In honor of the upcoming Record Store Day 2013, I decided to make a list of 20 records I think everyone should own on vinyl. Take this Record Store Day to build a nice foundation for your record collection. I picked this list based on pretty arbitrary criteria, including what critics generally think are great, what I think is great, what I think particularly sounds good on analog-warm vinyl, and what you won’t have to pay $100 for or scour for (e.g. no hard-to-find ’90s vinyl or things out of print). I also left it to one album per artist. These aren't in any particular order. Send any omissions to this list to idontcare@makeyourownlist.com. Or just leave a comment!

 

The Beatles – Revolver

In my mind, The White Album is the greatest Beatles album, but you can’t beat the utterly perfect one-disc punch of Revolver. It should go without saying that every Beatles album is essential and is worth owning on vinyl yadda yadda, but if you have to start somewhere, do it here. Their catalog was recently reissued on vinyl in stereo mix, so you should have no trouble finding them if you’re just starting out — and you should have no trouble finding quality replacements, if your old Beatles LPs are worn out.

The subtleties of what goes into creating a Flying Lotus song could be seen when he took the stage at Amoeba Hollywood Oct. 1, the day before his new album, Until the Quiet Comes, was officially released. Fly Lo worked busily over a minimal setup of a couple of laptops and samplers/sequencers. He played bits from the new album, like the bass-heavy “Sultan’s Request,” but kept things moving quickly — much like his albums do — never lingering long on a particular sound or song before flowing it into the next. A large and very appreciative crowd head-bobbed furiously to the music (the beatheads’ equivalent to head banging) as Fly Lo worked the heavier side of his sound spectrum, unlike the mostly chilled-out quality of his latest album. He paused a minute from the beat assault and spinning bits of songs like Schoolboy Q/A$ap Rocky’s “Hands on the Wheel,” Jay-Z/Kanye West’s “Ni**as in Paris,” Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You,” Portishead’s “Machine Gun” and Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic” to welcome the audience and later ask for Transformers 3 on Blu-ray — which he got, and held up with glee, before passing it off quickly to continue hyperactively turning knobs and setting off sequences. Watching Flying Lotus at somewhere like the Hollywood Bowl, it can be easy to dismiss the work he puts into everything. In closer quarters Flying Lotus appears as a virtuoso, animatedly hunching and bouncing over his machines and stroking them like a piano with ease. They don’t call him a beat maestro for nothing. Flying Lotus was joined by fellow artists from his Brainfeeder label Teebs and Jeremiah Jae, the latter of who released one of my favorite hip-hop albums this year, Raw Money Raps. See more photos from the performance and Flying Lotus’ signing session here!

Grizzly Bear – Shields

One of the year’s finest rock albums comes with Grizzly Bear’s Shields, improbably even even more consistent album than 2009’s excellent Veckatimest. Beginning with the soft explosion of “Sleeping Ute,” in which Daniel Rossen sings of his “wanderings dreams” amid regal electric guitars, fluttering synths and acoustics, Chris Taylor’s grounding basslines and Chris Bear’s dynamic drumwork, Shields continues through a back-and-forth between the more immediate pop thrills of Veckatimest and more ambient feel of their older material. “Speak in Rounds” has the same sort of glorious harmonies we heard on “While You Wait for the Others” but with more rock propulsion than the band usually employs. Meanwhile, tracks like the wordless “Adelama” and slowly shuffling “The Hunt” highlight their placid side. But Shields is also a progression of their sound in addition to a refinement of it. “Yet Again” scales back the grabbiness of an older song like “Two Weeks” for a lushly expansive take on the rock single, perhaps showing some influence from Radiohead, with whom they toured a few years back in a dream bill. Similarly extended and confident, “A Simple Answer” is one of Daniel Rossen’s finest showcases to date, building on his typically mysterious melodies to a gratifying, grandiose chorus. An addictive listen, it’s easy to lose yourself in the layers of Shields and find something newly impressive each time.
 
