You guys! It’s our birthday!!!! One year ago today we posted our very first article, and we couldn’t be happier to have reached such an important milestone! In honour of this very excellent date, we are declaring February 4th to be a national holiday, effective immediately, and giving you all permission to take the day off work. You’re welcome!!*
*What’s that you say? Today is Saturday, and you already have the day off work? Well then. Instead, we give you permission to go out and get drunk tonight, and when you do, please raise a glass and toast yourselves for being the BEST READERS OF ALL TIME!! ‘Cause you are! We love you!
xxx ooo
Let Them Eat Vinyl
Awwww…look who dropped in to wish us a Happy Birthday! They must have liked our article.
No word of a lie, I own the exact jacket that Justin is wearing here. I really don't know what that means. I just wish I had a pair of these 3D glasses...
You guys! For my inaugural ‘Classic vs. Cover’ post I am very excited to be writing about this song! I grew up with the Tiffany version. I remember rocking out to it at sleepovers in grade six while we did each others’ makeup (peach lip gloss was big that year) and gossiped about the boys we liked (Aaron Prosser, in my case)*. Good times.
*Super embarrassing if he is reading this now.
Back then, I was not aware that the song was a cover. The original was done by Tommy James and the Shondells (their other hits included ‘Crimson and Clover’ and ‘Mony Mony’ – which was, of course, later covered by Billy Idol).
Here is the Tommy James version:
Pretty awesome, right? It’s got a great pop-meets-garage vibe, and I love how they do the ‘heartbeat’ part.
Now, the cover by Tiffany:
Right off the top, it’s way more poppy than the original, with those sweet synth beats and the hilarious/awesome ’80s overproduction. Also, I don’t think we can discount the amazingness of this video. I mean…the dance moves! The acid wash denim! Gumby!! Gah…it’s all so good!
So, which version is best? The classic is much more stripped down than the cover, and I would argue that since it’s a really great song to begin with, the original shows that off perfectly with no need for embellishment. On the other hand, Tiffany’s version is a pretty glorious piece of sugary bubblegum perfection.
One thing I really like about this tune in general is the fact that, for a song that’s all about sneaking off to hook up with someone, both versions are pretty innocent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude — but in this day and age of explicit sexuality and raunchy lyrics, it’s kind of refreshing to listen to a song that contains a line like “The beating of our hearts is the only sound” — rather than, say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me” from Rihanna, this generation’s incarnation of a pop princess (possibly being listened to at little girls’ sleepovers as we speak). I dunno, maybe it’s just the romantic in me.
As for these two versions of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ what’s your preference? Classic, or cover?
When I was 9 or 10 I got the idea in my head that I wanted a pair of plaid Converse high tops. Believe it or not, they weren’t such an easy thing to find back then. I mean, nowadays you can get all sorts of crazy prints, colors and styles, but at the time it was the mid-’80s, and I wanted a pretty specific color scheme — dark blue and turquoise plaid. I was a very particular 5th grader. I searched for ages but couldn’t find what I was looking for, and finally settled for a classic pair of bubblegum pink ones (whether you are a guy or a girl, 10 years old or 50, you cannot go wrong with pink Converse).
So began my love affair with Converse All Stars. Since then, not a year has gone by that I haven’t worn them. I’ve had numerous pairs — navy, kelly green, black (of course), silver zebra print, turquoise velvet, and most recently white leather. My favourite pair ever were black and white checkered canvas. I bought them in grade 10 and I still have them to this day. They are pretty beat-up by now, as you can see:
I went to visit my friend Ryan in L.A. the summer after my first year of university, and in the midst of a particularly late night drinking session I inexplicably decided it would be a good idea to color them in black with a magic marker. I regretted this move the next morning, but luckily the black wore off some and you can still see the checkered pattern underneath. I have been wearing them for 20 years and they are still one of the best pairs of shoes I’ve ever had.
Not surprisingly, I love it when dudes wear Converse. It’s just such a great look. Gets me every time.
To this day I have still never stumbled upon a pair that are dark blue and turquoise plaid, but I’ve always got my eyes open. I am confident they will find their way into my life someday.
Happy Monday, kids, and welcome to a new column that we hope to post on a regular basis, entitled ‘Love At First Listen’.
There are some songs that grow on you. The first time you hear them you may not be completely blown away, but upon further listening you end up appreciating the nuances that, with any song, reveal themselves over time (an example of this for me is U2’s ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’). With others there may be an initial strong attraction, deepening gradually into love (most of my favorite songs fall into this category). Then there is the type of song that you fall for, head over heels, the moment that you first hear it. Love at first listen.
Probably the first time this ever happened to me was the fall of 1993. My friend Chris lent me his copy of The Smashing Pumpkins’ new record Siamese Dream (released in July of that year, but we were living in Singapore at the time and everything came out there a bit later). I remember, vividly, lying on my bedroom floor and pressing play. I liked the first two tracks, but as soon as song #3 started, after literally the very first bar, I thought to myself “This is it. I am in love”. And I was right. As the song progressed, it just kept getting better and better, and I listened along dreamily, stars in my eyes. I was a total goner. I must have played that song 20 more times that day, and had it on repeat over the following months.
