When of the best records of the 80s, awesomeness in XL quantities.
The Residents - Eskimo, an LP I never play, but can't seem to part with, weird, as I'm parting with over half of my collection.
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So this morning starts with a album that is rarely played on the hi-fi system but is a firm favourite in the car streamed from Double Twist From files on my phone.
The problem is that if you've heard her live her voice and arrangements are so much better than the album versions with many tracks, rightly or wrongly, sounding like they have been recorded in a cupboard with a laptop ! I know it was critically commended for its production despite their being eleven production credits ! Her vocals were also commended despite many tracks sounding "shut in" and "digital" by comparison to her live performances.
I can only imagine how awesome these songs would be recorded in a decent studio with all the muscians playing at the same time in the same space with her stood in front of them singing, the way the great Sinatra albums were done no vocal booth and live !
However, that said, it has sold 11 x Platinum so what do I know !
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Next up an album that really needs no introduction other than to say it was voted "Album of the Year" in a 1976 Rolling Stone readers' poll. It stayed on the chart for 97 weeks and was still No. 14 on Billboard's 1977 year-end album chart. Readers of Rolling Stone ranked it No. 3 in a 2012 poll of all-time favourite live albums and in 2020 the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The entire band are totally in the groove with some great guitar playing by the man himself ! Frampton principally used a distinctive modified black 1954 Gibson Les Paul Custom electric guitar (with three Humbucker pick-ups as opposed to the usual P90 and AlNiCo Staple pickups).
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Last up today is on vinyl and an original release pressing of one of the bands many great albums. This is their thirteenth studio album released in June 1982 and is considered their "Comeback" album ! It was their first Platinum album since 1978's Hot Street.
Their were three singles from the album, with the iconic "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" reaching number 1 on the Billboard chart.
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Way back in the sands of time (1985) when I bought an LP12, I wasn't interested in singles. I was buying LPs only. So having only 33rpm wasn't a deal breaker. But things have changed a bit since then.
With the advent of CD, albums started to become longer (often over an hour compared to vinyl's usual 40 minutes or less). In order to provide the vinyl purchaser with the same running time, often the albums had to become doubles.
Then at some point the manufacturers thought "hey, we can cash in on this, make it a double, give it some nice packaging, chuck in a couple of postcards or a poster, and while we're at it we'll make it 45rpm. It's not like we don't have the space on the discs, and Derek over at the pressing plant reckons they sound a bit better that way".
Not good news for the minority (us), but it's all about the numbers I suppose.