[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. I’m moving in with my fiancée this week, which I commemorated last week by celebrating three of my parents’ records one last time. This week, I get all warm and/or fuzzy over three records that are near and dear to my special lady friend and I. As always, e-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]
Records: PJ Harvey’s “Glorious Land” single (2011) on black, The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987) on black, and The Promise Ring’s Very Emergency (1998) on black.
Place of Purchase: “Glorious Land” was an exclusive preorder from Recordstore.co.uk. That’s in England! Kiss Me came from Legends at the Plymouth Meeting Mall (R.I.P.). Very Emergency was an eBay find.
Thoughts: Michelle and I love the new PJ Harvey album Let England Shake. It’s just such a haunting, politically volatile record. Accordingly, I’ve been importing two copies of its singles (one for me, one for her) every time they pop up. “Glorious Land” is a particularly heavy tune – the lines “What is the glorious fruit of our? / Its fruit is deformed children” certainly sticks in my head. The B-side, “The Nightingale,” is quite good as well. It’s almost definitely about Florence Nightingale, so it fits England’s war imagery. But the lyrics are a little more atmospheric. As much as I enjoy the song, I get why it was left off in favor of more visceral material like “On Battleship Hill” or “The Words That Maketh Murder.”
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is a schizophrenic Cure record, which makes it a great entryway into the band’s discography. Jumping from pop to psych-rock to goth on a whim, it manages to be both a unique piece in their canon yet a solid overview of what the group did post-1985. Also it has “Just Like Heaven,” a.k.a the best loved Cure of all time. It brought Michelle to tears when we saw The Cure perform it live back in 2008. And really, why wouldn’t it? It’s a beautiful song. Frontman Robert Smith specifically wrote to seduce his future wife. And it worked! If you hate that song, you’re a jerk. Me, I’m going to hold on to the memory of Michelle being so moved by music that she wept.
Michelle is secretly a huge Davey von Bohlen fan. I’ve been working on turning her into a Maritime devotee. Every summer, though, is when I bust out the collected works of The Promise Ring, especially Very Emergency. It’s an ideal Jersey shore record, if for no other reason than for the song “Jersey Shore.” But Very Emergency is also appropriate overall. The tunes are catchy and breezy and fun, and they work regardless of summer setting. On the road, on the beach, at night; it’s just such a perfect record.
Man, I really hope none of these records gets damaged in the move…
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