Liner Notes
Words from our Editor and Owner
You're So Viscious: a tale of friendship and Lou Reed
“She was younger but knew all the cool music before I did, thanks to her older brothers. We’d sit in her room, and she’d play records for me and rattle off facts about each album, each song. Sometimes the songs were new to me, sometimes they were familiar”Simple Math
“The album stayed with me, a beacon on cold winter nights when I wanted to be warmed by memories of temperate days. It was my walking album; it was my driving album. Simple Math was a part of the fabric of my life.”Five Years On: Lockdown Music
“It’s not the fault of Soccer Mommy (Sophia Allison) that her album came out at the end of February, thus ushering in the Covid era. It’s just a matter of circumstance. For me, it was the right place, right time. Soccer Mommy’s Color Theory became my musical mantra, my guide, my solace.”You Should Be Dancing
“I spent a lot of my alone time in my room, listening to disco and feeling somewhat ashamed, as if I was betraying my friends. I was listening to Chic, KC and the Sunshine Band, Rose Royce, and Tavares. I loved the slow-dancing disco as much as the fast-dancing tunes, and I moved around my room like I was in Studio 54, minus the cocaine. I didn’t tell a soul.”Let's Dance - Songs of my Youth Volume 1
“My father pulls up in his blue Impala convertible just as “Earth Angel” is about to end. I run up to the driveway to greet him and practically propel him onto the lawn, so he can dance with me and my sister to the end of the song”Wallowing with the National's First Two Pages of Frankenstein
“At first, I did not listen to it on vinyl. I needed to listen on streaming, so I could stop after each song and gather my thoughts and cry if I needed to. And lord, did I need to.”Mailbag #1
In which Martin Shkreli tries to buy me a Deftones albumThe Lost Art of the Mixtape
“They had to flow into one another. Each song needed to be a continuation of the one before it, as if all these disparate bands got together and recorded a concept album based solely on your feelings for the guy who sits in front of you in English class.The Musical Ties That Bind
“She is three, and we’re at an outdoor flea market. I stop by the middle-aged guy selling records and flip through some bins of mostly classic rock albums. She’s in her stroller, and I notice she’s agitated and pointing at something. She’s kicking her legs excitedly, saying, “I want that record!” It’s Green Day’s Dookie.”Joshua Tree, Bullet the Blue Sky, and 9/11
the bomb sniffing dogs and the people milling about, not sure of where to go or what to do now. Everyone was shell-shocked.Singable Songs For the Very Young (and Old)
It was a silly song, which was just fine, as it was for the very young, not five twentysomething record store clerks who listened to the likes of Flipper.Hold the Line: a breakup story starring Toto
Everyone was singing it. The old, the young, the toothless, the drunk, the surfing Santa. It was almost robotic, in a sense..Chicago 2: Love At First Skate
Maybe Chicago 2 isn’t as bad as I remember it. Maybe there’s more to the album than a schmaltzy love song that reminds me of a love never found.Ain't That Close to Love - Bowie, Pinball, and Me
We would throw a few quarters into the jukebox (three plays for twenty five cents!), and play the same lineup each time. Led Zeppelin. Todd Rundgren. Bowie.A Wink And a Nod - How a long lost record connected me with my past
That Ed—gorgeous, talented, affable Ed—was part of this band that made this album was amazing to me. I was convinced that Wink was going to make it big. They were going to be rock stars. And I could say I knew them.A Few Thoughts on Manning Fireworks
The best compliment I can give goes to Manning Fireworks: I am genuinely disappointed when the album endsRunning With Radiohead
I finally got so frustrated at my indecisiveness in choosing running music that I put everything on shuffle. I decided to let fate handle it. Fate settled on Radiohead’s “Let Down.”Born in the USA: A Baseball Story
There was something for every Bruce fan on this album: everyone who wanted catharsis, everyone who wanted something fun, everyone who wanted something that punched them in the face, that didn’t deal in the subtleties of Nebraska. We got an anthem. We got a love song. We got it all. For Hank, it was more than that. The album became his entire personality, and it was coming to a head in July 1985.One Person's Paradise: How Bat Out of Hell Became My Nemesis
All the people who had been sitting on their asses for the great dance songs all night were suddenly lined up on the floor. Males formed a line down one side; females did the same on the other side.Reckoning With Reckoning
When I was lost in Reckoning, I wasn’t alone, I wasn’t afraid. The music centered me, healed me.Follow the Leader - Nu-Metal and Me
