The Best Vinyl of In Between Days
Welcome to Hump Day News’ profound analysis of the greatest vinyl available from artists performing at In Between Days on August 20, 2022. Full rankings here. Because numbers are involved, these estimations are “hard science,” so you Arts & Humanities losers can go jump off a bridge. If you like what you see, it’s a good bet that you can find these records at their merch tables.
But why vinyl, Hump Day? Sure, it’s heavy & more expensive than a download & you need to keep feeding your record player new needles every so often. On the other hand, the sound quality is great, the album covers live with you forever as works of art unto themselves, and the physical format can’t be stolen off your phone by weirdo corporations who have decided that the lease of the online format (which you thought you purchased) is expired. Plus, streaming sucks for artists money-wise and physical formats of whatever (records, t-shirts, beer koozies) help fund the music scene you love.
OK, on to the categories, each quantified on a 0-1 scale…
sonic fit
period-ness
posterity
novelty
cool
monumentalism
Sonic Fit
Sonic Fit is all about connecting the dots between the sound of the music and the strengths of vinyl as a medium. We’re not going to get into a debate about the superiority of vinyl over other formats, nor engage the naysayers. For our purposes here all that needs to be said is that vinyl has its strengths (and weaknesses) and some of those sonic strengths match up really well with the sound of certain instruments, certain styles of music, or a certain ethos of recording.
Kevin Devine’s Nothing’s Real, So Nothing’s Wrong is a good example of using the whole sonic spectrum available on vinyl. There’s a Magical Mystery Tour-quality to the instrumentation and a kitchen sink-vibe to the songwriting that goes big, goes small, high and low, all over the place. The warmth of vinyl can pull the diverse elements together into one comfortable listening space.
On the other hand, Hippo Campus’s LP3 has some beautiful vinyl editions, but the uptempo, beat-driven pop surfs a more narrow spectrum of the sound waves. Might be easier as a download, enjoyed through a bluetooth speaker on sandy summer shores.
Period-ness
Period-ness is not a word, but what we mean is whether the historicality of the record format is being folded into music experience. Whatever the vinyl bros say about the medium’s resurgence, vinyl as a format is past its peak and never returning to its glory days. That’s OK. Music is timeless and there are many artists who live their entire creative life exploring the sights and sounds of times past when vinyl was at its peak. For artists that do this well, it just makes sense to release music in vinyl format.
Score a .9 for Catbite’s Nice One on the period-ness scale. Ska on vinyl is a no-brainer. The genre evolved during the era of vinyl preeminence. All the classic ska, rocksteady, reggae albums were born on wax. If you’re going to do it, do it right.
The Profound Algorithm nearly broke down when it tried to process the period-ness of Tennis. The retro couple rock makes its bones on a vintage 70s aesthetic, assiduously conceptualized and deployed in the look, sound, and marketing of the band. Surely, Tennis scores a perfect 1 in period-ness? Can’t do it. The 1970s were never so self-aware as the end-of-history pastiche of albums like Swimmer, Yours Conditionally, and We Can Die Happy.
Posterity
Posterity is about what lasts, either in terms of the physical strength of the vinyl medium, or in terms of artist’s intent, or both. As a matter of fact, vinyl records are a hardy species inasmuch as that can be said about any physical format. Sure, they don’t like scratches. But a few nicks and scrapes can add character to the playback of a record, whereas the tiniest scratch of a CD drops you straight down 700 floors into the “Infinite Skipping Track” layer of hell.
What sort of album is built to last? An album that’s getting a 15-year anniversary pressing is a good place to start. Kevin Devine’s Split the Country, Split the Streets fits the bill. In contrast, the artist's vinyl edition of his Daytrotter Sessions feels like fleeting fancy. There’s a special aura attached to the live and impromptu recordings. Fans of the artist will always find something to like. But like most serial endeavors, the individual episodes are lost to the collective memory even if we recall the brand.
Novelty
Show us the etching!Novelty might seem superficial, but catching the eye in a crowded market place is nothing to sniff at. Vinyl lends itself to novelty design in many ways because the surface area of the format is BIG. Clever covers, colored vinyl, album inserts and extras. There are no limits except your imagination and your budget.
Shout out to Hippo Campus’ Good Dog, Bad Dreams: a vinyl record with a B-side etching. This is maximum novelty. Sure, there’s only 15 minutes of music on the LP, but that’s because the entire B-side is devoted to visual art! It’s a cool concept to explore once in a while. Minor points deduction for not posting the etching online – what’s it look like?
Also, love the cotton candy-colored vinyl from The Blue Stones. Sold out!
Cool
There’s a school of thought that says ‘Cool’ is a subjective factor. Drop out of that school! Cool is real and Tennis have it. It’s built from the ground up, all the way through the look, feel, and sound of the Tennis aesthetic: a kind of washed-out 70s wasteland of easy listening leisure. The attention to detail is admirable and all-encompassing, sucking you into a nostalgia vortex. Like a swank, velvet-roped nightclub, the Tennis experience is a sweaty, cramped space that you need to escape after a while. But you’ll tell all your friends about it the next day and head back next week.
And Manchester Orchestra’s Christmas Songs, Vol. 1? Cool!
Monumentalism
Our final category is Monumentalism. Probably every album that an artist has sweated and labored over feels monumental to them. But are all these albums the kind that will make the music buyer turn their head and think “What the fuck is that over there?” For better or worse – we all know monumentalism can be awful like Trump hero portraiture. The albums on this list, though, are here for good reasons.
Kevin Devine, airing his dirty laundryA 2xLP? Of course! Another shout out for Kevin Devine’s Split the Country, Split the Streets – this time, on account of its double-barrelled action and gatefold cover. You’ll need a diesel winch just to get this thing on your record shelf. The gatefold interior offers a massive, heroic landscape ripe for artistic statement, which Devine graces with hanging laundry? Extra points for a sense of humor.
Complete Profound Algorithm Results
The Christmas classic comes alive in the hands of Manchester Orchestra.