Building a Vinyl Collection From Scratch - post your top 10

[Default]

Oh, and by the way...

"Flavor Saver" by our own Walter Broes and the Seatsniffers is still one of my favorite albums and I highly recommend that you pick up a copy, even if you can't find vinyl! :lol: Great, great album!

 

[dreadnut]

Yeah, Westie! +1 to PPL and Little Feat

More progressive country, not albums as such but something from these bands:

New Riders of the Purple Sage w/ Jerry Garcia on pedal steel

Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Marshall Tucker Band

Ozark Mountain Daredevils

 

[coastie99]

Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen

Now THERE'S a wild-card entry if ever there was one !

 

[southernGuild]

8) Another Great one. RODRIGUEZ, Cold FACT, from 1970.
Those of you who dont know of this man or his music, are in for a real treat in my opinion. I cant say enough about how good this guy is.
Heres a link that will get you started.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EPf7_Mh ... re=related
Easily in my top 10, if not top 5. :wink:
I love it so, I have 3 copies of this album.....as well as all his Cd's.

 

[Ross]

I got a buddy who turned me on to Little Feat

"Waiting for Columbus" - one of the best live albums ever!

if you've never seen Spinal Tap go rent it. Today. Now. You'll laugh until your sides split)

Then, go & rent "Hard Core Logo" :mrgreen:

 

[Jahn]

Not sure why, but when I think Vinyl, I think Jazz. All my Cassette/CD/MP3 years were non-jazz music. so here's my top 5 for Jazz on Vinyl:

Charlie Parker: Live at Massey Hall

John Coltrane - Giant Steps

Miles Davis - Round About Midnight

Dave Brubeck - Time Out

The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks

 

[Brad Little]

I still have the "Maximum Rhythm and Blues" poster, but sold the vinyl with the other goodies at atime of extreme financial hardship...saw an episode of "Pawn Stars" which featured exactly what you're talking about, somebody thought the copy of the contract to appear at Woodstock was original... :roll: ...but my favorite was the copy of the bill from the music store for the destroyed equipment. :lol:

I also have the first edition of Her Satanic Majesties, with the original inner sleeve and the maze intact.

That would have the plastic overlay on the cover intended to imitate a 3d effect, then, too, yes? :wink:
That was another cool thing about vinyl, the packaging allowed for so much more than CD's do. CD's're just too small for anything truly impressive even if they do at least have a booklet insert.
Jefferson Airplane put out a couple of cult classics of packaging with "Bark" being released in a brown paper bag. That contains one of my favorite cuts of theirs, "Pretty as You Feel", another one of those "masterpieces of presence" featuring an often forgotten guest appearance by Carlos Santana on the lead... then came "Long John Silver" in which the inner sleeve was a picture of larger than life size cigars with "JA" logo paper rings, and for which the album cover itself folds up into a cigar box with a photo of a large dried quantity of well-known medicinal herb printed on the bottom to stare you in the face on opening... :lol:

That's right , it was on Pawn Stars, thanks for the reminder. Yes, Satanic Majesties has the "3D" cover-and the vinyl is as pristine as the inner sleeve. I also have the Bark LP in its original package, at least I think I do, it may have been one of the LPs my first wife needed to take. I know she got the Dead and New Riders LPs.
Brad

 

[adorshki]

Not sure why, but when I think Vinyl, I think Jazz.

If you got MIles and Coltrane and Take 5, you must have some Sonny Rollins?
Say.... Tenor Madness?

 

[Jahn]

Not sure why, but when I think Vinyl, I think Jazz.

If you got MIles and Coltrane and Take 5, you must have some Sonny Rollins?
Say.... Tenor Madness?

For certain! And this one is also a fave, man I played St. Thomas on my sax all the time in high school!:

 

[Guild Dawg]

When I think of great vinyl experiences, I think of my buddies and I listening to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here." Only the warmth of vinyl and vacuum tubes due them justice.

Likewise, Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffitti" and "Led Zeppelin II" should join your "House of the Holy" albums. Maybe Zeppelin IV as well. Oh, if only to be able to listen to each of them again for the first time on a bitchin' stereo ...

 

[fronobulax]

It is fun to read about what other folks like to listen to especially since we cross genres and generations doing so. But when the question was narrowed down to just ten LPs (between 5 and 10 hours of music) wouldn't it make more sense to pick ten genres you like and then one LP in each genre? So the only way you would consider two jazz LPs would be if you loved jazz so much that it had to be over-represented, right?

It's also a hard choice when forced into the LP format. For example, Jefferson Airplane's Bless Its Pointed Little Head has got what has to be twenty minutes of the best recorded music I've ever heard. But in LP form it is 35 minutes so I have the potential to do much better if I don't bring it to the Island.

(I hate trying to make the decisions that narrow a list down and I tend to say that instead of 10 LPs and a sound system I'd bring one radio and a high gain antenna or something else where I give up control over what I hear in exchange for presumably a greater variety).

 

[adorshki]

Not sure why, but when I think Vinyl, I think Jazz.

If you got Miles and Coltrane and Take 5, you must have some Sonny Rollins?
Say.... Tenor Madness?

For certain! And this one is also a fave, man I played St. Thomas on my sax all the time in high school!:

I know earlier I called Coltrane the Hendrix of the saxophone, but Sonny's right in there, he'd have to be the Santana or Jeff Beck.
Had the pleasure of seeing him in the UC Berkely Greek Amphitheater around '86 I think it was. He played un-mic'd (!) in front of his (mic'd) backing group and stilled filled the amphitheater with sound. :shock: Musta been all those years of practicing on the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of the night. It was the only place he could go where nobody'd complain.
I think the following year was Weather Report. Zawinul making noises that sounded like the saucers landing in the foothills behind the amphitheater. BTW< did you know he (Zawinul) wrote "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" ? Just learned that a couple of weeks ago...