I spent a lot of time on AOL and that is where I met Justin, a guy half my age who found my AOL profile by searching the string “incubus korn limp bizkit.” Justin was the epitome of nu-metal fan. Young, white, angry, bitter. He wore Jnco jeans and band t-shirts and had a wallet chain hanging from his pocket.That's Ballgame - Lessons Learned from Kevin Devine's "Make the Clocks Move"
I wanted to stop the song. I wanted to start it over again. I wanted to hear the part about it being not a pattern but a phase. It’s what you’ve become and it’s what you will stay rang in my head. I was on the first stanza and already feeling choked upNick Cave's Boatman's Call and Losing Music in a Breakup
I had tied two good things together, and when one of them went bad, they both did. Nick Cave was gone from my life, as if I had divorced him and not my husband.Coming of Age with Elton John's Greatest Hits
I kept the album with the living room stereo in case I had friends over. I didn’t want them to see it in my room. I felt bad about being embarrassed to let them know I was an Elton John fan, like it would be an affront to Elton if he knew.Jesus Christ, Superstar: All That Talk About God
I had a lot of questions that would probably never be answered. Not by my Catholic school teachers, not by mother, not by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. For all its evident flaws, Superstar radicalized me religiouslyThe Summer of Speaking in Tongues
What I remember most is the joy, the exhilaration. I knew we were listening to something special, an instant classic. And I knew that even though 1983 was shaping up to be an incredible year for music, this would soundtrack the summer.The National's Boxer: Waiting For Winter to Leave
There’s something within this album that sparks my soul, making me realize that it’s not quite yet empty in there. It reminds me that I once had a full heart, once had someone who loved me, who was a willing partner in sleeping through winter together.Redefining my Life WIth Incubus' S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
By the time it was over for the second time, I had signed onto AOL and changed my screen name from DuHast to Redefined.Songs for the Deaf: I Need a Saga. What's the Saga?
" I did a lot of thinking and contemplating, but I also just let the music play sometimes, let it take me away to a faraway desert road with the cow skulls and cacti."Down in the Tube Station With the Jam
Inside the case, Patrick had stuffed a sheet of yellow legal paper, folded about a hundred times. I opened it up and it was the lyrics to the Jam’s “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight,” a track from their 1978 album All Mod Cons, which also appears on the Snap! tape I held in my hand.The Doors and Me
The Doors are one of those bands you discovered intrinsically back in the 70s. No older cousin passed them down to you, no friends said, “Hey, you have to listen to this.” They were just on the radio a lotFinding Joy in New Day Rising
New Day Rising woke something in me. Every song brought with it a swell of resurgence, and of the need to feel everything deeply.Handle With Care: the Comfort of the Traveling Wilburys
I dressed her on the changing table in the small corner of our apartment and I sang the “Handle With Care” to her over and over while I paced the living room, the hallway, the kitchen, holding her in my arms and willing her to stop crying.It's Different For Girls - Joe Jackson and an Unlikely Friendship
It was speaking to me, telling me not only that there was so much more out there beyond the Zeppelin and Springsteen music I was absorbed in, there was music in between those two that I hadn’t yet explored.Love, Hate, and Growth on Long Island With Billy Joel
As I age, I find myself softening some of my stances. I find myself being less of a hater. I am 62. I don’t have time in my life to viscerally hate things anymore; it wastes energy, it wastes precious minutes, it wastes your heart away if you let it.What a Long Strange Trip: How the Dead Helped Me Find Myself
I was barely 14 at the time. It was summer and I was about to transition from public school to Catholic school. I was a nervous wreck that I’d never make friends at the new school and my life would become more of a disaster than it already was. Little did I know that this fairly new copy of Steal Your Face would set in motion a sea change.Growing Up Zeppelin (the song remains the same)
[Liner Notes is a regular column in which I (michele) randomly choose albums from my collection to write about]
The 70s in the Long Island suburbs were all about forts and hideaways and private enclaves, barely hidden places where many firsts happened; first kisses, first heartbreaks, first harsh life lessons, all played out with a soundtrack that consisted mostly of Led Zeppelin.
