AMSR Edition

Hullo,

In this edition of SULTTS I go through everything from - 2025 best selling vinyl, the Brits, Cochella, Carol G, Massive Attack, Mitski, Angine de Poitrine (of course)...

Plus the sound of an idiot versus shrink wrap!  What more could you want (or indeed need)?

Bon app

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Right in the middle, and it's a real chunky boy.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Shut up! Listen to the songs.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello and welcome back to Shut Up and Listen to the Songs with me, Ben Wilson, your idiosyncratic host to a music podcast of all things good listening. So that's good albums, good vinyl, um, and the record collecting experience. Um so yeah. I hope it's finds you well and uh full of the joys of spring and energy and a rejuvenation uh that comes at this time of the year. Um I'm sorry I've been away for so long. Um I've I've genuinely been hibernating both uh physically and mentally. I've been uh going through that big stash of nuts that I kept uh vinyl wise, and I've been uh been going through those records, uh sampling them, tasting them, keeping me sustained, and yeah, now I'm now I'm ready to tell you all about them. Um and so yeah, uh today this finds us on a North London path where um there'll be various cyclists and dog walkers um as as it takes us uh to the chief yeah, so this episode, keep it nice and brief. Um I've got some really good ideas um that I really want to share with you guys. So this one is just to get it bang out the door. Hi, how you been? Catch up, and uh yeah, let's carry on. So um yeah, we're gonna do a little bit of news, a little bit of reviews, um, a little bit of uh vinyl geekery, and then we're gonna surmise with a bit of the current hot topic, which is Angine de Boudrine. Um so yeah, uh, I have thoughts. So yeah, news. A few things to round up. Um I thought it'd be quite interesting to go through the best-selling vinyl albums of 2025. Um, I don't think there's any really great big surprises here, it's dominated, um, especially in the UK, by a lot of the big names. Taylor Swift, her album last year is top of that, and I think it's probably all the other albums combined, uh, what she sold for that. Um, you've got People Watching by Sam Fender, you've got a couple of uh the classic Oasis albums in there, and you've got Sabrina Carpenter, Oliver Dean's album, Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, which is like the pig in syphilis of uh vinyl issues. I mean, I'm gonna cover this particular album um and its persistence uh in future detail, but yeah, needless to say, why why do we need more copies? Um Romance by Fontaines DC is number eight in the UK, which I think is brilliant considering it came out a couple years ago, but you know, people are still getting around to experiencing it and enjoying it and wanting to own it, so that's great. Um, and then seeing out the top 20, we've got the reissue of Readyhead's OK Computer, AM by Arctic Monkeys, Billy Eilish, the new pulp album got in there, number 14, uh Lady Gargar's latest album, um, the Chapel Rowan album, um In Rainbows by Ready Head, The Clearing by Wolf Alice, Grace by Jeff Buckley, and Wish You Were Here, the Um the Reissue Last Year by Pink Floyd made up the top 20. So there's a really kind of nice mixture between uh classic classic albums, rumours Wish You Were Here, um, you know, more vintage was less vintage albums like the Oasis Ones and Okay Computer, going um more contemporary like in Rainbows and Arctic Monkeys, and then you've got um you know your your contemporary albums like Pulp and then all of the pop artists like Chapel Roan, Billy Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Dean, and obviously um the Big T at the top of the tree there. And looking at the American top ten best-selling albums, it's actually quite similar. You've got Kendrick Lamar that's in the top three there. Um yeah, you've got Michael Jackson, uh Thriller, and yeah, you've got Tyler the Creator singing in the top ten oh and uh the weekend uh with uh their classic Hurry Up Tomorrow, um which I've not actually had. Anywho, so the headline is that vinyl sales actually grew 13.3% year on year, with 7.6 million units shifted, which is up 900,000, um, and it's the 18th year of growth, which is pretty impressive. Um I know these are quite hard economic times for for most people. Um so yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens with that trend. Um, will it continue at a lesser pace or will it plateau? Will people look for better value in secondhand records? Um, you know, or will the the overall record economy slow down? Um either way, I'll be here. Other interesting things, uh, we had the Brit Awards earlier this year. I'm trying to remember some highlights. Um, you know, I'm not the the Brit Awards aren't for me, you know, shocker alert. Um, you know, Wolf Allerdis played and they were great, they gave a really