Record Store Day: The Top 10 List
Let’s get a few things out of the way. This is my list. I don’t want to hear about your list or why my list sucks or any of that hooey. I am well aware that there are so many amazing albums that are not on this list, but I’ve never heard any of those albums. I know! It’s crazy! But not really. I can’t know all the music. It’s not possible. I can know some of the music. You can know some of the music. You can know A LOT of the music. But even then, you have your tastes, and that’s great, but your tastes are different and weird and therefore we are not a match.com made in the Internet. Realistically, no one will be as happy with this Top 10 list as I am. And even I’m not that 100 percent happy with it. What do you think I’m some kind of monster? I had to make some tough decisions. I had to let a lot of good people go, dammit. But rules are rules, and a Top 30 list is a poor excuse for a Top 10 list. So let’s just try to enjoy ourselves and get through this with as little name calling as possible.
Also, a few rules I set and then totally didn’t follow: No split 7”s, no EPs, no singles or whatever you want to call them. None that two song stuff. Sorry I’m not getting up and flipping the record after one song. Nope. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of exciting 7”s to be bought, just none on this list. Also, no box sets, no compilations, no previously readily available stuff. No stunt releases. Nothing ironic. No CDs. Nothing I already own. So what am I looking for? Never before released stuff, live stuff, exciting new stuff. And a few of the basic universally agreed upon record collection essentials.
List after the jump!
1. Big Mama Thornton, Sassy Mama!, Born on Dec., 11th, 1926 in Ariton, Alabama, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was among the last of the great rhythm and blues singers. Her father was a minister and her mother a church singer. In 1952 she recorded the first version of a song called “Hound Dog.” It would be her one and only smash hit, spending seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B charts and selling nearly two million copies. Later on, a skinny kid from Tupelo, Mississippi did his own version of the song, and you know the rest. Originally released in 1975, Sassy Mama! was Big Mama’s debut on Vanguard but, sadly, one of her last albums. For this Record Store Day exclusive release, the album has been remastered from the original tapes and is presented in an exact replica of its original LP package. And that cover art - amazing.
2. Built To Spill, Ultimate Alternative Wavers, Recorded at Audio Lab in Boise, Idaho in the fall of 1992, and released in 1993, the band was Doug Martsch, Brett Netson, and Ralf Youtz, three, semi-clean-cut kids grinning from ear to ear on their first ever album cover together. I look back at the way I used to look at life, soft, white dreams with sugar coated outside. It was great! So great! Young and innocent days! Over the years the lineup changed, but the core BTS sounds have stayed the same: epic, swirling layers of guitar and Martsch’s high, nasal whine. I discovered Built To Spill during college and just devoured their catalog. They get their hooks in you good. Built To Spill don’t sell many records so all the more reason to buy this excellent 20th anniversary edition.
3. The Everly Brothers, Roots, An essential. Mom and dad would be proud. Part of having a record collection is owning some old shit that you would never buy on tape or CD or MP3 or even illegally download. You need to have some records like this one. It doesn’t have to be this Everly Brothers; Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, another Record Store Day (re)release, is excellent, as well. (Just ask Billie Joe and Norah Jones!) But you need at least one Everly Brothers album. Originally released in 1968, Roots features covers of two classic Merle Haggard prison tunes, “Mama Tried” and “Sing Me Back Home,” (both of which The Grateful Dead would cover extensively for the life of the group) and one gorgeous Randy Newman song, “Illinois.” Not a big hit in its time, Roots is now recognized as one of the finest early country-rock albums.
- http://clatl.com/atlanta/ImageArchives?by=1223504
- 2 x 12” Vinyl
4. Donny Hathaway, Live at the Bitter End 1971, A double live album, this new compilation of recordings is taken from Hathaway’s historic seven-show run at NYC’s the Bitter End club in October of that year. A previous live recording, which included much of the Bitter End set has been called “one of the best live albums ever recorded” by BBC DJ and music critic Daryl Easlea. Known for his duets with Roberta Flack (“Where is the Love,” “You’ve Got a Friend”), Hathaway was a giant of American soul music in his own right, as a pianist and singer who began his career as a producer and arranger for Aretha Franklin and the Staple Singers. Live at the Bitter End 1971 showcases a number of covers, including equally great takes on Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” Carole King’s “You’ve Got A Friend,” Bobby Scott and Bob Russell’s “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” and John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”
5. Devo, Live at Max’s Kansas City - November 15, 1977, Visionary art-punk, new-wave synth rockers, and deadpan darlings of early MTV, Devo’s influence on music, art and pop culture is deep and wide TWSS. I remember watching the video for “Whip It” YES I AM OLD HOW OLD ARE YOU I AM SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN THE MOON STILL HAD SMOOTH SKIN and feeling anxious and confused and elated all at once. Like Jolt Cola FOUR LOKO for your ears. They were the perfect band for their time. They’re the band for their time and place, they fit right in there. And that’s Devo. Neil Young, Iggy Pop and David Bowie were all early fans, and Bowie even introduces them on Live at Max’s Kansas City. This RSD exclusive is limited to 2000 copies worldwide.