The forts were clumsily put together hives, a 70s edition of today’s man-caves; we could call them boy-caves and you’d get the idea. Black light posters, candle holders made out of empty Miller quart bottles, Farrah Fawcett pinups and battered skateboards lining the walls. The most important items in each of these boy-caves were the ever-present turntable and stacks of rock and roll records. These forts were an enticement for a girl like me, one who just wanted to hear new music and was enthralled by the prospect of fresh albums, and perhaps a little beer stolen from dens when parents weren’t looking.
Elsewhere: AOL, Catfishing, and Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
It’s fall 1996, I’m newly separated and I’m staying at my parent’s house with my two young children while my husband gets his shit together long enough to pack up and leave our apartment. I don’t sleep. I don’t eat. I exist on a diet of coffee, mini Snickers bars, cigarettes and vodka. I ghost-step my way through life, existing in a wavy haze, not sure where I’m going or even where I am.
Ode to the Mountain Goats
My first exposure to the Mountain Goats was on YouTube, maybe 12 years ago, a video of them doing “No Children” live, where the audience was doing the heavy lifting in singing. The lyrics demolished me; the unbridled catharsis with which the audience sang floored me. There was such an obvious connection with John Darnielle and the band and I knew I had to find out more. Within a week, I was a superfan.
My Springsteen Journey: fandom, divorce, and reconciliation
My first exposure to Bruce Springsteen was in 1973 when an older cousin played “Blinded by the Light” for me. I was intrigued by the song, I liked it enough, but not enough to dive into the album it was on. I was eleven. I had better things to do. The song stuck with me, though, and played in my head a lot. I enjoyed the pace of it, the wordplay. I also thought Bruce was hot.
This Story's Old: Reckoning with Brand New's "Deja Entendu" in 2025
[Liner Notes is a regular column in which I (michele) randomly - i use an actual randomizer - choose albums from my collection to write about]
The year is 2003. I am stuck in a brutal marriage - my second - and I am trying to extricate myself from the relationship but I don’t know how to do that. It wasn’t as easy with my first marriage where I just told him I wanted out and he complied (bitterly). There’s some mental/emotional abuse in this second marriage and I’m afraid to anger him. It’s a terrible time for me. I’m drinking, I have bouts with sleep paralysis, there are frequent panic attacks, sometime a dozen in a day. I have effectively separated myself from my heart and soul. There is nothing left in me.
The Trick to Getting Into Trick of the Tail and Genesis
The Squonk is of a very retiring disposition and due to its ugliness, weeps constantly. It is easy prey for hunters who simply follow a tear-stained trail. When cornered it will dissolve itself into tears. True or False?
I first learned these words in late 1976, months after Trick of the Tail was released. I memorize them because Kevin’s older brother Sean told us to, and I wanted to impress Sean more than anything.
Growing Up With the Beatles
I am nine years old. I wake up with the sound of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” drifting into my room and I know. It’s Saturday and I’ve got chores to do. I think it’s my turn to vacuum and I sleepily head into the kitchen for some breakfast before I start my task. I eat through “Getting Better” and stare at the cereal box during “Fixing a Hole.” I know I have to get started if i don’t want to waste my morning inside. There are friends to see, bikes to ride, baseball cards to be traded. I trudge into the living room where my mother already has the vacuum out for me and my sister is dusting.
Q&A Remix With...Me
The Q&A Remix is a recurring column under the new releases heading. I give people a list of 15 questions and they pick out the ones they want to answer. Thought I’d give it a go myself.
Have you ever bought a record just for the artwork?
Not the sleeve artwork, but the album artwork. In 1980, I bought True Colors by Split Enz which had designs and colors etched into the record itself. I believe that was a first, or at least the first I had seen anything like that. I had to have it.