 

[adorshki]

For example, Jefferson Airplane's Bless Its Pointed Little Head has got what has to be twenty minutes of the best recorded music I've ever heard.

Consecutive, or scattered around the disc? :lol:
Personally I actually prefer the live from '67 material on the Jefferson Airplane Loves You box set, and the version of "You and Me and Pooneil" on the Fillmore East '69 album (for what I think is the single most radical Casady solo I've ever heard), but I don't think either of those were ever actually released on vinyl.
"Stranded on a Desert Island: Radio or top 50 records?" sounds like a great poll topic.

 

[fronobulax]

For example, Jefferson Airplane's Bless Its Pointed Little Head has got what has to be twenty minutes of the best recorded music I've ever heard.

Consecutive, or scattered around the disc? :lol:
Personally I actually prefer the live from '67 material on the Jefferson Airplane Loves You box set, and the version of "You and Me and Pooneil" on the Fillmore East '69 album (for what I think is the single most radical Casady solo I've ever heard), but I don't think either of those were ever actually released on vinyl.
"Stranded on a Desert Island: Radio or top 50 records?" sounds like a great poll topic.

Scattered. "Fly Jefferson Airplane" and "Bear Melt" almost never do it for me and on a bad day I skip "Rock Me Baby" too. I did restrict myself to what I knew was on vinyl.

As for the poll topic I usually derail that one with bringing an instrument and making my own music.

 

[Qvart]

Funny, I picked up a cheap turntable last year...

Santa came early this year (this also explains why I passed on some recent GAS opportunities lately) - I finally replaced the crappy yard sale turntable 'cause the man cave deserves much better. Now VAS (vinyl acquisition syndrome) is in full effect! :lol:

Actually, the turntable sat idle for nearly a week while I waited on this to be delivered:

New LPs added to the collection:

NOFX - Self-Entitled
Bad Brains - Into the Future
Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime


\m/'-_-'\m/

 

[Los Angeles]

Nicely done!

 

[Zelja]

Do most turntables need a phono pre-amp to be able to use then effectively with a power amp or into a mixer ==> powered monitors?

I have a relatively new but reasonably inexpensive Numark model.

 

[marcellis]

Vinyl? Very inconvenient. But these were my favorite vinyl albums. NOTE: My list would be COMPLETELY different if we were talking about singles or even modern CD's.

1. Jerry Lee Lewis: 'Another Place, Another Time', 'She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye', 'Touching Home'.

2. S&G 'Bookends'

3. L. Cohen' Songs from a Room'

4. Jobim: 'Tide', 'Wave', 'Stone Flower'

5. Lightfoot: 'Sundown', 'Summer Side of Life'

6. Rascals 'Greatest Hits' (The genius of Arif Mardin)

7. Doors: 'The Doors', 'Strange Days'

8. Byrds: 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo' & 'Ballad of Easy Rider'

9. 'Saturday Night Fever' soundtrack (Again, the genius of Arif Mardin)

10. Beatles 'Rubber Soul'

--------

Note: I think 1950's music was generally much better than 60's, 70's, 80's & 90's stuff.
But the medium then was the single - not the album. There were albums - but the single was the really big deal.

The medium for a long time became the CD. But now, with downloadable music, we seem to be going back to the single.

 

[Qvart]

Do most turntables need a phono pre-amp to be able to use then effectively with a power amp or into a mixer ==> powered monitors?

I have a relatively new but reasonably inexpensive Numark model.

Yes. But the one I just got has a built in preamp so it can go through a receiver channel other than "phono" (however, the same audio out hookups are used for both so I can't switch between them without unplugging the phono hookup). Also has USB out and Audacity software for ripping LPs. Need to play with this some more because the input level going into the computer is too high.

Vinyl? Very inconvenient.

Yep. And that's sort of the point - as I said earlier in the thread, the easier it is to amass a huge (digital) music collection the less I actually absorb the music. When it comes to LPs I only buy ones that I really want to listen to. Putting on a record is more of a commitment to listening and I'm more likely to get through the entire album. And vinyl sounds so good (a lot of records now are heavier pressings than records in the past and are geared more towards audiophiles). Also, many records these days come with download codes for digital copies so I'm not stuck just listening to them at home. And the ones that don't come with a code - I can rip them. Win win win.

 

[Qvart]

Rather than just buy records willy-nilly, I am taking this opportunity to make a kind of top-50-records-of-all-time list and BUY IT.

The list will be slanted towards the autobiographical. In other words, even if Sgt. Pepper is the greatest album ever, I didn't listen to it all that much (who listens to the Beatles anymore anyway? *runs and hides*), so anyway, Sgt Pepper is not in the top 50. One magical summer, I only had one tape in my car, and it was Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, and I listened to that thing at least 1000 times. So it IS on the list.

Firehose - If'n

I should have read your list more closely when you posted it. Didn't notice fIREHOSE on there. IMO, "Ragin' Full On" is their best album. Go get it! And on a related note: I've found myself diggin' the Minutemen again for the first time in a long time and have recently picked up "Double Nickels on the Dime," "Three-Way Tie for Last," and "Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat." Great records.

I'm with you on not feeling the need to buy LPs of stuff I've heard a gazillion times, but (like I said earlier) someone gave me a good pressing of "Are You Experienced?" and I've definitely enjoyed the sound of Hendrix on 180-gram vinyl. \m/'-_-'\m/