Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino

I preordered this album back in April of 2018. I was well over a year away from even owning a turntable at that point.

Aside. Girlfriend in a Coma is playing in Vigilante. As a kid, my main experiences of the Smiths were twofold. One, a girl I had a crush on was into them. I don’t know that I ever actually listen to them, but I knew they had an album called Meat is Murder and I knew I wasn’t interesting enough to really get it. Two, the record store in town had a poster hung up, featuring a picture of Morrissey with “Morrissey is a Twat” emblazoned on it.

As a partially functioning adult, I think those things are probably both true – I’m not going to be a Smiths person and Morrissey is probably a twat. That said, I could listen to their greatest hits album for years. Morrissey is this weird little proto-Jarvis Cocker.

I just looked at the line-up on The Sound of the Smiths and I take it all back. You can’t generate that many magnificent songs without something going right. It’s still true about me and Morrissey, but maybe proto-Cocker wasn’t fair.

Love Pulp though.

End digression. I bought Tranquility on the basis of Whatever People Say I Am, Favourite Worst Nightmare, AM and the other two, though to a lesser extent. AM, in particular, has been in my heavy rotation for a few years.

Then Tranquility came out and I hated it. I still hate it. I own it and I hate it, and it might be the only record I currently have that I’d ditch in a heartbeat. Eighty percent of the songs sound like Alex just took a side gig writing lawnmower maintenance manuals, then decided to read them while being recorded.

I’ll absolutely buy their next album. I love the Arctic Monkeys and they’re music makes me supremely happy, most of the time. They, like Morrisey, are often way up their own asses, but god bless ‘em. Try not to move when Brainstorm kicks off. It’s like trying to mop the ocean.

Tranquility – not so much. There are a few (two?) songs that I genuinely enjoy, but most of it is a slog.

The time before the turntable was full of these near misses. I have, historically, purchased albums that didn’t really line up with what I loved. I bought Ignition instead of Smash, Unplugged instead of Nevermind and Against the Grain instead of, well, almost any other Bad Religion album.

The pre-turntable days have a lot of these scattered throughout. I got a Bad Religion album that’s fine but not great. A Tyler Childers live album that’s also fine. An Ash record that’s good, but it’s not that good.

I’m not to be trusted, I guess. On the other hand, I bought all these things because I love the bands behind them. I’ve tried (and partially succeeded) to have a plan when buying vinyl.

I don’t want to just recreate my old CD collection. I don’t want to own every cool 70s rock record that came out just to say, “Yeah, the version you hear on Spotify is fine, but listen to this.” I want a tight little collection of previously released stuff that has a lot of meaning and I want to support bands I like when they release new things.

That means striking out sometimes. Like ordering the new beer from your favorite brewery, only to discover that the brewer fell in love with rose hips or cardamom and just blew it out of the tank.

Now the coffee shop is playing Op Ivy. They (or Epitaph) just repressed their album. It ticks a lot of my boxes. Cool old album, limited release, probably sounds good on vinyl. I didn’t buy it, though. I’m really trying not to stray too far.

I might buy it.

While I’m trying not to be the guy who tells you the Guinness you’re drinking sucks because it’s so much better in Ireland and can you believe they even import this stuff (now made in Baltimore, whatup), I do like when things sound nice on vinyl.

I grabbed the Rushmore soundtrack the other day when it was on sale at Barnes & Noble, and it’s just boring. It’s thin and compressed, because it’s just the songs slapped onto wax to sell them in a new way. On the other hand, I got a copy of Cursive’s Ugly Organ, and it’s clear someone put a ton of love and time into this thing.

Bad records will happen. Or just records that are good but that I don’t love. I’ll own those – that’s fine. As of the beginning of 2020, I have about 30 albums. I imagine I’ll finish the year out closer to 50, but I wouldn’t want to overshoot that by much.

Predictions. Not my forte.