impassioned speech about um the music industry and about how it needs to be more sustainable for bands to develop and tour and you know get out there and see people. Um, but yeah, it is all about the big pop hitters. So I think Olivia Dean was the big winner for the Knights. Um there was uh comeback performances by Harry Styles, which is great if you like that sort of thing. Um the the thing which would have made the whole event worthwhile watching was the Rosalia live performance that featured East Two Moore and of course Björk um doing that Bergheim track, you know, just doing it live with a massive German choir. Um was just batshit. I mean, yeah, really, really far out there. Um so that was that was a definite highlight of the year so far. Um we also had the Six Music Festival, which I'll be honest completely passed me by, um, except the Jacob Alon performance. I listened to that um and I saw a bit of the video of it, and yeah, it looked great. I've been into their albums so much over the winter, it's been it's been really lovely having a vinyl copy of In Limerence, um, so that's done me really well. Also, just this weekend gone, we had the return of Coachella, which is basically the starting pistol for festival seasons across the world, um, or I should say maybe in the Northern Hemisphere. Massive, massive events, it's over two weekends now, and you've got just huge international names. And if there's ever one way to make yourself feel as if you're really, really out of date and you don't know what's going on, have a look at the lineup because yeah, there's just so much. Um, it was headlined by Justin Bieber, um Sabrina Carpenter, I believe, and Carol G. Um, none of those I've heard much music by. Um, and I did look into it to see if Carol G was in any way related to 80s, early 90s uh children's entertainer Bob Carol G's. Um but I've not been able to find any any connection there. Um but hey, we'll news as we get it. But by all accounts, Coachella was what you'd expect. It was hot, dusty, expensive. A lot of people go there just to be seen and to wear their latest fashion purchases. So I I hope they enjoyed it. Lovely, good stuff. Another little tidbit of news is that the Help 2 album was released. This was a native war child, it had a host of really brilliant artists all coming together and wanting to raise funds for the great work that they do. Um, one of them being Arctic Monkeys, and they came back with a song called Opening Night. I believe it was a a song they had in the locker from a previous album, um, but they dusted it down, and yeah, it sounded it sounds great. It's proper soft rock, Arctic Monkeys, and yeah, if that's if that's what they've got uh coming back, then I'm so ready for it. That would that really would uh make my year.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Shop! I'll listen to the songs.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

But yeah, moving on to some album reviews. Um I picked up quite a lot of albums of uh late and I want to try and do that whole kind of classic album, contemporary album thing. So the two albums I'd like to talk about in this edition are the latest release by Mitsuki, Nothing's About to Happen to Me, and the classic album I'd like to cover is Mezzanine by Massive Attack. So the Mitsuki album, I believe this is her eighth release. Um she's been incredibly prolific. She kind of transcends quite a lot of genres at the moment. I saw her come up in a list of like slacker rock albums, um, but also I find that she's like quite well, she's super indie and she's really folky. Um, and I think the fact that she's got so many albums is a sign that she's really just on it, that that it's an artist that's not overthinking anything, and that you know it's all kind of coming straight from the heart, and that it's yeah, it it's yeah, it's not being overthought, it's not being overproduced, and it's just like, yep, this is it, this is my album this year, you know, great stuff. I really enjoyed listening to Laurel Hell a couple of years ago. Um, and so yeah, I thought this was um yeah, definitely worth uh a spin. It's got a really nice uh cover, it's uh it's an oldie style painting of a cat on a rug against a green wall, and the cat's got one yellow eye, one blue eye, and then just in the corner of the picture, um, and then it kind of goes onto the back cover, you've got um it looks like it's another cat that's kind of jumping off a table and breaking a vase and is kind of attacking this white cat, and this cat's got like um orange and black stripes, uh, like a miniature tiger, which looks really nice. Um and then you've got a nice gatefold which continues the um continues the inside of the room with a small portrait of the artist and the vinyl itself um is a really nice yellow pressing. It's got a nice inner sleeve with notes on each track to say who plays which instruments, um, and the back cover of the inner sleeve um is a nice uh cartoon picture of a rug. So um it's got a