Poetry, Lyricism, and David Berman: a Mourner's Chronicle
I used to fancy myself a poet. I was in high school at the time and, spurred on by the words of my then idol Jim Morrison (i know, i know), I penned cryptic, dark, scattered poetry meant to be read by no one but myself. I was afraid to show anyone my oddly metered words, for fear they would at best ridicule them or, at worst, not understand them. There were few things worse to my teenage self than being misunderstood, and to have that done over poetry would wound me.
Happiness I Cannot Feel: Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and the Turmoil Within
I was eleven years old when I first heard Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.”
I don’t think anyone intended for me to hear it. A well-meaning cousin bought me a compilation album called Superstars of the 70s. I think he wanted me to listen to certain tracks, help me discover the music he liked. The Beach Boys. The Doobie Brothers. Crosby Stills and Nash.
At first I gravitated toward the Yes cut, a three minute version of “Roundabout” (and I would only later discover there was another 536 minutes of the song). There was Hendrix and Deep Purple and various other hard rock songs — all edited down to a radio-friendly three minutes or so — that excited me as I worked my way through both sides of all four discs.
There's a New Wave Coming
Liner Notes is where I go through my collection one random album at a time and write about what each one means to me. Today, I have an essay about new wave music; so much of my collection falls into this genre. This is about my memories of these records - Michele
It’s been said the music you listen to in high school is the music that stays your favorite forever, but I’m here as proof that this is not necessarily true. I graduated high school in 1980 and spent the next three years cultivating an entirely new personality based around the music I was listening to.
Do You Feel Like We Do - a tale of Peter Frampton and friendship
I was reunited with some albums I parted ways with a long, long time ago when they somehow ended up in possession of my sister. I hadn’t seen them in years, but I thought of them often, wondering where those REM and U2 and XTC records went to. Little did I know they were residing in Rhode Island with my sister, who recently surprised me with a canvas bag filled with those albums.
Christmas Music Selections
I’m a sucker for Christmas music. I start listening right after Halloween and will usually let it linger until New Year’s Day. My listening covers a wide expanse; I love the standards (the Drifter’s version of “White Christmas” tops my chart), but I also love a treasure trove of covers of those classics (Bright Eyes has an amazing Christmas album with covers) and original holiday songs by a variety of rock, punk, emo, alternative bands and musicians (Sufjan Stevens does it best).
Discovering the Dark Side of the Moon
It’s 4am and I am listening to Dark Side of the Moon. It’s Saturday; the world won’t wake for another couple of hours, so I keep the volume soft, as if it might wake the neighborhood. The lights are out and I am high. Conditions are perfect for a listen to this album.
I was eleven in March, 1973, when DSotM came out. Even though I was already dipping my feet into the rock pool thanks to older cousins who introduced me to Black Sabbath and The Who, I was not ready for Pink Floyd. I was not ready for this specific record. There was too much nuance, too much “weird stuff” as I put it back then. “Money” was all over the radio and I liked the song a lot, but I just didn’t want to labor through the whole album.
Letter From the Editor
Welcome to the inaugural edition of I Have That on Vinyl.
The greatest Christmas of my life happened in 1974. I was eleven years old and the euphoria I felt upon receiving my very own turntable was something that would be hard to replicate; all Christmases thereafter were ruined by the fact that I peaked at eleven.
Ode to K-Tel
There’s a picture of me, taken on Christmas morning. I’m about eleven years old and I’m holding two K-Tel records, beaming like I just received the greatest gifts ever. And in a way, I did. Those records were the gift of music. They gave me the ability to pour through a collection of songs to find something I liked without having to splurge all my saved allowance on a ten or twenty 45s.
WALK OUT TO WINTER: falling in love with—and to—Aztec Camera's High Land, Hard Rain
It’s snowing; thick, large flakes coming down at the rate of two inches an hour. Work is closed and I don’t have to go anywhere until Wednesday afternoon, so I’m huddled up on the couch with a cup of tea, writing this and occasionally looking up to see if it’s still snowing. Part of me wants it to snow all day. I love the feeling of being homebound, forced by winter to do nothing but cuddle with cats and listen to music.