Oatrick's Vinyl-a-Day

 So.. if you couldn't tell, daily blogging isn't my strong suit. I've just been unmotivated to write, and I think it's because of the wheel. I mean, it's a good idea in theory - but sometimes you're just not in the mood for the album it gives you & so you have a worse time listening to it than you would have on any other day and yada yada I'm sure you get it. My point being I'm just gonna write about whatever album/music related topic I feel like writing about from now on, and today I sat down and listen to The Beach Boys' 1973 record, Holland! Up until extremely recently, my Beach Boys listening journey stopped past the Smile(y Smile) era, and I'm still kind of at that point. It's not that I don't want to listen to their later stuff, but it's very hard for me to just sit down and listen to a new album on like Spotify or YouTube. When I want to get into an album, I usually have to get it physically so I have no choice but to liste...

  Aside from maybe only Paul McCartney, I believe Elvis Costello is the most prolific major pop artist of the last 50 years. He has released over 40 albums between the late 70s and now, and you can say whatever you want about the quality of any one of them - but you cannot deny how brilliant his first 5 albums are. Today’s album is Costello’s second album, This Year’s Model. My copy of this album is a reissue from the early 80s from the U.S. I got it at last month’s Second Saturday Record Show in Wayne, NJ, and it’s on black wax. I’m not listening to that copy though - I’m listening to my CD copy, the Rykodisc reissue from the mid 90s. The reason I’m doing this is because for some reason they cut two of the best songs on the album ([I Don’t Want To Go To] Chelsea & Night Rally) from the original US vinyl pressings! I feel like the CD is the most complete This Year’s Model experience, and therefore will be talking about that version. There’s not much I can criticize about this a...

  Welcome to the sixth installment of the Vinyl-a-Day blog! In this installment I will tell you how my vinyl copy of CAKE’s Prolonging the Magic led me down a mysterious rabbit hole that I still don’t have a straight answer for. Fun stuff! I first got into CAKE in May of this year when I bought this album, Fashion Nugget, and Comfort Eagle on CD at a flea market, and out of those three Prolonging the Magic was and still is my favorite from them. I’m not even sure why it is, but it clicked with me on first listen while the other two CAKE albums I got that day took a bit longer. Anyway, I got my black vinyl copy at Remix Records during my trip to Orlando, FL this July (along with a few Elvis Costello records that will hopefully be reviewed soon!) CAKE’s sound is something you can’t really get from any other band, I think, and they fall into a subgenre that’s not easy to describe. They’re kinda rocky, kinda poppy, kinda funky, kinda hip-hoppy, and kinda countryish too? They use a lot ...

  Ever since I was small The Beach Boys have played a sizable part in my life. I had an MP3 player loaded with, among a lot of other things, The Beach Boys’ greatest hits - and that was about as far as I went with the band for a while. That was until I started collecting physical media in 2019 and got Pet Sounds a little while later. I got into their early albums and it was like experiencing those songs for the first time again! One of those early albums I never really paid attention to though, was their third album Surfer Girl. Which is a shame because I enjoyed my listen today! My copy is a hand-me-down from my Dad. It’s a 2016 reissue on black vinyl. Surfer Girl has quite a few well-known songs on it! It opens with the title track, a ballad with beautiful harmonies and stellar production by Brian Wilson, who’s credited for production for the first time on this record! Those two aspects carry over to the rest of the album, which makes it a pleasant listen. The other stand-out tra...

  It was only a matter of time before the wheel gave me a Marc With a C album, since they're the artist I have the most records from! Marc With a C is my favorite musician right now and has been for a few years! I got into Marc’s music in late 2022 thru a recommendation from a friend (if you’re reading this - hi! thank you!!), and the moment I was hooked is when I listened to The Obscurity Trilogy for the first time. This trilogy is made up of the album “Obscurity,” the E.P. “Half Serious Half Kidding,” and the first part, today’s album, Unicorns Get More Bacon. Like yesterday’s State Songs, there’s only one pressing of Unicorns Get More Bacon on vinyl. I got my copy for Christmas from my friend and bandmate (different friend from the other friend mentioned. again, if you’re reading this - hi!! T   hank you!!), and it was actually one of the first two Marc With a C albums I got on vinyl! The album is on hot pink wax with a blue splatter in the middle. It’s a very pretty record...

     Aside from The Beatles, They Might Be Giants are the most important band in my music-listening journey. I discovered them in early 2020, and they opened the door to me finding so many amazing new wave and nerdy artists since then. (Many of which will be discussed here in the near future!) For the uninitiated, the core of They Might Be Giants is made up of two people named John - John Linnell and John Flansburgh. The album I’m covering today is the, depending how you count, first or second solo project by John Linnell, State Songs. To my knowledge, there is only one pressing of State Songs on vinyl. It was released for Record Store Day: Black Friday in 2019 and it comes on a beautiful multi-colored green marbled vinyl. I got my copy in around 2022, since there were a few copies still sitting around in one of my favorite record stores, Spin Me Round Records in Easton, PA. I would definitely check them out if you’re ever in the area, they have TONS of cool stuff! At fir...

The Who has been a favorite of mine for a few months. I first got into them around March - April of this year, with my first album by them being The Who Sell Out. I’d say that I’ve connected to all of The Who’s albums in some meaningful way since then, with the exception being Quadrophenia. I’m not sure why, really, it just hasn’t clicked with me yet. The all-knowing wheel must have known this fact when choosing it for me to listen to/talk about today. Maybe it’ll finally click with me! The version of the album I have is a bit weird. Going off of the labels on the discs, this is a reissue from 1980. The strange part, though, is that the front cover has a gold promo stamp in the corner! I wonder if this copy was given to a radio station to play, or if the previous owner just swapped the discs from another copy? Aside from that, I got this one last month at the Second Saturday Record Show like the Monkees album from yesterday, and it’s on black vinyl. It comes with a giant photo/lyric bo...

Hello! Today, I’m starting a project called vinyl-a-day. For the next however many days, wheelofnames.com will choose one random LP from my vinyl record collection, and I have to listen to it all the way through. I’m doing this because there are some records I own that I haven’t listened to in a long time, and in some cases never listened to at all. I’ll also be writing my thoughts about each album here. Today, the wheel gave me HEAD… the Monkees album. I bought this one last month at the Second Saturday Record Show in Wayne, NJ. It’s a Rhino Records reissue from the 80s on black vinyl. (Speaking of Rhino, did you know they had a mascot? I didn’t before buying this record!) I could go into my thoughts on and rather deep history with the band, but I feel as though they’re better suited for other Monkees releases. I will say, though, I didn’t get into the HEAD universe (or even really know about it) until pretty recently. I think that’s for the better, actually, as I think it would have ...