Category: Vinyl

My second order from HHV arrived today, and the quality of these disks is just as amazing as the first.

Absolutely silent background, and a mastering job that is letting me hear things I've never heard before—and that's saying something considering the hundreds of times I've listened to these records over the years.

While I have it ripped from a borrowed CD in MP3 format, I never owned Tour De France on vinyl—at least not the full album and certainly not when it was initially released.

There's been an  (unobtainable) bootleg pressing of Computer World on yellow vinyl for years, but apparently it's so hinky not even Discogs will allow it to be sold through the website. That's one of the reasons I jumped on this:

Yes, I already own a copy of the original Man Machine from 1978 on red vinyl; one of my "holy grails." But it this is 180g vinyl and well, totally free of pops, clicks, and background noise. So it's justified…

About a month ago I ran across an ad for the soon-to-be-released reissue of all of Kraftwerk's albums. Being ein großer Fan, naturally this drew me in. But to be completely honest I was apprehensive. On first blush, it seemed like one of those "too good to be true" things that have burned me on more than one occasion in the past

First of all, they were coming from Germany, and since COVID, I've run into nothing but grief buying records from sellers in the country. Secondly, they intially seemed a bit pricey, but adjusting for inflation over the last fifty years, were really no more than what I'd pay for a good pressing back in the day. (This has helped me justify paying $25-35 for records that would've cost $8 in the late 70s.)

Still, I was tempted enough that I threw caution to the wind and ordered two albums. They arrived earlier this week, and I have to say any misgivings I may have had were blown away by spending an afternoon in absolute aural bliss.

The quality of these recordings is phenomenal. 180g vinyl. The background is absolutely silent; what you'd expect from digital but with the overall warmth of analog. And the packaging is beautiful.

This is why I spin vinyl.

So…needless to say, I went back online and ordered 3 more: The Man Machine, Tour de France, and Computer World. I'll post more after they arrive.

The other day, after posting about I Remember Yesterday, my friend Mark commented that he still had the original vinyl copy he'd bought new back in the day. I was about to send him an email stating that while I no longer had my original, I did have a vinyl copy and was going to email him a photo.

Well imagine my surprise when I went to the shelf and it was nowhere to be found. And then I remembered: I'd never actually replaced that particular release. I had it on CD, and I had an MP3 copy, but no vinyl.

A trip to Discogs took care of that post haste, and it arrived today.

Another record that's been on my radar for a couple years after seeing it on Instagram a while back was the Eurythmics picture disk pressing of Sweet Dreams are Made of This. Slowly making my way through my Discogs wish list, I actually ordered a copy of this back in February from a seller in France, but it never arrived, so he refunded the money. The offerings that showed up subsequently were uniformly graded VG or VG+, but I was holding out for NM (near mint) or—as unlikely as it seemed—M (mint). A NM copy at a very reasonable price finally showed up online about a month ago, so I went ahead and ordered it. This seller was in the UK, so I dropped some extra coin to get a tracking number this time. It only took about three weeks to get here, and it was exactly as described. Definitely "near mint" as described and worth the wait.

It took longer than expected, but I've managed to acquire another piece of Holy Grail vinyl I saw online a couple years ago. After seeing a photo of the red vinyl version of Kraftwerk's The Man Machine on Tumblr or some such, I subsequently tracked it down on Discogs late in 2018, but never thought I could justify buying a copy. (It typically sold for over $100 USD). I have a pristine copy on black vinyl that is one of the few records to survive from my original collection, bought new in 1978, but when I saw this I had to have it—sooner or later. I guess the analog gods were smiling upon me a month ago, becuase a copy came up for sale at a third of the typical asking price and I jumped on it. It seemed to take forever to get here from Germany, but it finally arrived yesterday and believe me, it was worth the wait.

The seller graded it very conservatively, assigning a VG (very good) rating to the sleeve and VG+ (very good plus) to the vinyl itself. After receiving it, however, I have to say the sleeve is mint, and the vinyl itself it NM (near mint).

The Man Machine is probably my favorite of all the recordings in Kraftwerk's extensive catalog.

It's red vinyl day up in here!

B-52s was domestic. Madonna was from Belguim. Both arrived the same day.

…I was gonna get it.

I. Love. To. Listen to. Beethoven.  BEE. THO. VEN.

When I finally get my first full paycheck (which is going to be a while because of the multitude of unpaid holidays I have to endure this time of year as a contractor) and have a bit of wiggle room, this is going to be my first splurge.

I have The Man Machine on black vinyl; in fact, it's one of the few recordings from my original collection to have survived the purge in the late 80s and remains in pristine condition, but damn…that red version is so sexy. I originally spotted it on Instagram, which in turn led me to Discogs. The pressings aren't that rare even though they seem to have been limited to distribution in France, but they aren't cheap, either.

First Narrows was the soundtrack for many a snowy commute while we lived in Denver, both while driving and while taking the train. I sang the praises of Loscil about a year ago, but somewhat surprisingly, I've never heard his music in non-digital format.

I don't remember what prompted me to seek it out on Discogs, but lo and behold there it was. I was very curious to hear it on a good stereo instead of just over headphones via my Mac or iPhone, so I paid the man and eagerly awaited this two-disk set.

It's awesome. As I've mentioned before, you don't realize how much you're missing until you hear something on vinyl after only being exposed to digital mp3 format. And as an added bonus, this set has an extra track that wasn't present in the digital release.

I can't recommend Loscil enough if you need some serious chill-out, leave the world behind music.