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s/o @LLQ the format you used was good..
1. My X/1999 collection (ignore Ai) Actually Ai being included is kinda perfect. X was never finished but I love it dearly. I loved Oshi No Ko until it was finished because the ending was actually so bad it undermined everything that happened in the 4 year run it had. CLAMP's art is beautiful.. I stumbled upon it once many years ago online scraping through anime websites. Much later on I was trying to remember it's name and had to dedicate a few days of searching to rediscover it. Now I own it all as well as the short anime run it had. 2. Signed Tailwhip 7" Yeah so I camped out after the first Men I Trust headline show I went to. I waited outside with maybe 6 other people for an hour and a half. It was freezing mid December in Boston but it was a nice time talking with them. This was the first show I went to alone. To this day I feel awful about it because it was the last night of their tour and they probably wanted to just drive home but at the time I was ecstatic. Just saw them twice this weekend I love the band so much still 3. Cloud Cuckoo Land So I believe this is the first book I read as an adult outside of school. It was either this or Richard Powers' Overstory. Both of which are fantastic. This book in particular is a $50 Barnes and Noble collectors version which I bought for $2 at a used bookstore. It was essentially brand new. I then proceeded to nosebleed on it while reading in the car. So it is mine now and forever. 4. Quasi zine On their last run of US shows, I bought this on the first night up in Boston. Later that summer I spent a couple nights in Manhattan to see Liana Flores and Quasi again back to back. This was a week before my knee surgery and effectively the last cool thing I would be doing for the summer. I finally got to talk to Sam after this show. He's one of my favorite music people ever and was so surreal to talk to for a bit. 5. Lady Brown single The first record I ever bought. This is my favorite Nujabes song. Never took it out of the plastic š. I grew out of records anyways, too big and fragile.. I always treat them like I'm handling glass and it makes me anxious.. but anyways, he defined my late middle school/early high school music taste. The sample used would later get me *wayy* into classical guitar. On a lot of fronts this music was super formative for me and the record had a place on my wall for a very long time before moving it to a crate.
1. My X/1999 collection (ignore Ai) Actually Ai being included is kinda perfect. X was never finished but I love it dearly. I loved Oshi No Ko until it was finished because the ending was actually so bad it undermined everything that happened in the 4 year run it had. CLAMP's art is beautiful.. I stumbled upon it once many years ago online scraping through anime websites. Much later on I was trying to remember it's name and had to dedicate a few days of searching to rediscover it. Now I own it all as well as the short anime run it had. 2. Signed Tailwhip 7" Yeah so I camped out after the first Men I Trust headline show I went to. I waited outside with maybe 6 other people for an hour and a half. It was freezing mid December in Boston but it was a nice time talking with them. This was the first show I went to alone. To this day I feel awful about it because it was the last night of their tour and they probably wanted to just drive home but at the time I was ecstatic. Just saw them twice this weekend I love the band so much still 3. Cloud Cuckoo Land So I believe this is the first book I read as an adult outside of school. It was either this or Richard Powers' Overstory. Both of which are fantastic. This book in particular is a $50 Barnes and Noble collectors version which I bought for $2 at a used bookstore. It was essentially brand new. I then proceeded to nosebleed on it while reading in the car. So it is mine now and forever. 4. Quasi zine On their last run of US shows, I bought this on the first night up in Boston. Later that summer I spent a couple nights in Manhattan to see Liana Flores and Quasi again back to back. This was a week before my knee surgery and effectively the last cool thing I would be doing for the summer. I finally got to talk to Sam after this show. He's one of my favorite music people ever and was so surreal to talk to for a bit. 5. Lady Brown single The first record I ever bought. This is my favorite Nujabes song. Never took it out of the plastic š. I grew out of records anyways, too big and fragile.. I always treat them like I'm handling glass and it makes me anxious.. but anyways, he defined my late middle school/early high school music taste. The sample used would later get me *wayy* into classical guitar. On a lot of fronts this music was super formative for me and the record had a place on my wall for a very long time before moving it to a crate.
+4
6d ago
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this isn't a particularly rare vinyl release at all - it's still widely in print and very affordable. it's an album very very widely considered a classic. but it is, I think, the moment when I realised what makes buying music more satisfying of an experience than the lifetime of piracy I'd built up to that point.
it comes with a handful of prints and illustrations that really expand upon the feeling of the album. the record itself isn't even labelled, there's no tracklist, the sides are engraved with their descriptions "nervous, sad, poor" and "bleak, uncertain, beautiful". but most notably of all, each of these releases comes with a penny flattened on train tracks behind the studio it was recorded in. I've heard stories of copies of this album coming with handwritten notes of thanks from the label.
it was the first time I think I realised the love and the immense effort that goes into putting music out independently like this, even long after the recordings are done. I mean, I get that this one's a very special case - a lot of high-effort touches to really drive home the art, and to keep doing them decades after the album released. but I think picking this up is a big reason why I'm still buying vinyl ten years later.
the album still absolutely rips, of course.
it comes with a handful of prints and illustrations that really expand upon the feeling of the album. the record itself isn't even labelled, there's no tracklist, the sides are engraved with their descriptions "nervous, sad, poor" and "bleak, uncertain, beautiful". but most notably of all, each of these releases comes with a penny flattened on train tracks behind the studio it was recorded in. I've heard stories of copies of this album coming with handwritten notes of thanks from the label.
it was the first time I think I realised the love and the immense effort that goes into putting music out independently like this, even long after the recordings are done. I mean, I get that this one's a very special case - a lot of high-effort touches to really drive home the art, and to keep doing them decades after the album released. but I think picking this up is a big reason why I'm still buying vinyl ten years later.
the album still absolutely rips, of course.
