Trip #4: I Don't Wanna Live Like This, But I Don't Wanna Die
Today's trip includes Tyler the Creator vinyl, best new albums by shame, Caroline Polachek, and JPEGMAFIA/Danny Brown, 2019 Hall of Fame, and a Babe Ruth exhibit.
Welcome to The Wax Museum, where we highlight albums worthy of being in your record collection. Enjoy your stay, new trips every Wednesday!
Your Museum Guide for Wednesday March 29, 2023
The FUTURE Exhibit (Upcoming Vinyl Releases)
The PRESENT Exhibit (Tracking 2023 AOTY)
The PAST Exhibit (2019 Hall of Fame)
The Video Hall of Fame: Here Comes the Pizza!
The Rotating Exhibit: Babe Ruth
The RABBIT HOLE Exhibit
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Vinyl Giveaway!)
🎧 Listen to this Trip on Spotify and Apple.
The FUTURE Exhibit
Discover what’s upcoming in the world of vinyl / streaming music.
The biggest preorder news this week was Tyler, the Creator announcing a deluxe edition of his 2021 album Call Me If You Get Lost on Geneva Blue triple vinyl for $45 exclusively from his store.
![Twitter avatar for @vinylonsale](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/vinylonsale.jpg)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFsO18vSWAAEGnUb.jpg)
Look at that beauty. The 3 LP features outtakes from the album, including the just released “SORRY NOT SORRY” and “Dogtooth”. The box set will ship in the fall, and appears to be an open pre-order, as you can add an unlimited amount to your cart.
A few months ago, colored copies of Wolf, Flower Boy, and IGOR were added to Tyler’s store without warning. The limited amount went quick, frustrating those who waited years for retail prices. Fortunately, these albums, which were selling in the $200-$300 range, have now dropped to $50-$60 on Discogs, so now’s the time to pounce if you missed any.
Upcoming Vinyl Releases
Full list of vinyl releases, reissues, compilations
Coming Out This Friday March 31st
boygenius – The Record
Black Vinyl | Blue Vinyl | Silver Vinyl | Target Orange Swirl Vinyl
Britney Spears discography
Bush - The Kingdom (Transparent Green Vinyl)
David Bowie - Moonage Daydream
James Holden – Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities
The Hold Steady – The Price Of Progress
Isaiah Rashad - The House is Burning
London Brew - London Brew
Mac Miller - Blue Slide Park (10th Anniversary Blue/Yellow Splatter Vinyl)
Metro Boomin - Heroes & Villains
The New Pornographers - Continue as a Guest
The PRESENT Exhibit
Tracking Album of the Year 2023. Two tracks from three new albums added each week!
This week features shame, Caroline Polachek, and JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown.
♫ Full AOTY 2023 Playlist: Spotify / Apple ♫
shame - Food for Worms | shame’s third album Food for Worms, produced by Flood (who’s credits are ridiculous), is a rollicking good time. Just a bunch of songs about dudes rocking. The anthem “Adderall” (with a secret cameo by Phoebe Bridgers) is destined to be a classic. “Fingers of Steel”, “Six-Pack”, and “Alibis” are all blast-out-your-car-window worthy. I need to see shame live ASAP.
Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You | Crazy to think first single “Bunny is a Rider” was a best of 2021 candidate and now the album drops 580 days later. After sitting with this one awhile, my two favs are the flamenco tinged “Sunset” and “Billions”, which closes the album with a unique seven verse / two chorus structure.
Buy Vinyl: Amazon (copper vinyl, out April 14)
JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES | Danny Brown says he’s still in debt from buying samples for 2016’s Atrocity Exhibition but you wouldn’t know it from his latest project with JPEGMAFIA, which has some wild, far-reaching samples. Highlights include the Kelis’ “Milkshake” flip on “Fentanyl Tester” and The Vision of Escaflowne sample on “Kingdom Hearts Key” (feat. redveil). SCARING THE HOES is a wall of sound that requires repeat listens just to make out what the hell the rappers are saying above Peggy’s loud production. So far, this is my AOTY for the gym or a run, it gets the adrenaline sky high.
