August 2020 Challenge Thread - The Dog Days of Vinyl Playing

9 - Sad

Somber, melancholic, stark, conflicted... but sad? Seems I don’t do much straight up sad. Sad I think denotes an aura of hopelessness and most music is about hope or at least rage in the face of hopelessness. I leaned towards Daniel Spaleniak but I’m still not ready to crack the seal on that one considering the trouble it took to get it stateside. So, I went again with an abstraction. Sad is not even happiness, you know.

Julie Byrne - Not Even Happiness

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To the Grateful Dead? always start with American Beauty and Workingmans Dead. Then work out from there.
If you like Folk Country Rock Laural Canyon 1970s type stuff you will love these. Then once you have a base set you start exploring. They have some other pretty great studio album but really the Dead is about the live shows though I think the live stuff can be a bit intimidating coming in blind. That is why I always recommend the aforementioned studio albums first.
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Someafternoon reading while cooking out on the grill while playing some Dead on theBose speakers
 
Day 8 Catch up

Dollar Day

Breathless ~ Three Times And Waving
I got this at a thrift store sealed for $1. It’s ended up being one of the best sounding and most quiet record I’ve had. 0 clicks 0 pops. How did this sit for as long as it did with a paper sleeve before I gave it a mofi sleeve and it still sound amazing?! Hidden gem album here.



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DAY 9 - SAD

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Pedro The Lion - Winners Never Quit

This is a concept album about two brothers. One is a homeless drunk, the other is a very, very successful man. The successful man, in a fit of power struggle, murders his wife and later, out of his own vanity, kills himself. At the funeral, the parents don't seem to even notice or care that their other child is present because HE is the disgrace.

And, then, there's the final song, the one ray of hope for the brother who lives on:

"Count it a blessing that you're such a failure, your second chance might never have come."
 
Day 9 - Sad

The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World

This is a sad album for me personally. It attempts to convey the impact of Alzheimer’s—the album samples old ballroom jazz 78s, which repeat at certain points over the LP like memories. The songs get shorter each time, and quieter, more distorted, more surface noise, sound drops from a channel, etc. as things start to break down and the memories fade. Towards the end of the LP you wonder whether you heard the tune earlier.

I first heard this when my grandpa was suffering from severe dementia and I was reading a lot about the disease, so it has a personal tie in for me.

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Thank you for posting this, I have been checking it out and love it. Very moving stuff here.
 
August 9 - The day Jerry Garcia passed - Play a sad album.

I got half way through (y)ing all ya all's sad posts before remembering there is a :( reaction.

Anyway, this album has a couple sad songs on it, namely "Elvis In The Freezer." The Ratboys played here a year or so ago and a story I remember about this song was Elvis, the lead singer's cat, died. They did not know what to do with him, so they put him in the freezer.

Ratboys ‎– GN

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August 10 - National Lazy Day - Play whatever you want, or don't. Just don't expend any effort on it.

The record in the front of my flip-bin.

Max Richter / Vivaldi* / Daniel Hope / Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin / André de Ridder - Recomposed By Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons

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August 10 - National Lazy Day - Play whatever you want, or don't. Just don't expend any effort on it.

A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

What's lazier than just taking a screenshot of the music I'm listening to while working and not even going though the effort to put on some vinyl?

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Day 10: National Lazy Day

Went with Discogs Random figuring that's pretty lazy. Got this one over the weekend actually, was part of a stack I picked up from a friend who was having a garage sale and giving me first dibs. Really surprised to see it there. Some pops/crackles after an initial clean, but going to run it through the spin clean later.

Irma Thomas - Wish Someone Would Care

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August 10 - National Lazy Day - Play whatever you want, or don't. Just don't expend any effort on it.

I’m just now stumbling upon this thread. So this is what I happened to have playing at this moment:

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