really nice theme to the packaging. It yeah, it looks really really nice. It's a really nice uh yellow vinyl. Um yeah, most importantly, the tunes they sound really nice, um, they're really enjoyable, they're really easy to appreciate, there's nothing overly complicated or pretentious here. You know, it's guitar, bass, drums, um, some keys. I think there's really nice country vibes with some uh lap pedals, some lap steel going on. Um, and I would categorize this as a perfect album to listen to on a Sunday morning. It's really nice, it's really undemanding. Um, and I know in some ways that sounds like damning faint praise, but I think yeah, there's always a time and a place for albums that are just really nice, really easy to listen to. She's got a lovely voice. Um you know she talks um she talks about like her hometown um and kind of how everybody everybody knows you and uh you know yeah, you can't get away from your first loves and stuff like that, uh which is all super relatable. And yeah, I I I really do recommend this album. It's nice. Um I think for the music I probably yeah, I give it an 8 out of 10. And uh likewise for the packaging, hmm, I'm going to give it a I'm gonna give it a nine. Um I would have liked to download code, but then again I always do. Um one really small, and this is quite geeky, interesting uh thing. The tune Where's my phone, which was my uh which was the lead single coming back with this, has actually got a bleep in it, as in they've bleeped out the swearing. And I'm like, why would you do that on on your own album? You can say whatever you like. That's the point of releasing your own albums. Um, I don't know whether that was left in there by error and they accidentally slipped the radio edit in there. Um, yeah, just a bit bizarre. I've I've never seen it on a record before. Um, you know, so there's there's always something new. But yeah, Mitsuki. Nothing's about to happen to me. Really good. Um but moving on, uh, to a slightly different kettle of fish. Uh we've got Massive Attacks Mezzanine, and this was released in originally in '98, I believe. 97, 98. Um, the I don't know if it was the follow-up to Blue Lines, I think it was the follow-up to Protection. Um, and anyway, everybody knows uh Teardrop, which is the very famous um Liz Var sung vocal uh tune that is obviously wonderful, and everybody does give it the flowers it deserves. Um I must admit I was always put off the album by the quite imposing cover. Um, you know, it's monochromatic, it's it's a close-up of a beatle of some sort with really scary talons, and it's just like, oh, what's gonna be inside here? I saw a video the other day, and the title of this video was Why Massive Attacks Mezzanine Still Sounds Like the Future. And I'm like, oh yeah, I've got to go get it then. If I love blue lines so much, which which all know I do, uh, I've got to get it, and yeah, oh wow, it is so brilliant. Um it's it kind of goes into that category that's so hard to describe um because it's such a wonderful blending of genres. Um, you know, the dub and the the bass, the bass sounds so heavy, um, but it also goes off quite jazzy in places and times, and um yeah, the beats they're super minimal, but you know, everything is just it's a perfect album for 3am in the morning. Um you know, there's not a single note or sound out of place with this, it just sounds so good and so rich. Um yeah, it's it's an absolutely brilliant album, and I must admit, um until the recent reissue, it had always been way out of my price bracket to get an original, and even the reissue um to buy alone is about 40 quid, which is a lot um for a new record. But I did find this in I think it was Rough Trade had a two for 55, um, and I'm just like, yeah, I'm gonna go for it, I'm gonna finally take the plunge, and I'm so glad I did. Um, final package wise, it comes on two records. They must have been remastered and pressed absolutely exquisitely because they sound so wonderful. The only uh dash of colour is the label sticker, they're a bright orange, which really um sets it off. You've got to look really, really, really closely to see which side is which because they've put on the label sticker just the tiniest side A, B, C, or D. Um, it's kind of like you know the bottom row of the opticians, they've got that board to sit to read the letters. So, yeah, that's that's my only little comment on the the vinyl packaging, but otherwise, yeah, it's great, it's a it's a double album, but it just comes in bon sleeve, it's not a gatefold, which I'm absolutely fine with. Um so yeah, music wise, I give it a ten. I really do. It's just it's just absolutely brilliant, unbelievable. And uh vinyl package wise, I give it a nine. Um yeah, it's it's really really great.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Shut up and listen to the songs.