Buy Vinyl: Official Store (silver, ships late Summer)
The PAST Exhibit
Ten songs from a previous year get inducted into The Wax Museum Hall of Fame. The following albums are all vinyl collection essentials.
2022 | 2021 | 2020 | This week is 2019
♫ Full Hall of Fame Playlist: Spotify / Apple ♫
Vampire Weekend - “Harmony Hall” | Father of the Bride - Vampire Weekend's fourth studio album, Father of the Bride, is a sprawling, eclectic work that sounds better each year. The album's through-line is open to interpretation, but seems to deal specifically with Zionism’s role in the Israel-Palestine conflict. While there’s references aplenty, let’s focus on “Harmony Hall”, which was a name for plantation buildings in the pre-Civil War South, but American/Jewish singer/songwriter Ezra Koenig connects that idea to Jews and Zionists. One line in “Harmony Hall” raised eyebrows among some: “Beneath these velvet gloves I hide / The shameful, crooked hands of a moneylender / ’Cause I still remember.”
Ezra explains this line as a cycle of gaining and losing power, the people outside the palace becoming the people inside the palace:
“When I think about that phrase, the moneylender, it just makes me think about the past and shame, and how sometimes people in power, regardless of what their background is, or their ethnicity, even though they have more power than they used to, because of trauma or shame sometimes make decisions that are based in fear. In some ways that’s one of the drivers of these kind of vicious cycles that we have as people.”
Sturgill Simpson - “Make Art Not Friends” | SOUND & FURY - So I’ve listened to this track countless times, and I just found out that Sturgill’s whole SOUND & FURY album has an accompanying postapocalyptic sci-fi anime movie on Netflix! 🤯 Watching that tonight fo sho. Here’s the “Make Art Not Friends” scene:
Future - “Crushed Up” | Future Hndrxx Presents: The WIZRD - Unpopular opinion but this is my favorite Future track; FIRE beat that can blow the speakers out. Love the scratching at the end too.
Sharon Van Etten - “Seventeen” | Remind Me Tomorrow - Timely Hall of Fame choice as “Seventeen” was the opening track to the Season 2 premiere of Yellowjackets this past week.
Tyler, the Creator - “EARFQUAKE” | IGOR - “EARFQUAKE” was originally written for Justin Bieber and then Rihanna, who both passed. All for the best, as we have the legend Charlie Wilson and Playboi Carti lending Tyler a helping hand in making this his highest charting song yet.
Lana Del Rey - “Doin’ Time” | Norman Fucking Rockwell! - Lana’s cover of Sublime’s 1996 “Doin’ Time” successfully recreates the vibe and mood of Bradley Nowell’s rendition.
Local Natives - “When Am I Gonna Lose You” | Violet Street - This anxiety riddled single about being in a happy relationship but having constant fear of fucking this good thing up. Great dark Fleetwood Mac vibes here, and that patented Local Natives falsetto is too good. Really hope we get a new album from these fellas soon.
Cherry Glazerr - “Self Explained” | Stuffed & Ready - We’re going back to back anxiety anthems here with “Self Explained”. It was tough to pick just one track from this album, so solid from start to finish. The guitars in particular throughout Stuffed & Ready are top-notch and really shine on the turntable.
James Blake, Travis Scott, Metro Boomin - “Mile High” | Assume Form - No one brings the indie and hip hop crowds together like James Blake, one of the best crooners in the game, who sounds great on top of Metro Boomin’s dreamy, druggy production.
Big Thief - “Not” | Two Hands - Big Thief had a legendary 2019, dropping two full albums: U.F.O.F. and Two Hands. Out of the 22 combined songs, “Not” is the showstopper. Six minutes of raw emotion from Adrianne Lenker.
