But the early and mid 80s, while crammed with terrible synthesizer pop, also saw some of my favorite artists making great records. All of these are very special to me. 

Things started with XTC's English Settlement 1982, side two with No Thugs In Our House, Yacht Dance, and All Of A Sudden (It's Too Late). I've always loved the chorus of No Thugs, "No thugs in our house, are there dear, We made that clear, We made little Graham promise us he'd be a good boy". Sure, as long as an adolescent male tells you they'll be good, it's all set. Both Yacht Dance and All Of A Sudden are also great. "Life's like a jigsaw, you get the straight bits but there's something missing in the middle". English Settlement has always been my favorite XTC, and for an unknown reason I bought the expensive two LP import version when it came out, which was vastly superior to the single disc US version that had five less songs.

Next up, The Clash London Calling 1980, also side two. Side two isn't the hit-packed side one or side four, but it's very good. Spanish Bombs, Clampdown and the call to arms of The Guns of Brixton, "When they kick at your front door, How you gonna come?, With your hands on your head, or on the trigger of your gun". Even the weak side kicks ass.

Then it was side two of Elvis Costello's Trust 1981. I typically think of Imperial Bedroom as my Costello highlight, but I may need to reconsider. With songs like New Lace Sleeves, From A Whisper To A Scream, Different Finger, and White Knuckles, the side just slaps you in the face. The Attractions were such a great band.

Next I pulled out one I hadn't listened to in I don't know how long. Talking Heads Remain In Light 1980, side one with Born Under Punches, Crosseyed and Painless, and The Great Curve. It was listed as a best of the year along side London Calling on every such list. At the time of release, Ken Tucker wrote in Rolling Stone, "Remain in Light yields scary, funny music to which you can dance and think, think and dance, dance and think, ad infinitum." It was a thrill to hear after so long a time.

Side one of Robert Palmer's Pride 1983 followed. This was Palmer's last record before the one-two punch of Power Station's 33 1/3  and Palmer's Riptide, both with Tony Thompson, Andy Taylor and Bernard Edwards and featuring Some Like It Hot and Addicted to Love. But Pride is no slouch, and side one features the title track, Want You More, Dance For Me and You Are In My System.

Finally we get to 1986 and Joe Jackson's three-sided vinyl version of Big World. Side three with Soul Kiss, Tango Atlantico, Home Town, and the snark of The Jet Set, all demonstrating Jackson's gift for skilled and varied composition. Recorded live without any overdubs or sonic trickery, Big World is an outstanding example of a super tight band firing on all cylinders. 

It was a fine, if brief, romp through the stacks, sticking to favorite records by favorite artists with the speakers singing loud and clear.

Wet Leg moisturizer 2025, Haim I Quit 2025

I'm an old guy, and while I try to listen to new music, much of it leaves me cold. The current state of hip-hop doesn't enthuse me any more than older hip-hop did. Most of the stuff on the pop charts seems to be formulaic music produced by programmed machines instead of actual musicians. The spate of trendy heart-on-the-sleeve female artists doesn't connect with me, and yes, I listen to quite a bit of it.

But these two records are both appealing to me. Both feature actual musicians, solid vocals, smart lyrics, hooky songs, and actual hot guitar breaks from time to time. 

I listened to the first Wet Leg record, and I liked it, but it didn't make me want to dive deeper. The singles sure were great. This new one has a little less of a punk sound, although there's still some razor sharp guitars. It feels like the songs are more developed, and guitarist Joshua Mobaraki has more co-writes than on the debut. More hands on deck can't hurt. Slinky opener CPR, angry Catch These Fists, dismissive Mangetout, and the comfortable You and Me At Home all stand out, but there's not a really weak one anywhere. 

I could say the same for I Quit. Again, I listened to and mostly enjoyed previous Haim material, but this one seems like a step forward to me. They continue to benefit from pop wiz Rostam Batmanglij, who's  instincts are impressive, and his production is squeaky clean. 

Lyrics lean on female empowerment. The record kicks off with Gone and All Over Me, a strong start. But the hits keep coming, and Down To Be Wrong, Everybody's Trying To Figure Me Out, Try To Feel My Pain, and Now It's Time are all strong songs. Again, there aren't any real flops. They often sound like Stevie Nick's Fleetwood Mac (without the pretense) or Sheryl Crow, in a good way.

Haim are a bit more pop than Wet Leg, so the longevity points might go Wet Leg's way. But right now I'm liking new music by contemporary artists, and that gives me hope. Old dog, new tricks. 

Van Morrison Remembering Now 2025 ...and Them 1964-1967

Van Morrison's latest is getting mostly excellent press, with several reviewers saying it's his best in three decades. I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, not because it isn't darn good, but because the last thirty years, while inconsistent, have given us several really good ones. How Long Has This Been Going On 1995, What's Wrong With This Picture? 2003, Down The Road 2002, Keep It Simple 2008, and You're Driving Me Crazy 2018 were all good Van Morrison records, and a few others came close. But since 2020, he's given us five records that range from dull to god-awful. His two lock down bitch sessions, a skiffle outing, an oldies covers record, and a back-catalog retread have kept this decade mostly disappointing.

And so Remembering Now is a strong return to form. He's never going to make music like he made in the 1970s again, and that seems an unreasonable expectation from anyone turning 80. But he still sings with soul and verve, and he's written mostly better songs this time around. The band has been around a while, and they are good. He tends to make long records, and if he'd edited out maybe three of them, it might approach perfection. You can read more detailed reviews elsewhere, but suffice it to say that if you gave up on Van Morrison a while back, now might be a good time to check out his new one.

So now lets check out Van in his youth with Them. Them made two LPs with Morrison, and this 3 CD collection The Complete Them 1964-1967 from 2015 includes those LPs, plus singles and b-sides and demos and first takes and pretty much everything that was worthy of release. And somewhat remarkably, almost everything here is worthy of release, and worth your time to hear it. Them was a blues-based rock outfit that most closely resembled The Animals in sound, although Morrison's voice and Eric Burden's are different, Morrison with a higher register than Burden, but both bluesy and soulful. 

Of course the few hits they had (Baby Please Don't Go, Here Comes The Night, Mystic Eyes) are here, and so is Gloria (a hit for The Shadows of Knight in the US). But there's a lot of fine performances, both from Morrison's pen as well as blues chestnuts Stormy Monday, Route 66, Turn On Your Lovelight, and I Put A Spell On You. The third disc is not essential, with it's demos and alternate takes, but there's six live tracks from BBC radio that are pretty cool. They had a good reputation as a live act. It could have been an excellent 2 CD set, but you really can't blame them for collecting it all in one place, and Van Morrison completists are surely happy. There's a detailed review at Everybody's Dummy here.

I also recently realized that in my quest to review all of Van Morrison's work, I skipped the work he did for Bang Records after Them and before Astral Weeks. Originally released as Blowin' Your Mind 1967, and later as T.B. Sheets and under several different names and with different song selections, I'll be brief. You can get Brown-Eyed Girl lots of other places, and unless you just have to have everything, the rest of the songs are unimportant and inferior to the work he would start to do immediately thereafter.