Readers recommendMusicReaders recommend: songs about hearing and playing records – results
Perusing the record shops and jukeboxes of the musical landscape, RR regular DarceysDad brings home a rich bag of goodies on display from last week’s topic
In this web-driven digital era, music is instantly available in so many ways that certain formats simply aren’t made any more. For some, that’s a concept hard to get your head around. There are still aficionados of the eight-track, and yes, everybody loves a mixtape cassette, but somehow, there is nothing quite like that simple flat disc of grooved plastic: the record.
This week’s topic tied in with Record Store Day, an event inextricably linked with the vinyl version of recorded music. So let’s start in one. Not Liverpool’s legendary Probe, which used to scare me, but in Pablo’s Record Shop. “Records are my weakness.” And from Winnipeg’s The Sound Exchange, Twilight Hotel sing “33, 45, 78, 16 … Viva la Vinyl”. It looks like there are enough records in that store to satisfy any Vinyl Fetishists, the title of a great two-minute blast of Oi! by the topically-named 45 Adapters.
A new record can be “a window into a far-off special world”. Bad Company’s schoolboy listener was inspired by the Beatles to become a musician with his own No 1 record. Although the song ends sadly for Johnny, the music transcends. Tom Tall wants to play guitar too, but only so he can learn the tune his baby adores, which he’s lost among his Stack-A-Records. Hang on – you’re a bloke, Tom, weren’t they alphabetised? Sequence matters, you know!
Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess sounds as if he’s already lost his girl; he’s left looking at “those records stacked up in the corner / in the order of when they were played / from that weekend I trace the moment / of when the last mistakes were made”. And Craig Finn has nothing else to do than play Kiss and Ozzy Osbourne LPs alone in his Rented Room. Oh come on guys, I’ve had enough of this self-pity. Get your coat; we’re going to the pub!
Time was you could walk into any bar, and for the cost of a coin, pick a favourite song to listen to. What a wonderful invention the jukebox was. As RR regular Pairubu noted, “lots of country songs feature jukeboxes”. Ashley Monroe’s modern effort “filled the jukebox full of quarters” in search of romance, however imperfect. Chromeo’s Wurlitzer, full of Old 45s, features in an ace video; my favourite of the week.
Party rather than pub? We’ll need a decent Sound System, so let’s use Steel Pulse’s. And Flytronix can supply the DJ, “hands holding a pitch black disc lifted from a record box / the vinyl’s deep furrows a circular path to a different dimension”. Wow. Er, have you got Blanket by Urban Species, mate? Yeah? Cool.
Time to go home. Shops still open? Good. We’ll nip into a shop in Birmingham for a browse with Brakes. What’s this? “I came across a compilation / Called Blues in a Minor Chord / I turned it over to read the sleeve notes / And a chill came up my spine.” Quite. You don’t get that from an MP3.
The playlist
Twilight Hotel – Viva La Vinyl
45 Adapters – Vinyl Fetishists
Tim Burgess – A Case For Vinyl
Ashley Monroe – You Ain’t Dolly
Flytronix – A Rosary for a Rhythm
Would you like to compile and write up a list of songs based on a Readers Recommend topic? We are currently seeking volunteers for topics launched on 7 May (election night - should be lively), and 14 May. Email peter.kimpton@theguardian.com to arrange.
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