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Hello and welcome back to Shut Up and Listen to the Songs. I've come inside now, um, I'm uh sat beside my vinyl collection and I want to spend a few minutes talking to you about something which is quite niche and um quite geeky in the vinyl sphere. I know, massive surprise. Um, but also it's kind of something that's got a bit of nuance to it, and so I thought even as an experienced collector, it'd be worth taking a bit of time to discuss it. Um so if you are just coming into vinyl and you're a bit unsure about what to do about the subject, then you know this may give you some guidance. Um the subject is the packaging which comes in and around your vinyl records. Um, this can take many different forms, um, and some have pros to them about keeping them or getting rid of them. Um, some you may want to um get something else to do the job for. Um, usually when you buy a brand new record from a store, it will come in a shrink wrap. Um there's there's one main reason why records are shrink wrapped, um, and that is to stop it getting scratched on the way to the point of being purchased. Obviously, if you're a record manufacturer and you're making hundreds or thousands of records, you want them to arrive in the store, but you realize that on the way there from the pressing plant that the cover may get scratched, um, and that you don't want the store selling the records to return them to the presser as you know being unsellable. And so a shrink wrap is a cheap and convenient way of the manufacturers to kind of protect a record against the most common kind of damage that it may get in the process of getting into your hands or getting you to part with your money for it. Um, and so you'll see a lot of records. In fact, you'll see all records, they all come shrink wrapped. Um, just a few notes on shrink wraps. Um you may be super excited when you've got your new record to have a look inside, to have a look at the inner bits of there, um, and to see the vinyl itself, and you may think, oh, I've got a bit of a nail, I can I can open the shrink wrap along the open edge, the the right hand edge of that with my nail, and you'll take your nail and you'll run it right down the sleeve, and you'll get the worst ever card card underneath your nail, which will hurt like video. And also, um, whilst obviously thin plastic is easily rippable, um, they can be surprisingly strong on the on the top spine, on the top edges of the records, and so sometimes you can think, oh excuse me, I'll just pull it off, and the top edge will pull the card down if you um if you've only got like a single um a single vinyl cover, um, it's not a gatefold. And so um irrespective of whether you keep or remove the shrink, um, you know, my advice is to always be a bit careful about that. And if uh if you can wait to get home to get a nice uh nice appropriate implement to help remove the shrink, um, then yeah, I really do recommend doing that. Um and as you may be able to tell, I'm not a great fan of shrink wraps because um if we talk about our record covers, they can be they can be glossy, as in they can have like a slightly plastic laminate finish to them, which kind of keeps them nice and shiny, and um, you know, that that's great for keeping them clean as well, or they can be matte card. Um, however, with whatever kind of card that they're printed on, it looks rubbish with a shrink wrap because they all wrinkle and they all um I can't think of anything good to say about how an album cover looks in a shrink wrap compared to how it looks out of the wrap in its proper state, um, looking looking all really nice. One good thing about a shrink wrap though, um, and the reason why I recommend you to get um dedicated covers for your records. So these would be UPVC um sleeves for your records to go inside, is that they do indeed keep um keep the grease on your fingers off the record covers. Um and so some people I know they'll just keep the records in the shrink, which as I say, I think aesthetically looks really rubbish. Um some people will have the naked covers in their record collection. Um you know, this looks good, um, but you're going to get um greasy marks from your fingers, um and you're going to get dust in your living conditions, uh in in your uh your record covers. Um and some people say, Oh, I don't really have greasy fingers. Um and I would say, Yeah, go uh go touch a mirror with your fingers and you'll leave a mark. You know, just because you can't see it on the record doesn't mean that you're not on the record cover, doesn't mean you're not doing that when you touch them. So something like a UPVC sleeve. Um, I've got one here. You can pick them up for about 50 pence in a record store. Um, you know, any good record store should sell their secondhand records with one of these, um, and you know, you can just go to the counter and ask to buy some record sleeves. If you ever can't find a record that you want to buy, buy some record sleeves because um they'll help look after your records and keep them in a good condition. Whilst we're on the subject of um sleeves, sometimes you will buy