Vinyl Me Please Essentials

TenderLovingKiller® said:
As far as Dylan goes, I own the Mono box, Blood On The Tracks and Self Portrait. I would Like to eventually add Nashville Skyline and Desire as studio LPs go then maybe one or two of the live Bootleg series releases. I am not a Bob Dylan completist but I can appreciate his talent. I would just be hard pressed to grab his 15th best album off the shelf when I was in the mood for some Bob Dylan (or any artist really).
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I think Desire is great and would also recommend Time Out Of Mind.

For the Bootleg Series, the Royal Albert Hall show and the Rolling Thunder Revue are essentials. Maybe my favorite Dylan ever
 
TheThinWhiteDuke said:
I think Desire is great and would also recommend Time Out Of Mind.

For the Bootleg Series, the Royal Albert Hall show and the Rolling Thunder Revue are essentials. Maybe my favorite Dylan ever
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My favorite Bootleg Series is Volume 10, Another Self Portrait. It recontextualizes a much maligned era for Dylan. Its a nice bridge between the Nashville Skyline and New Morning and rehabilitates a lot of what seemed confusing on Self Portrait.
 
wmeugene said:
My favorite Bootleg Series is Volume 10, Another Self Portrait. It recontextualizes a much maligned era for Dylan. Its a nice bridge between the Nashville Skyline and New Morning and rehabilitates a lot of what seemed confusing on Self Portrait.
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I actually quite enjoy Self Portrait. That being said, I only own my copy because I purchased it from a record shop for $4 bucks like 15 years ago. It was in VG+ condition and I was completely unfamiliar with it. Definitely not his best but it is pleasant enough that I have held on to it for all these years.
 
wmeugene said:
Not that anyone asked, but my top 20 list (studio albums, not live or archival) is probably as follows:

Blood On The Tracks
Blonde on Blond
Highway 61 Revisited
Bringing It All Back Home
The Basement Tapes (I know this likely breaks the archival rule)
Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
John Wesley Harding
Time Out Of Mind
Desire
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Nashville Skyline
Love And Theft
The Times They Are A-Changin'
New Morning
Empire Burlesque
Modern Times
Oh Mercy
Bob Dylan
Planet Waves
Infidels

The last spot few three spots were between those and his most recent studio output (Together Through Life and Tempest). I would consider all 22 of these albums essential listening.
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Joe Mac said:
Blood on the Tracks
Bringing It All Back Home
Desire
Highway 61 Revisited
Freewheelin’
Blonde on Blonde
Time Out Of Mind
Another Side
Nashville Skyline
Modern Times
John Wesley Harding
Planet Waves
Street Legal
Times
Basement Tapes
Slow Train Coming
New Morning
Oh Mercy
Tempest

I think that’s the 19 must haves for me.

Also did I see Empire Burlesque in your essentials list? Wow! That’s a big fucking call 😂
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Ooo I wanna get in on this but I have to have a good think on it first. In the meantime,

Murfocakes said:
Btw - Street Legal should be higher on everyone’s lists.
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100%
 
Cat Power would be a great choice if it’s not Dylan. Although every time I have tried to see her live, it hasn’t quite worked out...first time it was a free show back in college where she had a double billing with The Blind Boys of Alabama. They were incredible and then Cat Power came on 30+ minutes late, played half a song, messed up a chord, said “sorry this fucking sucks. I don’t know why anybody wants to hear this” and walked off the stage. People waited around but she never came back on. Then another time she just never showed up. Around that time everyone seemed to just pass her off as an eccentric diva. Nobody really knew what was going on behind the scenes but she was suffering from deep depression. I remember she did a pretty open interview with Spin magazine around that time:

The Spin Interview: Cat Power - Spin

What follows is an unabridged version of the Cat Power interview that appears in our December issue. Chan Marshall does not look troubled. On this late
www.spin.com www.spin.com

there’s some pretty interesting stuff in that article about the recording of The Greatest:


You recorded The Greatest in Memphis. What was it like to work with soul legends like Mabon “Teenie” Hodges?
The recording process was intense — you know, white girl from Georgia asking these legendary musicians if they’d be interested in recording “Try Me,” by James Brown. Teenie would be like, “Now what key is the song in?” And I’d be like, “I don’t know anything about keys.” And he’d be like, “Okay, just play it.” I’d play and he’d mark down the Nashville numbers system — that’s the way poor people learn to play because [takes on a deep-South accent] they don’t have no con-serrr-va-tory. And Teenie would be like, “See that note you played? That’s the key. It’s always gonna come back to that note.”

