Vinyl Me Please Essentials

Rowan said:
Andrew WK (who was also apparently here to save music)
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unrelated, but are you familiar with the Steev Mike conspiracy thing? A friend linked it to me -- and I found AWK to be sincere but goofy and not particularly interesting (although the 33 1/3 book is good for anyone curious) -- but the steev mike conspiracy thing was a compelling little rabbit hole to fall into
 
Rowan said:
For me The Strokes are one of those bands that have to be looked at within the context of everything that was around them at the time though. In the UK we'd just started the Pop Idol generation and the charts were filling up with either that sort of pure shit or the dregs of britpop. It was either that or dadrock masterpieces like Travis, Coldplay, Starsailor etc etc etc. Definitely Maybe had been years earlier and any promise from that era had been blown out of the water by massively excessive (and mainly shit) follow ups and pastiche. The Stokes came along and absolutely blew the roof off that. I can still remember the first time I heard them . Some ladbible shitshow called Soccer AM played New York City Cops as the accompaniment to the goals section one week and I was fully 'whoooooooaaaaaaa'. At the time you couldn't get anything by them over here too so I spent the next month or so scrambling around Limewire and Napster hunting out bits and pieces to burn to cd until I finally tracked down a copy of The Modern Age. They were an absolute breath of fresh air and Is This It had a huge impact on the UK music scene in particular. Ironically the other artist pushed to the forefront was Andrew WK (who was also apparently here to save music)

I mean, looking back you can say what really happened? Sure loads of bands emerged with 'The' in their names and in reality The Strokes are possibly just a lesser version of The Ramones or New York Dolls (or the Cars... or Television... or whoever else) but at the time that Is This It came out I'd say they were important and did revitalise a pretty sorry scene. May have been different in the states but that was definitely the case in the UK. On that basis I would see Is This It fitting the Essentials criteria. In fact VMP could have even put something together that included that and The Modern Age EP. That would have been ace.

It's Room on Fire as a pick that puzzles me. I mean the album was supposed to be something totally different. I read somewhere that Nigel Godrich was supposed to be taking them in a new direction and for one reason or another the band/ Julian didn't want to go there, backed out and quickly reworked a more formulaic album in the place of the intended follow up. I like the album. I always have but calling it essential is a bit of a stretch. It's a more of the same, while not being as good, as their debut. Even the band have said it was rushed an needed more time! Great singles but the rest of the album is nowhere near. It also doesn't have that emotive pull that people like me, who heard the band, loved the band and then binged on the band for a year, get from Is This It. It's a crazy choice. I mean, I like the Strokes so I'm happy to have it but if I was a total new listener I'm not sure this would make me dive into the rest of their albums where Is This It would make me hunt around to see what came next.

But as I said, I'm a fan. My copy isn't the best. I'll be happy to have the VMP version and it'll get played.
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Yeah 2000/2001 I was 17/18 and a music obsessive. 2000 was a really weird year in that it contains 7 or 8 indisputable classic albums but the charts, which still mattered then, were shit and there was no scene to immerse yourself in and become freakishly obsessed with. Is This It? really did come in and expose all that type of music to a new generation and, more importantly, showed record companies, that it sold again. It opened the door, in the U.K. at least, to a slew of bands that came in the following 5 or 6 years.

Also like you I don’t hate Room on Fire but it’s a long way short of Is This It? and I’m happy with my €22 colour copy from last January, sounds good enough. This album isn’t worth VMP money for me.
 
I am kinda lucky to have never experienced the original promotion and hype the band had (I mean I was like 2 when is this it came out). I found out about the band and the acclaim that they had from reading rolling stones best of the 2000s list and it being super high up. So I listened and I did really like it, it just me was pretty damn good and fun pop rock.

Though I did know and enjoy reptilia because of its usage in guitar hero
 
I wasn’t exposed to The Strokes until the late 2000’s when I was in high school. My girlfriend at the time (now wife) showed me them and I have tons of fond memories of us driving around in her car blasting both Is This It and Room on Fire. To this day, when we go on a road trip, we usually bring one of those albums along.

So I’m very biased towards The Strokes since their music was part of the soundtrack of a very important and formative moment in my life. Outside of that context though, I still think they were a solid and important rock band.
 
I was in high school when Is This It came out. All I listened to was rap & R&B. Except for Is This It. And Californication. Those were the only 2 albums that penetrated my rap bubble at the time. But I probably played them just as much as any other album back then.