a record and it will come in kind of like a halfway house between a UPV sleeve and a strink. I don't know if you can hear that. It's it's a very clear, thin um jacket, and the reason why it's a jacket is because on one edge you will have a sticky, a sticky side. Yeah, you've got a sticky um band there, and then you've kind of got an envelope that steals um steals the rest of the sleeve over there. Um it's quite rare that you come across uh this kind. This one that I've got in my hand at the moment is from my Rolling Stones mono box set. Um and so all of the records that have this also have a protective box. And what I would recommend beyond anything at all is if you get a standalone record and it's got any kind of adhesive surface on it, so anything where even if it has a little plastic flap to cover that adhesive surface, please, please, please remove it. If you can't take off the adhesive, then get rid of the whole cover because what will happen is that you will have this record, this standalone record, you'll go put it in your shelf, in your um your case with all the others, and invariably the the movement of the record going in and out will take off or expose the adhesive to the record that it's sitting next to, and then when you come to take out one of those other records, the adhesive will just tear against the surface of the adjacent records cover, and you'll get a tear on a really favourite record of yours through through just really bad design. Um, and yeah, do not do not let it happen to you, please. Um, if you ever have um any kind of adhesive on your record covers, get rid of them. They are just they're just gonna cause you misery. Umfortunately, we live in an age where the stickers which come on records, um, either be the price sticker or a hype sticker, which I'll get on into a moment, um, they're usually made with pretty good adhesives, so they'll come off cleanly and they won't, and hopefully, they won't be leaving like a tide mark on your record cover. Um, again, good record stores put all of their secondhand records in a UPVC cover, and it's on the cover that the the price sticker is. I think it is. Um anyway. Um, yeah, covers get UP VC covers, they'll look after your records, um, and you know, they'll stop them getting dusty and they'll stop them getting greasy, um, and yet you can still see the covers through them really nicely, and they don't impede you getting the record in and out of it. Um, because another reason, and sorry to wang on about shrinks, you know, it's like why is this guy going on about shrink wrap records? Um, because the collecting world of records still really values a thin bit of plastic which your record is wrapped around, and to be honest, I just find that absolutely bonkers because it doesn't s say anything about the condition of the record or how good the record is or how well you've treated the record, it just means you've been able to look after a thin bit of plastic that the record originally came in. You know, you could have left it um next to a radiator in a smoky flat, you know, that's damp and mouldy, um, you know, absolutely ruining and decimating the record. But people go, oh, it's still shrink wrapped, and it's like, oh yeah, big whoop. Um, so yeah, if there was one thing I could change about the record collecting community, it would be this obsession with shrink wrapping and overvaluing records just because they've got a bit of shrink wrap on, which let's be honest. Um, you know, I can shimmy the shrink off a record and then I could put it back on again if I wanted to sell it 20 years later, or I could just re-shrink wrap it, you know. It's you know, obviously you'd be able to tell, but it it really is a bit stupid in my belief. Um, but it kind of brings me on to um another point about shrink wrapping records and also about stickers, because quite often um a record label will want to put a sticker on a record to kind of give you extra incentive um to buy this record, and if it's on the shrink, you've then got the choice of either keeping the nice sticker or having to keep the shrink wrap, which to be honest, I think is just a bit rubbish. Um, and what is even more annoying is when the the artist has the their name and the album's name on a sticker on the shrink wrap, and so if you want you know to keep keep a record of what the album is, you know, uh you know you have to keep a shrink wrap on, or um I have an original copy of Arcade Fire's Neon Bible here. Because the shrink wrap goes over the gatefold, i.e., it's two records, one on each half of the sleeve. You know, I've either got the choice of keeping it in the shrink wrap because they've put a clear sticker on the front saying arcade fire neon Bible. Um, you know, or if I want to enjoy the gatefold, I have to um take the shrink wrap off. Um, and you know, as much as I hate shrink wraps, I've kept this one for 20 years now, um, and so I'm a bit loath to break it. Um, you know, when yeah, it can may well be adding to the