It’s Tears For Fears New Vinyl Thursday at The Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven. Check out this week’s list of new vinyl arrivals:
The 8th Wonders of the World – The 8th Wonders Of The World (Orange Colored Vinyl)
The 13th Floor Elevators – Easter Everywhere (Yellow Red Colored Vinyl, Limited Edition)
Ambiance – Into A New Journey
Alt-J – The Dream (Clear Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
Aretha Franklin- Young Gifted and Black
Beach House – Once Twice Melody (Gold Clear Vinyl, Poster)
Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (Indie Exclusive)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Baby 81
Boulevards – Electric Cowboy: Born In Carolina Mud (Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive, Autographed / Star Signed)
Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
Beastie Boys – To The 5 Boroughs
Beatles – Let it Be
The Beatles- Abbey Road Anniversary
Cornell Dupree Meets the Texas Horns – Doin’ Alright (180 Gram Vinyl)
Curtis Stigers – This Life (Gatefold LP Jacket, Bonus Track)
The Cure – Head on the Door
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram- 662 (Purple Colored Vinyl)
Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex
Dashboard Confessional – All The Truth That I Can Tell
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm
Dinosaur Jr. – I Bet on Sky
Dropkick Murphys – The Warriors Code
Deftones- Ohms
David Bowie – Diamond Dogs
Eric Clapton/B.B. King – Riding With The King (Bonus Tracks, Anniversary Edition, Expanded Version, Reissue)
Fela Kuti – Fela Live With Ginger Baker (Colored Vinyl, Red, Gatefold LP Jacket)
Fitz Gore & Talismen – Soundnitia
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra – Promises
Funkadelic – Standing on the Verge: The Best of Funkadelic
Greta Van Fleet – The Battle At Garden’s Gate (White Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
Goblin – Zombi (White Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
Halsey – If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
Joe Pass – For Django
Jimi Hendrix- Both Sides Of The Sky
John Prine- Storm Windows
John Lennon – The Plastic Ono Band 2 x LP
Jill Scott – Who Is Jill Scott: Words And Sounds, Vol. 1 (Blue Colored Vinyl, Limited Edition)
Jelly Cleaver – Forever Presence
Kendrick Lamar- Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Lo Moon – A Modern Life
Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Mitski – Laurel Hell
Mad Season – Above
My Chemical Romance- Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
Mary Lou Williams – Mary Lou Williams
Maneskin – Il Ballo Della Vita
Megadeth – A Night In Buenos Aires (Blue Vinyl)
Mulatu Astatke – Ethio Jazz
The Moldy Peaches – Origin Story: 1994-1999
Nektar – Sunday Night At London Roundhouse (Colored Vinyl)
Nina Simone – The Hits
Nina Simone – Nina Simone: The Montreux Years
The National – Sleep Well Beast
N.W.A.- Straight Outta Compton
Otis Redding – Best Of Otis Redding (Indie Exclusive)
Opeth – Watershed
Pedro the Lion – Control
Phil Ranelin – Infinite Expressions
Pike vs the Automaton – Pike vs The Automaton (Colored Vinyl, 180 Gram Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
Pearl Jam – Vitalogy (180 Gram Vinyl)
Prince – Prince
Weekly Review:
Much like the first album “For You,” his second self titled studio album was written, arranged, composed, produced and performed entirely by Prince
https://www.facebook.com/prince.
Unlike his near year long in the making, triple over budgeted first album Prince’s self titled sophomore effort was recorded in just a few weeks and released on October 19, 1979.
He went to work on the second studio album for Warner Brothers just seven months after the release of “For You.”
The first song and first hit off the album, “I Wanna Be Your Lover” hit number one on the R&B chart and #11 on the Hot 100. It’s an infectious, funk inspired, disco leaning track that reaches almost six minutes on the album version, containing a meaty breakdown section.
“Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad” is the second track and single and often described as Prince’s first rock single.
Track three “Sexy Dancer” is pure unadulterated funk, very much in the vein of Rick James. The song is perhaps the first example of Prince’s jazzy rhythm guitar style, that would prominently feature in future hits like Kiss from the “Parade” album.
The album then settles in to back to back love ballads “When Were Dancing Close and Slow” and “With You,” then explodes into the big riff rocker “Bambi.” Even here Prince maintains his sexy soulful falsetto, giving the song a strange hybrid sound of Earth Wind and Fire meets Ronnie James Dio.
Another standout track is the second to last song “I Feel For You.” Listeners will be more familiar with the mega 1984 hit singer Chaka Khan had with the song. But it’s still fun to hear Prince’s more jazzy paired down original version.
In his initial review of “Prince” legendary rock critic Robert Christgau wrote: “This boy is going to be a big star, and he deserves it.” In light of the body of work that has shared to the public since, it sounds like an incredible understatement.
The Prince estate has graciously included this album as part of a mass vinyl reissuing of 12 of his most notable albums.
I don’t think I could say there is such a thing as a bad Prince album but I think this appropriately self titled second album is perhaps the first example of a great artist successfully developing his palette, a must have for fans of The Purple One! – Major Matt
Prince – Around the World In a Day
Weekly Review:
It’s difficult to over estimate the cultural impact Prince’s album “Purple Rain” had in the 80’s. Its total sales stand at 25 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
“Around the World In a Day” was Prince’s 12th studio album and was released just ten months after “Purple Rain.” It marks a departure on many fronts.
Prince doubles down on the psychedelic layering of sounds and textures. As per his instructions, the record company released the album with minimal publicity and no singles until a month after its release.
An early inspiration for the album came from the brother of Revolution band member Lisa Coleman, David Coleman, which serves as the title track.