When Room On Fire came out, I was even deeper into my bubble, so it didn't resonate with me as much as Is This It. I still heard the album a lot though because my sister loved that album. I think I still have her CD copy of it when she went 100% streaming. I think it's a perfectly enjoyable album. I'm cutting down on my vinyl budget, so I won't be getting it in February since I want the Quasimoto, but if it hangs around the store long enough on a slow month, I'd probably swap for it.
 
Viking Dan said:
As I have commented before, and which I believe was the point of the earlier “groupthink” comments, it mostly comes down to context.

I started listening to music around Costellos debut, Devoed and Policed my way through the 80s. By High School, I was all over the spectrum from REM, to Tribe to Metallica to Uncle Tupelo (I went to High School 45 min from Belleville, IL). I was a 1st semester college Freshman when Nevermind was released and I discovered NIN. After the early 90s onslaught of great music (deridingly referred to as the Grunge era) I got into the the Blues through Hendrix and Aretha. By 1998 I was living in London when OK Computer and Mezzanine were blowing minds and I even got into a little Pete Tong and Paul Okkenfold in the London club scene. By 2000, I had moved to Boston and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Kid A and Relationship of Command were redefining what it meant to have your mind blown.

Around that time, Spin and the music rags were telling us how great the Strokes were and they were the next great thing. But Spin lost all their cred when they picked Bandwagonesque over Nevermind and When I Was Born For The 7th Time over OK Computer & you could tell the rest of the rags were just trying to make Nirvana happen again.

So when I say “The Strokes, most decidedly do not “rock” at all”, it’s because of context. Their first album, in the context of my experience, was a tepid “meh” and they fall closer to a 1 hit wonder than anything “essential”....in my book.

I can appreciate that how someone else came to them may create a different context & get them excited for the release. But I agree, VMPs target market on this one is likely small because, as was pointed out before, that context speaks to an audience in a very narrow window of time.
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I agree with Spin on both Teenage Fanclub and Cornershop... if they were to pick either of those records as an ROTM, I’d be cartwheels...
 
December_boy said:
I agree with Spin on both Teenage Fanclub and Cornershop... if they were to pick either of those records as an ROTM, I’d be cartwheels...
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I have all TFC but Cornershop would have me signing up again. Hell depending how they did a TFC release (full version of Thirteen) I might even re-sign for that.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I have all TFC but Cornershop would have me signing up again. Hell depending how they did a TFC release (full version of Thirteen) I might even re-sign for that.
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Yeah. I kinda get the sentiment given Nevermind has become something of a legend out on its own but Bandwagonesq is still one of the best albums of that decade and WIWBFT7T is right there on that list too.
 
wmeugene said:
Hot take: Bandwagonesque is a better album than Nevermind. I feel about Nirvana and Nevermind the same way some of you think about the Strokes (who I really like). I think Nirvana got the cred because they were the ones to hit big first from that scene.
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That's a pretty hot take :ROFLMAO: ... although I would say that Nevermind is the Nirvana album I play least. Most regular being Bleach closely followed by Live at Reading and In Utero. I've been hammering Live and Loud since it came out though. The Radio Friendly Unit Shifter opener is an absolute stormer
 
The sad thing about Nevermind is it could have been such a heavy album. Living in Vancouver at the time, I saw Nirvana several times before and after Nevermind. I remember hearing the demos and being floored by the songs. Everyone I knew was really excited about the record but when it came out being quite let down. Sadly, they wanted the backing of a big label and then had to pay the price by having it glossed up beyond what they wanted
 
Nirvana and The Strokes both made some great records. If you wanna say that neither group was worthy of the hype that was attached them at the time that is fine (though I would disagree) but to allow the hype to effect your opinion of the music seems like an unfortunate reason not enjoy something. I have been a bit of a contrarian in my life, that’s kind of my natural setting but when the music is this good none of that other stuff matters. The context for each of these records releases matters only when explaining why they are culturally significant but if Nevermind or to a lesser extent Is This It had come out 10 years earlier Nirvana and The Strokes might not have captured the cultural zeitgeist like they did but they would have still been some brilliant albums.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Nirvana and The Strokes both made some great records. If you wanna say that neither group was worthy of the hype that was attached them at the time that is fine (though I would disagree) but to allow the hype to effect your opinion of the music seems like an unfortunate reason not enjoy something. I have been a bit of a contrarian in my life, that’s kind of my natural setting but when the music is this good none of that other stuff matters. The context for each of these records releases matters only when explaining why they are culturally significant but if Nevermind or to a lesser extent Is This It had come out 10 years earlier Nirvana and The Strokes might not have captured the cultural zeitgeist like they did but they would have still been some brilliant albums.
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Having navigated Ozzy biting heads off of bats, Knights In Satans Service, Tipper Gore & The PRMC and the uproar over “gangster rap”, all the Pearl clutching over NYC Cops was nothing more than pedantic bullshit.