The Video Hall of Fame Exhibit
📺 Each week a new video enters The Video Hall of Fame.
The best calls in sports history: “Do you believe in miracles?” “Down goes Frazier.” “Here comes the pizza!”
Baseball’s opening day is tomorrow, and to celebrate we’re inducting one of the all time funniest baseball videos in the Hall of Fame. On Patriots Day 2007, Red Sox announcers Jerry Remy (RIP) and Don Orsillo call a routine play that turns into chaos in the stands, resulting in a fan getting hit with a slice of pizza. Each replay sends the announcers into hysterics. Remy and Orsillo would often get into gigglefests, here’s two more from them worth watching: boob grab and air guitar.
The Babe Ruth Exhibit
Rotating exhibit highlighting moments of musical greatness.
Speaking of baseball, let’s talk First Base, the 1972 debut album by British rock band Babe Ruth. The innovative band was one of the first to blend hard rock with progressive rock.
Opening track “Wells Fargo” is the perfect encapsulation of what they do well: Jennie Haan’s powerful vocals with Alan Shacklock’s blistering guitar create something that sounds at home in a Tarantino flick.
There’s not a skippable track in the bunch. Highlights include the intense piano finish of “The Runaways”, a one take Frank Zappa cover in “King Kong”, and their most famous song “The Mexican”, which includes a theme by western soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone. First Base is a true seventies overlooked classic!
It’s easy to find a 1972-1973 copy of First Base on Discogs. Most recently, Music on Vinyl pressed a limited edition of /1000 individually numbered copies on red translucent vinyl.
The RABBIT HOLE Exhibit
Get sucked down the pop culture rabbit hole with new recommendations each week.
📺 Videos from all trips can be found here. Shuffle for optimal enjoyment. 🔀
ARTICLE: Sorry, There’s No Such Thing as a “Fair” Ticket Price in an Age of Income Inequality by Wren Graves over at Consequence writes about the inflation-adjusted price of concerts. Something needs to change when Live Nation owns 80% of the market share and some Ticketmaster service fees are as high as 75% of face value.
MUSHROOM COFFEE: I got a new pour over and have been trying a bunch of different coffees and I found a new favorite: Four Sigmatic’s Lion’s Mane Mushroom Ground Coffee. This stuff gets me in the zone and tastes great. Who knows if it’s a placebo effect, but ya boy is feeling focused lately.
SHOW: Digman!, the new animated show written and starring Andy Samberg, exists in a high concept world where archaeologists are rock stars. The Lonely Island produced half hour features a million jokes a minute and Samberg’s Nic Cage impression stays amusing. Catch the pilot below, and watch new episodes after South Park on Wednesdays.
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Vinyl giveaway from my personal collection to a paid subscriber.
Thank you for visiting The Wax Museum. New trips every Wax Wednesday!
Before you go, if you would like to support my Vinyl on Sale deal Twitter and this newsletter, I'd love for you to subscribe! As an added bonus, you’ll be put in the running for a new vinyl giveaway each month.
The winner will be picked in April, and will chose one of four vinyl. These vinyl are all AUTOGRAPHED, sealed, and have long sold out.
Alvvays - Blue Rev | This Newbury Comics exclusive was limited to /300 and signed by the whole band.
Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World | Deluxe edition pressed on silver with black swirl "mercury" colored vinyl, limited to /500 and autographed by the duo.
Alex G - God Save The Animals | The album that landed on plenty of Best Of 2022 lists, signed by Alex G.
Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever | Limited edition pink splatter vinyl with a signed postcard by Sophie Allison.
There’s only a few paid subscribers so far; your odds will never be better!
Thanks for visiting fill out a comment card on the way out, and we’ll see ya next Wednesday!
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This is the first newsletter where I nailed the title before reading the article. I'm gonna make it two in a row next drop. Keep up the good work!
PS - here comes the pizza~