Another departure was the cover art. Here’s a quote by Prince:
“The cover art came about because I thought people were tired of looking at me. Who wants another picture of him? I would only want so many pictures of my woman, then I would want the real thing. What would be a little more happening than just another picture would be if there was some way I could materialize in people’s cribs when they play the record.”
The opening title track sounds like a colorful, world music influenced parade with flutes and gongs, mixing with 808 drums samples and funky flanged guitars. The circus has come to town and Prince is the ring leader with an inviting proposition to:
“Open your heart, open your mind
A train is leaving all day
A wonderful trip through our time
And laughter is all you pay”
Track two “Paisley Park” sounds a bit more like an outtake from Purple Rain but with the guitars lower in the mix. A circus like calliope pulsates throughout the song while finger cymbals accent the turn arounds. About three quarters through the song the melody descends by half steps, simulating sens if slipping into a psychedelic abyss. Like a mantra Prince pulls us from the bad trip with the repeated line at each stanza: “Paisley Park is in your heart.”
“Condition Of the Heart” is near seven minute jazz piano exploration where the vocals don’t enter the song until the 2:50 mark.
“Raspberry Beret” was the first single and probably most well know song off of Around the World… a fairly simple pop song about infatuation and eventual hooking up with a girl who wore a Raspbery beret. The song incorporates stringed instruments, Middle Eastern finger cymbals to maintain that psychedelic theme.
“America” hearkens back to a the more overt political statement of 1999 while “Pop Life” is an infectious funk song that questions our motivations in a modern world.
“The Ladder” is a bit of a feeble attempt at a Purple Rain 2.0. But the over eight minute closing track “Temptation” is steamy exploration of love and sin that breaks down into a soul searching dialogue between Prince and his higher power about morality and sex.
By any other artist’s standards “Around the World In a Day” would have been a masterpiece. But for Prince it’s a brilliant transitional piece of work. Though met with mixed results by the public, the record is yet another testament to one of the greatest American musicians of our times. – Major Matt
Portishead- Dummy
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon
Pinegrove – 11:11 (Red Clear Vinyl)
Queens of the Stone Age – Lullabies To Paralyze (Gatefold LP Jacket)
Reggie Andrews And The Fellowship – Mystic Beauty
Robert Glasper – Black Radio III (Limited Edition, Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
Sinead O’Connor – So Far…the Best Of (Clear Vinyl)
Slave – Stellar Fungk: The Best Of Slave Featuring Steve Arrington (Red Colored Vinyl)
Spoon – Lucifer On The Sofa (Orange Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
Stone Temple Pilots – No. 4
Snail Mail- Valentine
Slowdive – Souvlaki [180 gram vinyl]
Sturgill Simpson – Ballad Of Dood & Juanita (Indie Exclusive)
Sturgill Simpson – Sound & Fury
Sade – The Best of Sade [180 gram Vinyl]
Tears for Fears – The Tipping Point (Green Colored Vinyl, Lithograph, Indie Exclusive)
Taylor Swift – Folklore (Beige Colored Vinyl, Gatefold LP Jacket)
Tom Waits – One from the Heart (180 Gram Vinyl)
Urge Overkill – Oui
Weekly Review:
In the early 90’s I saw the band Urge Overkill playing in a small garage in Lawrence, KS. I also met a girl from Chicago at that show that I would end up moving to New York for. But that’s a different story.
If I’m honest, both the band and the girl were a bit of a hot mess that night. I remember her screaming into my ear, over the wall of cacophonous noise, “People don’t get them! They’re not punk!”
A pretty accurate description and depiction of the times. As students emerging from the late 80’s it was fairly common to categorized Rock Music into basically two categories: Punk and Mainstream. Urge Overkill didn’t seem to fit into either.
Their mop-top haircuts and wrap around sunglasses look rang of a late 60’s Velvet Underground but the music was much more in realm of Thin Lizzy.
They released their first three albums and an ep on their hometown Chicago indie label Touch and Go. The EP entitled Stull, was a references to Stull Cemetery, located just west of Lawrence, Kansas. Since the 1970s, urban legends have been spread that the cemetery is one of the seven portals to Hell.
Stull was an important release for the band mainly for the cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl You’ll Be A Woman Soon,” which was featured in the film Pulp Fiction. The song catapulted the band to the edges of the mainstream, releasing two rock charting studio albums, Saturation and Exit the Dragon on Geffen Records.
Before Too long it that band that I’d seen making a racket for eight kids in a garage in Lawrence, KS was playing arenas opening for Nirvana on their legendary Nevermind tour.
After the final Geffen release, the bands output slowed down substantially, releasing just one more album in 2011, until now.
Their latest effort entitled simply “Oui,” does not see the songwriting duo of Nash Kato and King Roeser reinventing themselves by any stretch of the imagination. But the riffs are sharp and crunchy. The drums are punchy and their voices of both never sounded better. It’s been twelve years since the band’s last release But “Oui” could have fit nicer between
Saturation and Exit.
The album starts with a great Urgified version of Wham’s “Freedom,” which is almost worth the price of the record right there. Most songs follow the typical 70’s garage influenced brand of Indie Rock that made the band famous to begin with. This a great album to move to if you’re looking for a little more crunch in your groove. Nice splatter paint vinyl. – Major Matt
White Zombie- La Sexorcisto: Devil Music
White Lies – As I Try Not To Fall Apart (Cream Colored Vinyl, Indie Exclusive)
Yes – The Quest (With CD, Blue Colored Vinyl, Gatefold LP Jacket, With Booklet)
Yola- Stand For Myself
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Enjoy the music and we will see you soon. Your loving Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven staff:
Sherman, Gordon, Cat, Matt, Dylan, Doyle, Heather, Greg, Dave and Lain