But it wasn’t the hype, It was the fact that they were/are a snooze-fest.
They can’t even generate enough emotion for me to actively loathe them (e.g. RHCP).

Going from The Day The World Went Away and One Armed Scissor to Last Night is just an eye roll inducing mood killer.

From where I’m sitting, the John Mayer release is in the same wheelhouse as The Strokes.
So maybe VMP’s choice for this as an Essential release makes sense.
The same people buying Continuum in 2006 we’re probably still hanging with the Strokes hype to buy First Impressions six months earlier.

But all that is MY context.
I hope this pays off for all of those who have a different context and are looking forward to it.
I just won’t be one of those people.
 
Viking Dan said:
Having navigated Ozzy biting heads off of bats, Knights In Satans Service, Tipper Gore & The PRMC and the uproar over “gangster rap”, all the Pearl clutching over NYC Cops was nothing more than pedantic bullshit.

But it wasn’t the hype, It was the fact that they were/are a snooze-fest.
They can’t even generate enough emotion for me to actively loathe them (e.g. RHCP).

Going from The Day The World Went Away and One Armed Scissor to Last Night is just an eye roll inducing mood killer.

From where I’m sitting, the John Mayer release is in the same wheelhouse as The Strokes.
So maybe VMP’s choice for this as an Essential release makes sense.
The same people buying Continuum in 2006 we’re probably still hanging with the Strokes hype to buy First Impressions six months earlier.

But all that is MY context.
I hope this pays off for all of those who have a different context and are looking forward to it.
I just won’t be one of those people.
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LOL, Yeah, if you’re putting John Mayer and The Strokes music in the same category I can’t help you.

I will say one of the funniest parts of Meet Me In The Bathroom is when Ryan Adams invited John Mayer over for a “writing session”:

-“I lived down the block from John Mayer, and he’d been talking to me about his new song for a while,” Adams recalled. “So I texted him, because he was always up late back then. I said, ‘Come to this apartment. Bring an acoustic guitar. I really want to hear your new song.'”

“The doorbell buzzer rings, and I open the door, and John Mayer walks in with his fucking acoustic guitar, and they were all slack-jawed. John sat down and played the fucking acoustic guitar — three or four songs that probably have gone on to be huge — while those guys just sat there staring at me like, Oh my God, you’re a witch.”
 
Joe Mac said:
This one from last year whilst not specifically mentioning Ryan Smith was mastered at Sterling Sound, I have it, and it’s fantastic. For an album that would have originally been recorded, mixed and mastered digitally during the loudness wars I can’t imagine there being much of an improvement over it.

www.discogs.com

The Strokes - Room On Fire

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2020 Vinyl release of "Room On Fire" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com

Plenty of them still on cogs at normal enough prices.
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I have that one too and I concur.
 
Hollywood said:
Whoa! You changed your avatar!! I wasn't quite ready for that 😆
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Went with an older wiser David Byrne look... but I'm not set on it yet. Just trying it out. Might change it again. I liked that my other avatar invoked a little motion through David's spastic big suit dance and so kind of fit with my nickname.
 
Turbo said:
Went with an older wiser David Byrne look... but I'm not set on it yet. Just trying it out. Might change it again. I liked that my other avatar invoked a little motion through David's spastic big suit dance and so kind of fit with my nickname.
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All good. I clearly don't do well with change lol
 
I think I actually really like the John Prine Essentials ROTM! I feel like I’m discovering the album “John Prine” at the perfect time! I’m really connecting with it and it’s just such a charming record!

The first track “Illegal Smile” is so endearing and heartfelt song! I didn’t pick up the John Prine record this month, but I think I’ll definitely pick it up in the future! It’s a beautiful album with great storytelling in there.

I also definitely prefer this John Prine Essentials pick much more compared to the Townes Van Zandt Essentials pick!

I’m looking very forward to hearing reviews on the VMP pressing of John Prine! Especially as the recent Kevin Gray, AAA pressing of John Prine sounded amazing! I hope the VMP pressing sounds just as good!
 
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