Clube da Esquina by Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges was one of only five Brazilian albums to be featured in the book “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”.
If you have yet to hear this fusion of Brazilian music and Beatles-inflected pop, this may whet your appetite…
Vinyl
Should You Buy Nineties Vinyl?
…and a discussion of Record Collector’s Logic. Also: The Great R.E.M. CD / Vinyl Hunt… Have we reached peak vinyl? Should we all pile in to CDs now the price is a tiny fraction of the cost of vinyl? Is… Read More ›
The Search for Kraftwerk’s Ralf and Florian
It’s 1971, and Kraftwerk are playing on German TV show The Beatclub following the release of their debut album, Kraftwerk 1. The trio feature the hirsute rock god Michael Rother on gold Les Paul guitar, Klaus Dinger in white, angel-winged… Read More ›
A Hendrix Discogswhack
Ever buy an album variant that wasn’t already on Discogs?
World Records: A New Book about Record Collectors
In 2008 New York photographer Eilon Paz was shown a photo of a man, Frank Goessner, a German, who lived around the corner from Paz in Brooklyn. Goessner was wearing combat gear, holding an AK-47, surrounded by a mass of… Read More ›
The Beach Boys Vinyl Challenge: Finale – How To Build Your Own Beach Boys Record Collection
The challenge: The Beach Boys have a legion of fans, but I had precisely two of their albums. What had I overlooked? And was it still possible to build up a concise collection from The Beach Boys twenty-nine studio albums… Read More ›
The Beach Boys Challenge: Part 4: Which Early Beach Boys Records Are Worth Buying?
The challenge: After a chat with a friend revealed neither of us had any Beach Boys albums outside of Pet Sounds and Surf’s Up, could I convince myself and my friend there were other gems in The Beach Boys’ back… Read More ›
The Beach Boys Vinyl Challenge – Part 2: Holland.
The challenge: To find lesser known moments from The Beach Boys catalogue and build up a concise collection of Beach Boys records that a) don’t cost the Earth and b) that are good enough to get regular plays on the… Read More ›
The Beach Boys Vinyl Challenge Part 3: After Pet Sounds
The challenge: The Beach Boys are best known for their Californian surfing-and-cars image. But fans who have dug a little deeper have found many gems in the back catalogue. When a band has produced 29 studio albums and nearly double… Read More ›
The Beach Boys Vinyl Challenge
Can you still unearth great vinyl records without breaking the bank? Finding cheap vinyl records has become harder since Covid turned the world into online shoppers. But maybe it isn’t impossible… In this series we examine the vinyl legacy of… Read More ›
Record Collector’s 100 Ways Vinyl Can Make You Money In 2021
In its latest issue, Record Collector has sought to identify a hundred records that show “investment potential”. The cover boasts “The 100 Best Music Investments” and “How Your Vinyl Can Make You Money In 2021”. This is no bad thing…. Read More ›
2020 May You Rot And Burn In Hell! A Year In Review
Plus: The ERTAS 2020 Albums of the Year In case you hadn’t noticed, 2020 was a terrible, terrible year for pretty much everyone and everything. Even Coronavirus, which had a better 2020 than most, received bad news in the shape… Read More ›
The Story of The Kinks’ “Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround”
The Kinks’ “Lola versus Powermen and The Moneygoround, Part One” was their eighth and least-snappily-titled album, released fifty years ago, in 1970. It is best known for the hit single “Lola”, a now much-loved song Ray Davies famously had to… Read More ›
Read An Exclusive Extract From The New Vinyl Handbook
As the publication date draws ever nearer, an author’s day becomes ever busier. Small callouses appear on the end of fingers ill-used to holding pens for signing books. Additional respect is given to *actual successful* authors who sign cartloads of… Read More ›
Never Mind The Covid* It’s Record Store Day! (*Actually We Still Need To Mind The Covid)
As eagerly anticipated by record collectors globally as the release of the Autumn/Winter Argos catalogue was when we were kids. Or, if you are as old as me (and if you collect records there’s half a chance you will be),… Read More ›