The fact that Billy Corgan wrote the song about a day in which he was having suicidal thoughts, with lyrics of depression and self-mutilation, did nothing to diminish my ardor – in fact, being sixteen at the time and suffering myself from the requisite dose of depressive thoughts that go along with being a teenager (though no self-mutilation or suicidal ideation, thankfully), it made me feel less alone to know that there were other people experiencing similar emotions.
As is the case with any true love, my romance with this song continues to this day. It is still as relevant to me ‘Today’ as it was the first time I heard it.
How about you? What song did you fall for the first time you heard it?
I love it how new music sometimes finds its way to you in the coolest and most random of ways. I was at a friend’s show last week at Rancho Relaxo and just by chance started chatting with the guy standing next to me in the crowd as I waited for the band, Goodnight, Sunrise, to go on. He explained that he was meeting some friends who hadn’t arrived yet. Never being one to pass up the opportunity to promote our little site here, I mentioned that I blog about music. When his friends showed up, he introduced me to one of them, Ryan, saying “this guy is in a really good band”. I am always intrigued by what’s going on in Toronto’s local music scene so I noted down the name of his band, Hot to the Touch, and promised to look them up.
You guys. Am I ever glad I did! I am seriously loving this band! Their first song, ‘Don’t Wanna Think About It’, is straight-up amazing from the very first listen. It is super catchy and has been stuck in my head since New Year’s. I am also totally digging ‘Part the Sea’, the other song on their single, a whimsical, upbeat pop extravaganza.
I highly suggest checking out the video for ‘In the Morning’ as well, to get an idea of their live sound.
Happy 2012 everyone! You may have noticed a little change here on the site. When we launched this blog 11 months ago, what we really wanted to call ourselves was Let Them Eat Vinyl. This was partly inspired by something Kurt Cobain said, a rant in an unsent letter in which he famously denounced the insular world of indie elitists and music scenesters, proclaiming: “They can starve. Let them eat vinyl”. This little phrase jumped out at us and lodged itself in our minds, and when it came time to name the site it was our first choice. Unfortunately, the address ‘letthemeatvinyl’ was already taken, by a company that actually sells vinyl records (fair enough, really. We can’t argue with that). We settled on Let Them Read Vinyl because the focus of our blog at the time was music book reviews. However, as is often the case in life, what we set out to do has evolved over time. Book reviews are still a big part of our deal, but we’ve also expanded to include live music reviews, album reviews, fashion and style, and general pop culture commentary. We’re still all about the music, though. Music is everything.
Anyway, we figured that it was high time we embraced the name that we love. Accordingly, we’ve updated our address to www.let-them-eat-vinyl.com. Clicking on our old address will still bring you here, so not to worry. And we’re still the same great site, just slightly modified. After all, we figured that if Prince can change his name to a symbol, or P.Diddy can change monikers on a seemingly monthly basis, then the difference of two letters in our name is No Big Deal.
Our goal for 2012 is to keep bringing you awesome & informative articles about music. So check back often, and join us for some good old-fashioned rocking out.
It’s December 24th. Christmas Eve. Let Them Eat Vinyl headquarters is a lively place tonight. We may or may not be getting drunk. And by that I mean we are. You know what else we are doing? Dancing around our living room, listening to our favourite Christmas song.
There are many great Christmas songs out there, but this one holds a special place in our hearts. The Finn was in high school when it was released, and tells me that everyone loved it — the punks, the headbangers, the new wavers, the rockers. It was a universal song, and those don’t come along too often. I was seven years old and actually living in Africa at the time, and although I was one of the lucky ones who never had to worry about food on my table, it’s important to remember that this is still an all-too-common problem in the world, almost 30 years after this song came out. So let’s continue Bob Geldof’s good works, and try to help out those less fortunate than ourselves, whenever and however we can.
This Christmas, we wish the best to you and your family. We love you, and we hope that you keep visiting our site, because it is our goal to entertain you and hopefully make you think about why you love music. Music is one of the greatest things in the world, and we are all lucky to have it.
So please enjoy our favorite Christmas song, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’:
p.s. How amazing is this song?? Paul Weller! Boy George! Simon Le Bon! Bono! Phil Collins on drums! And I am kind of crushing on a young Sting. Also, how beautiful is Jody Watley? Everyone looks so ’80s and awesome. We love it. Peace, love and joy to you all.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. This might be true, I don’t know. Since I am a writer – rather than, say, a photographer or a painter – I am obviously biased to disagree with this statement. I love words. I am fascinated by them. I studied them in school, and I think about them all the time. Words communicate so much, and, when employed skillfully, are truly breathtaking in their range and ability to convey meaning and expression.