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Too tough to pick just one, I mean LCDās self titled, Obscured By Clouds, All Things Must Pass, Crush, Longwave, The OOZ, pretty much every Kurt Vile recordā¦ all goated in my eyes. Iāll use my cop out answer to highlight 2 of my favorite contemporary album artists.
First, local dude Perry Shall, who has designed many releases on Dan Auerbachās label Easy Eye Sound. Some great Shannon & The Clams covers, an overlooked but incredibly solid Radiator Hospital album ā I especially love his portrait style covers. I certainly ripped that template when designing the bootleg cover in the pinned post on my page. Which leads into artist #2ā¦
Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts fame has also designed each of the bandās releases, plus an Ultimate Painting split on Woodsist, plus Iām pretty sure both of his solo albums. Light Up Gold, Human Performance, Wide Awake!! Cāmonā¦ check out the portfolio section on his website, too, for some paintings from over the years. Asked To Leave and In Texas No Less are two of my faves.
Aug 22, 2024
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Wanted to talk about this album a little because I just bought AG Cook tickets and I am so excited to see him live again. Maybe there is some bias here, but Iām not an actual music journalist so yeah, Iām going with my opinions.Ā
AG Cook is a pioneer to modern electronic music, and laid a lot of groundwork for what is now understood as modern hyperpop. Before hyperpop, it was PC Music, the label made under his creative expertise, housing artists that took on this electronic, avant-garde approach to their music that wasnāt really being seen anywhere else. PC Music was both an actual music label, but also served as a genre title for artists like SOPHIE, Hannah Diamond, Danny L Harle, amongst many. PC Music kind of birthed 100 gecs and a lot of modern āhyperpopā artists.
Britpop is Cook's 3rd studio album having been released in May 2024. Note that a few months prior the official PC Music accounts announced that the label was not going to continue on with releasing music, and would only continue to be around for archival purposes. I could get into maybe why this is the case, but to put it shortly I think that Cook and other high ups involved with PCMus figured that this niche style of music has begun to go mainstream, so they were not necessarily the hub that housed and promoted all of the artists of this style. And sometimes, good things just need to come to an end. PCMus was never the same after the unfortunate passing of SOPHIE, but its resident artists continue to create and release fantastic, boundary-pushing pop music.
Though this whole record, isnāt really Britpop by definition, a genre of the 90s in the UK that was led by the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Suede - an alternative rock sound that pulled influence from the 1960s sound that was defined by the Beatles. It also was a direct response to the rise in Grunge in the US. Perhaps an electronic approach is a new way of understanding britpop in an even fresher way, when bands in the 90s took from the 60s, now in the 2020s we are taking from the 90s. I think you could argue thereās some of that influence in this record.
This nearly 2 hour long record is noisy in the best ways, dizzying and almost magical. Cook does a great job at building soundscapes, and there are universes that exist within the Britpop album. Some notable tracks is the title track āBritpopā that features vocals from none other that Charli xcx, a longtime collaborator and friend to Cook. (I could write a whole post on their growth and dynamic as a duo. Soon!!) Other tracks that stand out to me was the almost sugary sound of Crescent Sun, which may or may not be my favorite track on the album, despite only being the 5th track of a 24 track album. It builds up beautifully and crescendos in a way that feels fully realized. It was an incredible song to hear live as well, I might add. Some other notable tracks would be Heartache, Serenade, Greatly, Bewitched, and Lucifer. There is definitely a narrative in this album, which is why it is laid out into 3 discs, Past, Present and Future. Starting out with a classic sound expected of Cook or any PCMus adjacent artist, this past sound is something we are familiar with- but it does not feel like it has been overdone.Ā The Present disc shows the most britpop influences, having a very grunge-esque, rock sound to it, using a lot of guitar. The Future disc moves back into a more understood and evolved idea of what Cook's signature sound is, and what the PC Music legacy really is.Ā
In whole this album takes a lot from his previous two albums, but utilizes his signature style in a way that feels much more cohesive as an entire album.
I donāt hesitate to say that AG Cook is one of the greatest producers in our lifetime, and his work is seen across many artists and genres, and his own personal projects prove his status as legendary time and time again. I had the pleasure of catching one of his sets at the SF Electronic/Dance music festival - āPortolaā and it was one of the highlights of my weekend. I was super excited to hear he announced a standalone show in San Francisco, I already secured my tickets. If you havenāt listened to any of Cookās personal projects, I highly recommend it. If you stumbled upon Charli xcx through BRAT, AG Cook is essential listening if you want to dive more into her sonic universe and the people that orbit within it.Ā
Mar 7, 2025
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šMy god everything is experienced better this way. Stop looking at guides, walkthroughs, endings explained (my least favorite), even the blurbs on the back. Such a rare opportunity in this time to go into something without knowing anything about it, yet so rewarding. To be pleasantly surprised or blown away, to have no idea whatās happening, to find that you really didnāt like it, an opinion formed on your own.. nothing is more valuable
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In the future I hope I will have a cool local diner to do this at
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šYou know who you are.. the website is a better place with you here.. thanks for all the tea LOL