value of the record. Um but I'm trying to see what the what the gatefold for the image inside is. Umpe, nope, I can't see that, so it's effectively not there, which let's be honest, is is really rubbish. Um so yeah, uh Perspect stickers on um shrink wraps, please just don't do them, they're they're really really rubbish. And it was this album that I recently got hold of Jacob Alon's In Limerence, where it's a really cool cover, um, but again, the only way of knowing the artist and the album title, it was a perspective sticker in the top left-hand corner. Um and you know, I didn't want the choice of not having the record look look really nice, I didn't want it all kind of crinkly with light reflecting off it. Um, and yet I also do want to know who the artist and what the album title is. Um, because you know if you're if you're an artist, spoiler alert, I'm not, um, and you think your album on its cover alone is so iconic that you're never gonna need um to tell people who you are or what your record title is, then uh have a word, you know, please check yourself. Um, you know, a lot of most records will be sold at some point and they'll go through a secondhand shop, and people do need to know what this album is. So the idea that you're you're saying to people you've either got to keep a shrink wrap on because that's where the title is, or you you take that off and you nobody's ever not nobody's ever gonna know what the album is, but yeah, um, it is really frustrating. But I saw a guy on YouTube, I believe his name was um X Junkie NL. Um he had various um tips and tricks about uh records, and one of them was is that if you've if you've removed the shrink, um so you've peeled it off, but you've got a sticker that you want to keep. What you can do is you can take one of your UPVC covers and put um the transparent sticker on the UPVC cover as if it was a shrink, so you keep the sticker in the same place in your Pur Space cover. Um and they had um it was quite impressive, a can of very cold air, so this is pressurized chilled air, and basically what that did is that it froze the sticker as it was on the shrink so that it came off still with its stickiness to it, and then when um when the sticker warmed up, you could put it reattach it to um the UPVC cover and it would stick in the same place, and it does look pretty good. Um I did that with my Jacob Alon album. I've got it stuck in the same place, and and I'm quite pleased. And so I'm gonna do that uh with a couple of other albums where they've got um transparent stickers that I'm not really very fond of. So um going through my records here. This one though is a a recent issue of uh Bombay Bicycle Club's debut album. I had the blues but shook them loose. And you've got the scene of uh people in a park where somebody's being thrown into the air. Um and what they've done is that they've put the album sticker right in the middle, and it's a real chunky boy, it's about um 15 centimeters wide and 10 centimeters high. Um and yeah, I don't want to have to have the choice of you know not um not knowing what the album is or you know having to keep the shrink because around the rest of the sticker it just looks quite rubbish. So what I'm going to do, um I don't have a can of cold air because basically this guy to remove one 5 centimetre by 5 centimetre sticker, I used a whole can and I don't know how much these things cost, but that seemed um a bit wasteful if I'm being honest. So I've got my replacement sleeve, I'm lining it up of where it should be. Um, you can take a photo, that's always quite a good idea. I've got myself a knife, um, it's a kitchen one, um, because I want quite a decent sized blade and I want something that's going to be able to really get underneath uh that thin sticker. Obviously, bee knife safe. Um, if you're old enough to be listening to this, I presume you know the safe way to hold a knife. Um, but yeah, if you're in the slightest bit unsure, do you get help? And so yeah, I'm just gently teasing that big sticker off. And rather than pull the sticker and damage, well, I will be damaging the shrink, I'll be taking it off. Yeah, that would be that's beating it off quite nicely. Okay, so the sticker has come off. Voila. Uh, we've put the record in the UPV sleeve. UPVC sleeve. Um, just a quick note on sleeves. The other kind of sleeves that you used to get back in the day were polyethylene ones. So um this is a kind of plastic that was great at the time, but it would degrade over time, and you can really tell these old kind of sleeves because they go quite they go quite brittle, these covers, um, and they're also quite damaging for your vinyl because um basically the polymers in them kind of migrate through the records when they degrade. It's it's really not it's not nice to your records. You may see if you go to a charity shop, a lot of the old uh Rogers and Hammerstein ones in these kind of um in these old sleeves, they kind of they bubble, they bubble a bit. Um, so yeah, if you do see one, um, do get rid of them if it's a record you really want, and uh yeah, just be really careful with them. Speaking of being careful, I've got your one-way bicycle club. I'm just lining it up so that it's in the middle. And I'm gonna make sure that I press it out from the edge so I don't get any air bubbles.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