- http://clatl.com/atlanta/ImageArchives?by=1223504
- 2 x 12” Vinyl
6. Mastodon, Live at Brixton, A super duper local band just plowing through 23 huge hunks of metal at a famous British venue (If you don’t know it, Faith No More’s You Fat Bastards: Live at the Brixton Academy is another amazing alt-metal document) during the band’s world tour in support of their massive, universally-adored fifth studio album, The Hunter. In their 2011 review of that album the BBC said of Mastodon, “They might be bonkers of lyric, full of fantasy mumbo jumbo, but the band is unashamedly committed to its complex-of-composition craft, and the results have frequently stunned ever since their 2002 debut, Remission. They are the most ambitious, most fearless, most fun-heavy metal band to have breached the mainstream since the genre oozed its way out of the Midlands in the 1970s.” Pretty much! Bonus: includes a DVD of the whole show.
7. Otis Redding, Pain In My Heart, Originally released in 1964, Pain in My Heart is Otis Redding’s debut album and you should own it because it is one of the universally agreed upon record collection essentials. Born in Dawson, Georgia, and raised in Macon, Otis Ray Redding, Jr. would join Little Richard’s backing band when he was only 15-years-old. As a solo artist he would tour the world and play New York’s Philharmonic Hall, DC’s Constitution Hall, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers Show, and would be posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Pain in My Heart features the hits “Stand By Me” (Sam Cooke), “You Send Me” (Don Gardner) “These Arms of Mine,” “I Need Your Lovin’” (Bobby Robinson) among others. This RSD exclusive release from Rhino marks the 50th anniversary of a classic album by one of the greatest soul singers of all time.
8. Tame Impala, Live Versions, Perth, Australia’s self-described “psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock music” makers have only been around since 2007, but they have spent their time together wisely. Racking up awards, accolades, and disciples along the way for each consecutive release, Tame Impala are (corny but true!) an exciting new band with a bright future. The Live Versions EP is a RSD exclusive release, featuring nine tracks recorded during a 2013 show in Chicago. Head Impala Kevin Parker chose the songs “based on how different the live versions are from the album versions. His goal was to give fans something they won’t already have; something they’ve only previously experienced at a Tame Impala show.” Cool. Cool. Cool.
9. Spoon, Loveways, Yes, technically an EP, but it has five songs on it, which is three more than two. Originally recorded after their third full-length, Girls Can Tell, Loveways has been remastered and pressed to vinyl for the first time. Yay! Spoon is a perfect example of a contemporary rock ‘n’ roll band that sounds amazing on vinyl. I would not be surprised to learn that Britt Daniel has a record player tattooed somewhere in his bathing suit area. Anyway, in their 2000 review of Loveways, Pitchfork waxed, “You can hear a simple, forceful drumbeat, a barked syllable, a quick strum of the guitar, or the crackling note of a dying keyboard, and immediately identify it as a sound created by Spoon.That’s why they’re such a great band - they have the ability to stamp their indelible signature on the most atomic components of rock ‘n’ roll.” True. True true true.
10. Charles Lloyd, Live at Slugs, this RSD exclusive of a never-before released recording by Lloyd’s unofficially official bootlegger/archivist of the time, Bjorn von Schlebrugge, features legendary Memphis multi-instrumentalist Charles Lloyd and his 1965 all-star quartet, comprised of famed Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo, bassist Ron Carter (who has appeared on over 2,500 albums!), and former Sonny Rollins drummer Pete LaRoca, and was taped at long-gone jazz shrine Slugs Saloon, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. As a band leader, Lloyd, now 76 years old, has released over 40 albums since 1964, and in 2013 was the recipient of the Miles Davis Award from the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. This RSD exclusive is presented on translucent orange 10” Vinyl at 33 1/3.
Record Store Day is tomorrow, April 19th, 2014.