James Iha – Look to the Sky
 
Anyone who’s been a big Smashing Pumpkins fan knows the pleasures the Pumpkins’ “George Harrison” could bring with his subtle guitarwork and gorgeous songs like “Go,” “Blew Away” and “Take Me Down.” Fourteen years after his first solo album released while still in the Pumpkins, James Iha is back with a fuller sound that capitalizes both on his folky Neil Young-inspired leanings and his ability to create spectral space rock soundscapes. Both qualities are in full flair on the beautiful “To Who Knows Where,” which features a typically beautiful Iha chorus and an awesome space-folk breakdown in the middle. Classic Pumpkins fans can find plenty to sink their teeth into in songs like “Gemini,” which moves from eerie folk to swoony big-chord rock. Elsewhere, he breaks from his past more decisively, as on the ’60s by way of ’80s pop “Till Next Tuesday” and the addled blues of “Appetite,” moments that show Iha has more tricks up his sleep than at first appears. Some of his folkier tracks veer toward sappy, but Iha’s smart production, learned from the interim years of producing for acts like Cat Power and Isobel Campbell as well as various remixes, usually saves things with orchestral flourishes and surprises like the twinkling synths that pop up at the end of the Karen O duet “Waves.” It’s an assured work that speaks to the talents of Iha as a guitarist, producer and songwriter who knows how to paint wonders from a modest palette.

Mother’s Day 2012 (Sunday, May 13th) may soon be upon us but there's still plenty of time left to get mom the gift of music from Amoeba, whether you order something online from our website shop on Amoeba.com (and have us mail it directly to mom) or if you stop into one of the three Amoeba Music stores. With the endless choices of CDs, DVDs, records, posters, and more, you're bound to find something just right for mom.
There is some excellent music that would make a great Mother's Day gift, including new/recent/current releases from Norah Jones' Little Broken Hearts or her 2002 album Come Away With Me, Adele's 21, Esperanza Spalding's Radio Music Society, The Civil Wars' eight track Live at Amoeba CD, Nanci Griffith's Intersection, Rumer's Season of My Soul, a new solo release by Sara Watkins (of Nickel Creek) called Sun Midnight Sun, Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball, and Janis Joplin (including reissues). There's oodles of older titles too for sale on Amoeba.com including, for the budget conscious shopper, the Clearance Section offerings.

For its fourteen year anniversary show tonight at 10:30PM (7:30PM Cali time) on NYU college radio station WNYU (heard in NYC at 89.1FM on the radio dial and all over streaming online at wnyu.org) the much loved & respected New York hip-hop radio institution The Halftime Show will break tradition and not have any live guests come through the studios to freestyle. Why? Because the quality is not that good anymore. So instead it will present previously recorded material from its deep archives of 14 years of weekly shows. 14 Years of Rap is how tonight's special is being billed by the show's main producer DJ Eclipse; but the show will draw mainly from its earliest years - circa the late 90's - a time when hip-hop was in a whole other state of mind & creativity. Artists' live on-air sets to be played back tonight will include Redman, Cage, Hieroglyphics, Method Man, A.G., Dilated Peoples, Talib Kweli, and many many more (see flyer down end for full listing). It should be top notch quality stuff too since the respected radio show, when it began in 1998, essentially carried on the baton - in New York City underground hip-hop radio terms - from Stretch & Bobbito who did their legendary NYC radio show from 1990 to 1998 on uptown Columbia University college station WKCR.
 
"Usually for the anniversary shows on Halftime Show we have two or three producers come up with beat machines. We have about thirty MCs come through and we have a couple of DJs come through and they all do like live stuff because to me that's when radio's at its best - when you don't know what you are going to get. But this year I decided to reflect on the earlier years of the show and I'm going back to the first two or three years of the show and pulling old freestyles from some of  the acts that came through in those first years," DJ Eclipse told me recently when I stopped by his Queens NY record filled home. The veteran hip-hop DJ, who is a member of Non Phixion, and a longtime hip-hop industry insider, who has worked for Fat Beats NYC and before that Wild Pitch Records, has been with the radio show from day one with an evolving crew of fellow radio show producers/DJs including DJ Riz, Lynn Gonzalez, and DJ Skizz to name but a few.