And yet, they can sometimes fall short. So much of what happens in our lives isn’t even expressed in words, from the millions of thoughts we have each day to the extensive forms of non-verbal communication that we use to interact with one another. Often when I sit down to try and write something, I am overwhelmed and stymied by the sheer impossibility of conveying exactly what I want to say, as I see it in my head. Most of the time I feel like I am taking a stab in the dark, and if I manage to capture even some part of what I was striving for, I feel lucky. Obviously some of that can be chalked up to my skill level, rather than a lack on the part of the words themselves, but there are intrinsic limitations to language. How can one ever truly express what it feels like to experience the emotions of joy, grief, despair, or hope? Or describe the experience of falling in love, without sounding like a hopeless sap? Or talk about how a particular song at a particular moment can make you feel like everything is perfect, and why that is. Translating feelings into words is in some ways a loser’s game – you’ll never really be able to do it. But we keep trying – because it’s a challenge, and because it’s fun, and because ultimately we want to connect to something larger than ourselves.
As great as words are, though, sometimes brevity is amazing. Today, I would like to talk about a rarity in music – the One Line Song. There are only two that I can think of off the top of my head, and I appreciate both of them for what they manage to convey with only a limited use of words.
The first is the Pixies’ Stormy Weather. Here is the song:
One line, my friends. “It is time for stormy weather”. That’s it, that’s all. As with a lot of Pixies’ music, sound and feel are given more emphasis here than lyrics, but this is concise even for them. He wields the line in such varied ways, though, that it feels like he’s saying something different with each iteration. I think this is a perfect example of how sometimes tone matters way more than the actual words being used. They’re communicating different moods without changing what’s being said.
Song #2 is Evan Dando’s In the Grass All Wine Colored:
Again, only one line: “I’m in the grass all wine colored”. No further description provided, and yet you can totally see it, can’t you? Do you need any more words than these in order to picture the scene in your head? No, you do not.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. But sometimes one line is worth a thousand pictures.
Are there any other One Line Songs out there? Let me know if you know of any!
It’s been a slow week here at Let Them Eat Vinyl. Our apologies. The Finn is recovering from his prog odyssey, which kept him out until the wee hours of the morning on Sunday. I think he is still collecting his thoughts on the experience. As for me, my day job in magazine publishing works in a cyclical manner, with some weeks being supremely busy. This is one of those weeks, especially since we are putting out two issues at once. So unfortunately, you will have to live without my astute and engaging commentary for the time being. I know, it’s sad. You miss me. I miss you too. Don’t worry though, I’ll be back before you know it.
In the meantime, here is a song for you that I’ve been listening to a lot over the past few days. The Bangles are of course known for hits such as ‘Eternal Flame’ ‘Manic Monday’ and ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ but I love this short and sweet little tune of theirs, ‘James’. Not only is James one of my favorite names, there is just something super adorable about the way Susanna Hoffs sings this song about an unreliable boy breaking her heart. I think every girl out there has had at least one guy like this in her past (sometimes more than one, ahem). That is, the type of guy who is a total flake but you put up with it because they are super hot, or whatever. You just love them even though you know they’re going to end up letting you down. And when they invariably do, you really only have yourself to blame, for getting involved in the first place. It’s a lesson that every girl must learn — and most of us, if we are lucky, learn it fairly young. With this type of boy, you have to just enjoy the ride and not take things too seriously. You can’t lose your head and start thinking you can change him — that only leads to tears and frustration. Sometimes wisdom is knowing when to walk away. I like how this song captures all of that, while at the same time being pleasingly upbeat and poppy.
Also, I think we need to take a moment to acknowledge the insane hotness of Susanna Hoffs. Seriously, you guys. So ridiculously beautiful. I love her.
We are not music snobs here at LTEV. If someone wants to throw on Britney Spears or Rush*, who are we to judge? (Please see: my embarrassing love for Enrique Iglesias). The point is, when it comes to music, you like what you like and there’s no sense fighting it.
*The Finn is the biggest Rush geek ever.
And yet…every once in a while I find myself totally loving a song that surprises even me. I mean, I know very well the type of ultra-cheesy pop that my taste in music sometimes veers towards (again, may I repeat, Enrique Iglesias) but this one…well, this was unexpected. Given the fact that I am not a tween and all (although I do watch the Disney channel fairly often, so, you know…I guess this actually does kind of make sense).
I blame the video. Sometimes a good video can allow a song to worm its way into your consciousness without you realizing it. I love this video. Selena Gomez is ADORABLE. Like, she looks like a tiny, perfect little doll, doesn’t she? I just want to scoop her up and put her in my pocket. The bit where she channels Max Headroom kills me. Kids these days! She is too cute for words.
Selena is, of course, famously dating Justin Bieber. It would be supergross and pervy to have a crush on either one of them (especially him), but the two of them together are like the walking, talking embodiment of teenage first love & thus they are kind of fascinating to watch. When they break up, I wonder who will be the first to release a song about it. Is it wrong that I am kind of looking forward to finding out? Not to worry, it won’t happen any time soon! For now, their love is still “magical, lyrical, beautiful…” And I keep hitting re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat…
Let Them Eat Vinyl 