Since I’m still in too deep re: CD ownership (i.e., I bought so many back in the day, and they are pretty much worthless, so I might as well keep them, and since I have them I might as well buy some more) recently I’ve been looking at records I own that I would like to trade for the CD version. I really think hip-hop is meant for CD especially in the earlier days when they would squeeze 55+ minute albums on one record which is pretty bad for fidelity, and in general even if its 2 disks flipping the record 3 times across less than 80 minutes of music is sometimes kind of a vibe ruiner.
These 2 were originally on the list to swap, especially because neither are exactly the greatest album by their respective artists (although 8 diagrams is very underrated), but they are the rarest LPs I own and I’m a little bit afraid of people who spend over $100 on a used record (condition, shipping problems, etc.), so on my shelf they stay forever. I bought them at the same time from the the same store, clearly they were once owned by the same person. They were only 18 and 20 dollars respectively, the store was a small chain run by workers who didn’t know or care about any of the merchandise & had some kind of database/algorithm to price everything. I think these albums are so pricey because they came out in 2007-2008 which are the years I associate with the low point of vinyl popularity & anything after that being a revival thing. 8 Diagrams is a German import, which to this day is the only country they ever released a vinyl version. They both sound pretty good!
this has made me go at work this week, because it has been a handful at times, and because i so so sooo look forward to listen to some chilled synth tunes soon (well, at home and when it isn’t 100°F/30+°C but That Shall Pass)
I’m not a fan of backlog/collection websites, but I’ve bought/sold/traded so many records and CDs over such a long time, I genuinely forget what I own sometimes when I’m shopping in a physical store & almost double-buy stuff. Behold…
I never posted about the time I went to face records in brooklyn.
You can see what it’s like on their discogs page. Every single item in the store is meticulously cataloged and available online. I’ve never seen a brick and mortar record store really do that to that extent.
So spoilers if you haven’t clicked the link yet, but everything is insanely overpriced. It was nuts flipping through a whole box of records and like, every record in that box is 150+, with many 300+. the fancy ones on display in the wall were like 800+. You can look up the same release and find copies for a tiny sliver of what they charge, sometimes from US sellers even. But they operate a brick and mortar store in brooklyn so god knows what kind of naive AND young AND wealthy young adults wander in there. I respect the hustle when they are hustling people who probably suck. I spent like 150 on 4 things which was physically painful but I was excited to be around so much cool stuff and my friend and I were pumping each other up. that’s the other thing about a place being overpriced, it’s like a museum in terms of selection.
So anyway. this guy walked in who was clearly a gigantic douchebag right before closing. He seemed to be just grabbing stuff from the new arrivals section and just piling them up. Again we’re talking hundreds of dollars per item. I was trying to figure out why the owner was being sort of patronizing and not kicking him out so fast. this guy clearly was a regular and spent a lot of money but still. He took his pile and brought it to the demo table and started quickly lifting and dropping the needle around listening for a couple seconds at a time. At this point I was able to ascertain that this guy was a producer for action bronson. Not like a guy who happened to produce for him a few times, but like part of his inner circle who would travel with him. He talked about going to amsterdam with action bronson. anyway this post is not to say anything positive about action bronson, just that the kind of producers he uses have no respect or knowledge of the music they sample and just shell out $$$ to try and find something that sticks, and they look and talk like douchebags, and if you hear any j-music samples on any of actiion bronson’s recent music I might have been physically present for when it was purchased, that’s all.
I went there a few years ago when I was visiting Brooklyn! My buddy and I were just killing time and decided to check out this random record store. We were pretty blown away when they turned out to be a Japanese import shop full of city pop. There was a lot of really cool stuff there, but yeah, not affordable in the least. I didn’t end up buying anything, but I was very tempted.
We went to several record stores during that trip, and it was so strange: every single one of them we visited, there was a staff member chatting with a customer about Tatsuro Yamashita. EVERY ONE. These were mostly just your average hole in the wall record stores too. It was so strange. It seemed like all of NYC was going nuts for city pop. But this was summer 2022… I thought city pop was old news by then. Who knows. I think Yamashita had just had a compilation reissued, so maybe that’s why.
I got really excited when I found a Franco Battiato record on the cheap, but it turned out to be the one record he did for the American market. He got a guy who barely spoke English to translate the lyrics, and he did an absurdly bad job, so these songs that were beautiful and poignant in Italian are now laughable and bizarre.
Yes but the animal which is inside me
Won’t let me live in happiness again
He takes all, the coffee too
He renders me a slave of all my passions
He never does give up
He doesn’t want to wait
And still the animal which is inside me
Wants you
at work this week, because it has been a handful at times, and because i so so sooo look forward to listen to some chilled synth tunes soon (well, at home and when it isn’t 100°F/30+°C but That Shall Pass)