That's a big airpocket.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Okay, and there it is, it's back on there. Um, it looks exactly the same as it did when it was on the shrink. And yeah, so I now got the choice of having the cover with the sticker on it, so it looks as if how the band wanted it, or indeed, if I don't want the sticker on the front, I can just turn the record over within the cover, and there it is without it as well. So that's brilliant. And best of all, it means that I can take the shrink off. Goodbye, shrinky dink. Do a nice tear.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Oh yeah. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

So yeah, that for me is a record in its prime condition. Because you know, the thing about keeping shrink on is that it's kind of like life's too short for things to stay shrink-wrapped. You know, you like you see these people of they've got their sofa from the 70s where their where their grandparents still kept it shrink-wrapped because they didn't want anything bad to happen to it, it had to be kept in really good condition. Um, whereas, you know, I think things should be enjoyed. You know, that's what we're all here for, that's what we all do everything for. So um, so yeah, get things out of the shrink. Um, I would say that some stickers I wouldn't advise you to take off if they even if they are on shrink, um, and doubly so if they're actually attached to the cover itself, because um, if it's an old record, it it will be kind of glued on um rather than stuck on. So for example, I've got an original copy of um Primal Scream Scream and Delica, where there is a there is a like quite a cool sticker on there saying like Primal Scream, Screaming Delica, and it says this sticker is removable, it's like a yellow um yellow oval with uh red type. However, it would have been removable like up to a year after it was pressed. Um, to do it now would would be sacrilege. Um, and I quite like that to be honest. So that's staying on there. Um, a few other interesting things to note in regards to like your record packaging. Um, sometimes you will see a card band that kind of goes around the spine of a record. This is called an obi strip. Um, it they originate from Japan, where um obviously Japanese people who wouldn't speak English uh needed to know the record's information, and so this was uh printed in Japanese who the band were, who the artist was, um, and um you know maybe any extra information about that. And the idea of putting these little card um liners uh around the spine of a record is kind of caught on. Um I've got one here which is uh Ali Farkatore's red album, and it's pressed on World Circuit Records. I think this is a uh 2020 pressing. Um I love this album, it's great. Uh, and it's really nice because they've given they've given us like a biography of uh Far Kali Tore about the recording of the album, um, about his career. Um it's it's really quite a nice little bump of information, and on the on the back cover side of the Obi-Strip, it's got a few more um album covers by him. It looks really great. Um, but of course, uh it's underneath the shrink wrap, so dun dun dun. I think we're gonna get rid of the shrink. And we're gonna put the whole thing, including the OB strip, into a UPVC cover. Oh yeah, that looks great. Um another kind of uh decoration you may get on your on your record is something called a belly band. So whereas an OV strip goes along the the spine from um the top to the bottom, a belly band will cover the middle of the record from left to right, um, and so it will kind of be covering the um the way of getting the the record out. And I suppose the thing is that it's a bit like oh, if you want to just tear it open and you're done with it, um you you can you can do that. Um I prefer to to slide mine off, um, and so you could either keep it separately um amongst the record, um, or also what I do is I instead of having it from left to right, I put it from top to bottom. So, for example, here I've got a copy of uh Fleet Fox's Live on Boston Harbor. This was the record store day issue. I think it's on clear or orange vinyl. Is it on? Oh no, it's on black vinyl. I think they they did a special pressing uh that wasn't record store day. Again, brilliant album. Um, and so it's shrink wrapped, um, and that's because it's got a record store day sticker on it. Um, you know, the whole record store day thing, um, I'll talk about another time, but I probably will keep this one in the shrink because yeah, it it probably does so much for the value of it that I would only ever regret removing the