12 Albums Every Dude Should Own

Unlike restaurants disallowing substitutions with orders, we’ll permit substitutions for this list. You can call an audible when compiling your own vinyl (and yes, you should own these on vinyl), so long as you score a mix of these artists. What you won’t find on this list is a buffet offering in the form of any “greatest hits” compilations. Like you, we wish this list could be 50-100 albums long, but getting you fired from your job for looking at your phone is not a Goliath priority. You can’t go wrong with these 12! Trust.

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Their List:

  1. Jeff Buckley – Grace
  2. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
  3. Outkast – Aquemini
  4. Portishead – Dummy
  5. Frank Sinatra – In the Wee Small Hours
  6. Pearl Jam – Ten
  7. Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced
  8. Aerosmith – Toys in the Attic
  9. David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
  10. Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison
  11. Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction
  12. Otis Redding – The Dictionary of Soul

My List:

  1.  Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
  2. Fleetwood Mac – Mirage
  3. George Michael – Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
  4. David Gray – White Ladder
  5. Concrete Blonde – Bloodletting
  6. Dwight Yoakam – This Time
  7. Various Artists – Vision Quest Soundtrack
  8. Boston – Boston
  9. Billy Joel – The Stranger
  10. Toto – IV
  11. Jason Isbell – Something More Than Free
  12. Midland – On the Rocks


Copyright © 2018 – ∞ B. Charles Donley

 

 

#RSD17, Mine

The scene of the crime…

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Once inside…

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My haul…

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It’s on days like these—Record Store Day ’17—where the utility factor of my hilariously garish basement really smiles up my soul. Spinning the RSD version of Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage (complete with alternate mixes of “Gypsy”, “Hold On” and “Oh Diane”) is a truly decadent indulgence when it emanates from some extraordinary vintage Pioneer Hi-Fi gear.

What.

A.

Blast!

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Now for the standard disclaimers (the list grows each time I post a photo)…

  • Yes, I know my EQ settings are like the stupidest ever on earth in the history of humanity and dinosaurs and aliens. It’s been duly noted. Many times. I promise. Really. Obviously no human should EVER set their EQ as I have. Let this be a lesson to everyone: do the opposite of what I have done.
  • Yes, I know the speakers are too close to the components. It is an L-shaped room in the basement, and I am lacking the requisite space to properly triangulate the speaker stacks and the component monolith. I promise I’m shopping for larger basements to remedy this issue. In fact I think basements are on sale this weekend at Lowe’s, and I have a 10% off coupon somewhere.
  • Yes, I know only a noob would stack HPM-100s in such a amateurish manner (see: doing my best with the small L-shaped space, shopping for larger basement, etc.). I’m too weary to debate this one again.
  • Yes, I realize the SA-9800 (my amp) is only rated at 100 WPC, so each speaker is only getting like maybe 1.73578 watts of sound once you factor in all of the wattage loss inherent in my configuration (I’ve done the measurements and calculations on a scientific calculator, not a crappy regular calculator). What a waste of speaker(s), right? I don’t even deserve these speakers—I know, I know. I’d be better off with a pair of Realistic Solo 4s, yep, roger, got it.

Despite all this, it sounds fantastic…even with the shitty EQ settings 😉

Also…

Yes, those are VHS tapes on the left. Yes, VHS was the worst format for movies ever! I was born in ’72, I was deeply affected by VHS in my formative years. Going to Video Update (later: Movie Gallery) or Blockbuster was a treat for us geezers. It’s nostalgia more than anything else. I’ve heard of Blu-ray, I swear.

Yes, that is a wall of ~700 compact cassette tapes to the left of the Pioneer gear (I have LPs and CDs also). I realize other than dime-store music boxes, compact cassettes had the worst sound ever! (see: child of the ’80s, nostalgia)


Copyright © 2017 – ∞ B. Charles Donley