What $110 Buys

Monday January 20, 2014

Happy Martin Luther King day or whatever. 

With this bonus day to the weekend I decided today is the day I'm going to the record store with the gift certificates I got for Christmas. Today though unlike the previous times there would be no wife and baby waiting in the car for me and I would also have the oldest with me but pacified due to a trip to the comic book store beforehand. Although doing this visit by myself would be optimal and far more efficient, it's worth it to have my oldest with so as to expose him to the days when we had to search for our music and records in bins and not simply look them up on iTunes. 

Today's visit worked out pretty well though and I was able to pick up 8 new records for my collection including, or as you may have guessed some pretty choice selections. 

As you can probably guess here are my two most expensive records. The Beatles Yellow Submarine, ($25) and Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band ($50). The gatefolds could be in better shape but the records themselves are in very good shape and cleaned by the record store. Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is the album that has impressed me the most and I can see why it was such and influential album, it's music is fun and peppy and had a sound that was ahead of its time. As for Yellow Submarine the music is also great and whimsical, but I didn't expect the movie orchestrations on the B-side. 

Jouneys Evolution ($4.50) and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon ($8). Evolution as is usually the case for Journey, has a great beat from beginning to end. Dark Side of the Moon on the other hand is Pink Floyd at their best, but the album is more chill than the rocking sound of Evolution, but is rightfully a classic. Pink Floyd helped push music to its limits with this album. The Journey album is still in great shape shrink wrap and all, Dark Side of the Moon on the other hand is in good shape on vinyl  but the gatefold is in pretty bad shape.

Yep, Fleetwood Macs Rumors ($3), and more Beatles with Introducing The Beatles ($15). Those first few Beatles albums really help you see why they caught on so fast in the US, with that clear, crisp, optimistic, and upbeat sound the US needed to help us get past the painful loss of President Kennedy only a few months before. Rumors on the other hand is a classic in its own right and really made Fleetwood Mac a legendary band. Filled from end to end with classics, this album would influence other artist for years after it's release. Both albums vinyl is in excellent shape and gatefolds are in pretty good shape too. 

Lastly are the local Buckinghams with Time & Changes ($3), and The Platters The Golden Hits of the Platters ($3.50). The latter is a nice collection of The Platters hits, but for the most part theysound rerecords rather then the original versions, but they have a nice gentle music that helps calm things down around the house. Time & Changes is a great album and has a lot of The Buckinghams classics on it, including Mercy, Mercy, Mercy which is a favorite around my house. Both vinyls and gatefolds are in great shape.

Overall, 8 great albums isn't too bad. Of course if your counting you realize I actually went over $110 but not by much. To say the least I'm pretty happy with my selections and I will get deeper into some in these albums later since the article is more about the purchase then the albums. 

A Very Vinyl Christmas

I was going to write a blog about Christmas memories with regards to getting records but what I got for Christmas this year really change my mind about doing that. I have to say that I had a very vinyl Christmas.

We will start off with the items in the picture above. This is $110 worth of gift certificates to a local record store which I have mentioned in this blog once before. The last time I spent $25 there alone I came home with a small stack of records so I would hate to imagine how many records I could pick up $110. Upon discussion of what to do with $110 with my wife seems to be eyeing up some rare Beatles albums with it. But we'll see how that all works out once we hit the record store this weekend I'm hoping to come home with a stack full of records including some real prime ones.

Of course the next gift that I need to mention is the brand-new record player, this is a Pyle belt driven record player that plays 45's, 33's, and 78's and is portable on top of that. It also has a AM/FM radio built into it, and of course speakers. This allows me to expand my collection a little bit since my current Sony record player only plays 45's and 33's. I hope to open it this weekend and maybe to take it somewhere else in the house where we can listen to it and have some fun. Overall I'm very excited just to have these two gifts alone and I will obviously be putting both of them to some very good use.

Okay, as you can see in the photo above I also got two records that I wanted to get for very long time. The first one is Babel by Mumford & Sons. This is a phenomenal album and I'd really suggest adding it to your vinyl collection if you don't have it already. This band is excellent to hear on the radio or on satellite radio or even on CD but on vinyl they are perfection. The album itself is a great one to have no matter what and I believe it won a couple of Grammies,  that just goes to show you how good music is to begin with. One of my favorite songs on the albums B-side and is called Lovers Eyes. 

The next album is another one I have been dying to get on vinyl for a very long time. Norah Jones Broken Little Hearts was an album I had originally bought on CD after it first came out in 2012. When I began my adventures in vinyl record collecting this was one the albums that went to the top of my list to get. The 12 songs of the album are broken up into two separate records each one containing three songs per side. Not only that but adding to this albums uniqueness, the records are made of white vinyl and the album also comes with a poster of the album cover which also makes the album unique by giving it the classical feel of an album from the 70s or 80s that also would feature a poster. Like the Mumford & Sons album this one also has some phenomenal sound especially in comparison to the CD which I also own. And let's be honest Norah Jones looks pretty goddamn good on the cover as well. 

I know some of you reading this blog are probably vinyl traditionalists and perhaps having Mumford & Sons and Norah Jones in your collection doesn't appeal to you. But I think having a nice mix of modern artists in with a collection of vinyl helps to keep one's collection relevant by readily embracing new music as well as that of old music. I also need to mention that these new albums are fantastically well built the 180 gram vinyl weight makes these records very strong and you really feel like you're holding something substantial when you touch one of these things.

Overall that's my very vinyl Christmas. I hope that you guys where able to expand your vinyl collections a little bit over Christmas as well and that you got some great gifts to help you expand your collection. If you want to comment to this blog and let us know about what you got for Christmas that you think is a phenomenal addition your collection go ahead and do so, we would be happy to hear from you. So with that said a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!