I haven’t really checked out a ton of her music after The Greatest but that album was really solid and I think she’s really talented.
 
Joe Mac said:
By hardcore Waits I’m not talking Closing Time though to Blue Valentine/Heartattack & Vine, by his own standards he’s positively crooning around then. Early era Tom Waits is hugely different to mid era Tom Waits which is again hugely different to late era Tom Waits. His voice gets far more extreme from Swordfishtrombones onwards. Then musically he moved into rasping over the demented oompah music of the damned towards the end. I love it all but i can imagine someone loving one era and totally despising another!

also the raspometer is genre neutral ranging from Sam Cooke, super smooth liquid silk anti rasp, at one end to hardcore Tom Waits at the other.
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My favourite quote on Waits comes from the critic Daniel Durchholz, who describes his voice as “sounding like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.”
 
The Greatest is currently being peddled in every 2 for £25 quid deal going over in the UK. Would really suck if they decided the album to go with was one that's widely available for about a tenner at the minute.

If they pressed the My Blueberry Nights OST that would be immense though
 
MikeH said:
Cat Power would be a great choice if it’s not Dylan. Although every time I have tried to see her live, it hasn’t quite worked out...first time it was a free show back in college where she had a double billing with The Blind Boys of Alabama. They were incredible and then Cat Power came on 30+ minutes late, played half a song, messed up a chord, said “sorry this fucking sucks. I don’t know why anybody wants to hear this” and walked off the stage. People waited around but she never came back on. Then another time she just never showed up. Around that time everyone seemed to just pass her off as an eccentric diva. Nobody really knew what was going on behind the scenes but she was suffering from deep depression. I remember she did a pretty open interview with Spin magazine around that time:

The Spin Interview: Cat Power - Spin

What follows is an unabridged version of the Cat Power interview that appears in our December issue. Chan Marshall does not look troubled. On this late
www.spin.com www.spin.com

there’s some pretty interesting stuff in that article about the recording of The Greatest:


You recorded The Greatest in Memphis. What was it like to work with soul legends like Mabon “Teenie” Hodges?
The recording process was intense — you know, white girl from Georgia asking these legendary musicians if they’d be interested in recording “Try Me,” by James Brown. Teenie would be like, “Now what key is the song in?” And I’d be like, “I don’t know anything about keys.” And he’d be like, “Okay, just play it.” I’d play and he’d mark down the Nashville numbers system — that’s the way poor people learn to play because [takes on a deep-South accent] they don’t have no con-serrr-va-tory. And Teenie would be like, “See that note you played? That’s the key. It’s always gonna come back to that note.”

I haven’t really checked out a ton of her music after The Greatest but that album was really solid and I think she’s really talented.
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I saw her live at the Canopy Club in Champaign IL right before The Greatest dropped. It was a strange and beautiful experience, she came out into the Audience for a bit to watch the opening act and everyone was afraid to speak to her, then when she performed it was the most hushed concert I have ever attended, by this time in her career she had developed a bit of a reputation for being a temperamental performer and it was as though the audience was afraid if they made any noise outside of a polite golf clap that they may spook her from the stage and TBH based out her performance that evening we all probably were in the right mindset as he was definitely going through some shit, while her voice and playing were top notch her confidence was completely shot, she apologized after every song and stoped mid song apologize and then restart the song from the beginning on two or three separate occasions. All that being said she put on a hell of set, played almost all of The Greatest (and The White Sox, who were playing a non-clenching World Series game Won!!) it was a memorable amazing evening.

... for those not Familiar with Cat Power’s reputation at the time (she has since mellowed quite a bit, She relocated to Australia to be closer to @NathanRicaud and also had a daughter) here is a Funny or Die Clip that I know has been shared on multiple occasions but still makes me laugh so I don’t mind reposting it.
 
Rowan said:
The Greatest is currently being peddled in every 2 for £25 quid deal going over in the UK. Would really suck if they decided the album to go with was one that's widely available for about a tenner at the minute.

If they pressed the My Blueberry Nights OST that would be immense though
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The current (cheap) pressing is common but not much to write home about, it also has alternate Artwork than what was originally released. There is also currently no colored wax pressings of the album that I am aware. Also other previous indie ROTM’s (Dirty Projectors, Phoenix, Flaming Lips) were readily available prior to VMP choosing them for their ROTM. There are still 2008 RTI pressed Kevin Grey cut pressing with the original artwork floating around at a reasonalbe price on the secondary market but they are becoming more scarce. I would be excited, if like the Flaming Lips they were to also offere up some represses of Moon Pix and You Are Free.
 
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