shrink as it's got the sticker. Um, you know, this belly band uh is quite extensive, it's about eight centimetres deep, and it's got the whole track list or 27 of them on there, and it's got the barcode on the back. Um, so yeah, that's another thing that you know is entirely uh personal preference and choice about what you want to do once you get your record home. So, you know, uh apologies if uh if I seem really unhinged through my my dislike of shrink wraps. Um, and yeah, I hope that kind of gives you a good idea of um you know kind of what to do with your. record packaging to keep to keep your records in a good condition um but also so that you can enjoy them and get you know get a lot of love from them um what others do i have no that's it for now so yeah I'm wrapping this bit up um and yeah take care listen to the songs brilliant thank you so much for listening to this episode um yeah I really hope there's not as long a delay until the next one um a few couple of small things email address it's shut up and listen to the songs at gmail.com I'm also on Instagram at uh shut underscore up underscore listen underscore pod um you know you'll find me with the the um silly logo there and um we're now also on youtube so I believe that's at shutup listen pod um yeah you can you can search that on YouTube and it should come up under the podcasts. Before we sign off today um I would just like to talk about the maths rock duo and Jean de Poitrine um because they've been blowing up the internet this year if you haven't heard them they're they're a maths rock duo one drummer um one guitarist um who plays a good double guitar it's like a bass and then a six string guitar um and they wear these these really ridiculous outfits they're basically monochrome so it's either like black with white polka dots or white with black polka dots and um the guitarist has this big inverted pyramid on his head and the drummer has a kind of like inflatable um almost like Mr Blobby esque costume and a reference of the kids there. Yeah it they look ridiculous they look like a fever dream a clown's fever dream so my first reaction when I saw this duo was oh shit oh shit is this what it's come to I can't believe it this is what people are having to do to get everybody's attention you know you've got to look so absolutely insane for people to even give you 10 seconds of their time to listen to what your music's like um and so I was I was a bit bummed out um I listened to the music and yeah it's it's terrible I'm not gonna lie um it's it's not um it's not easy on the ears so it's like a maths rock that uses lots of loops um you'll have um some effects and they'll kind of loop over each other and it kind of go into like this um maths rock sound collage thing um there's only two of them so it is quite minimal so I'd listen to them and then you know hadn't thought a huge amount but I kept on seeing them on the various uh feeds that I look at I did watch one of these uh little videos where somebody had said actually there's something quite interesting happening here because um if you look at their time signatures and if you look at the frets of their guitars they've actually got lots of half notes and so if you can picture a neck of a guitar where it's got all those metal bars they've actually got twice as many on this guitarist guitar so that he can play um half notes so this is the sound that's in between um more conventional notes and so they're going for quite an abstract sound and that the person that made this video um said that yeah this was quite it's quite an interesting artistic expression um not dissimilar to the the da da movements of the um the early 20th century and that their comparison was um when you had the invention of mass photography and you had everybody could recreate an image with perfect fidelity um that's when artists realize well why am I painting this this vase of flowers to look exactly the same um you know let's let's be abstract let's be expression expressionist and that's where you've got all these movements like Dadraism and um modernism surrealism and that actually as artists or music artists in the 21st century are facing an existential crisis with AI you know the fact that uh software can make can make sound that sounds um analogous to humans maybe these artists are saying well try and copy this motherfuckers you know this is this is something that you can't do you know this is like the blurring of the lines and yeah that surrealism um yeah and I thought that was quite an interesting point you know I kind of I touched upon it in my end of year review that maybe if it is gonna make artists kind of up their game then it's gonna be interesting to see what happens so and she padding no thank you um but in regards to uh expressionism and creativity and all that good jazz literally good jazz um then yeah wonderful so thanks again so much for listening um have a good rest of your day your week your month and I'll see you around take care songs