# Rainslick Guitars, Purple Daydreams, and Dusty Tape Collage > Week 45 leaps from Prince and Paul Simon to New Order grunge and dream rock a vivid trip through hits heartache and adventurous albums across eras - Canonical: https://www.russ.cloud/2026/11/09/rainslick-guitars-purple-daydreams-and-dusty-tape-collage/ - Published: 2026-11-09 - Author: Russ McKendrick --- ## No Bad Memories by The Avalanches 📼 ### Recording a world of adverts and after-images 🎛️ By the time *No Bad Memories* arrived in October 2026, The Avalanches had already spent decades turning found sound into emotional weather. This fourth album pushes that habit somewhere stranger. Instead of digging mainly through old records, Robbie Chater and company built the record from the leftovers of consumer life, startup chimes, ad jingles, device noises, broadcast scraps and little pieces of digital rubbish that most people would ignore. Reviews at the time kept returning to that idea: this is an album made from the sounds that sold us things, greeted us from our screens, and quietly lodged themselves in memory. The running order on your vinyl makes that method obvious. Full songs are constantly broken up by miniatures such as “Bd-R”, “Xerox Altalink B8055”, “3D Glasses Not Included” and “Break Out Corporate Tag”. They work like station ident bumps or half-remembered commercials, so the album plays less like a neat collection of songs and more like surfing through a dream version of mass media. That fragmented feel also points to how The Avalanches now work, with lots of editing, collage, file-sharing and guest contributions stitched together into one flowing whole. After the remote-heavy methods that shaped plenty of post-2020 pop, this feels very much like an album born from modern long-distance assembly. ### Genre-hopping, but with a real theme 🌐 Musically, *No Bad Memories* is electronic first, but it never sits still. Chillwave haze, nu-disco bounce, half-garage rhythms, synth-pop sweetness, art-pop melancholy, abstract electronics and bits of rap all pass through it. Guests are not random decoration either. Karen O brings real ache to “Blue Shadows”, Jamie xx helps give “Every Single Weekend” its lift, John Glacier adds a cool, cutting presence to “Far Away”, and Suzanne Ciani’s appearance links the album to earlier electronic experimentation. What makes it distinctive is that all these styles are tied to one idea: how memory gets shaped by commerce and technology. The Avalanches are not simply doing nostalgia. They are asking what it means when some of our fondest sonic memories were designed by corporations to be catchy. ### Beats over riffs, and motion over muscle 🥁 If you come to this as a rock listener, the big surprise is that the “band feel” comes from rhythm and momentum rather than guitar heroics. There is little evidence that guitar drives the record in any traditional sense. Instead, the pulse comes from chopped drums, programmed grooves, synthetic bass and sudden edits. The rhythm section is basically engineered in the sampler. That gives the album its fizzy forward push. Even the shortest interludes help with pace, nudging the listener into the next track before the previous mood has settled. It is restless by design. ### Reception, meaning and early legacy ✨ Critics were largely taken with the ambition, even when they found the album overloaded. The strongest notices praised its wit, emotional pull and sheer nerve, while some reviews felt the many interludes could crowd out the best songs. That tension is part of the record’s identity. It wants excess. As for legacy, it is still early, but *No Bad Memories* already feels like a sharp document of 2020s genre fluidity. It treats pop, club music, ambient experiment and media theory as parts of the same conversation. Few groups could make e-waste, branding and memory sound this human. - View No Bad Memories on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/no-bad-memories-38742681/) - View The Avalanches on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-avalanches/) ## Greatest Hits by ZZ Top 🎸 ### 🛠️ A compilation built from two ZZ Top eras Although your copy is a 2026 Warner vinyl reissue, *Greatest Hits* began life in 1992 as a career-spanning compilation, pulling together songs recorded across nearly twenty years. That matters because this is not one studio statement with one set of sessions. It is a map of how ZZ Top changed from lean Texas boogie merchants into MTV giants without losing their core feel. The running order leans heavily on the band’s 1980s and early 1990s material, with *Eliminator*, *Afterburner* and *Recycler* doing much of the lifting. Then it reaches back for older staples like “Tush”, “Cheap Sunglasses” and “La Grange”. That gives the album a smart push-pull between dusty bar-band swagger and slick radio-era punch. Bill Ham’s long association with the band hangs over the whole set, even if the tracks come from different sessions and different moments in their career. ### 🎶 The sound: blues roots in mirrored shades What makes this collection distinctive is how clearly it shows ZZ Top’s trick. At heart, they are still a three-piece blues-rock band. Billy Gibbons’ guitar riffs stay compact and nasty, Dusty Hill’s bass lines keep the bottom end fat, and Frank Beard plays with a dry, steady groove that makes even simple patterns hit hard. Then come the 1980s touches: synths, sequenced parts, cleaner studio polish, and those huge hooks. “Gimme All Your Lovin’”, “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs” are built for big speakers and bigger choruses, but they never lose that Texas grit. On the older cuts, especially “La Grange” and “Tush”, you hear the source code. The guitar is more open, the groove more stripped back, and the boogie is the whole point. ### 📈 Reception, legacy and the grunge moment When *Greatest Hits* first appeared, it did well because it gathered the songs casual listeners already knew, especially the MTV favourites. Reviews were generally warm, though some writers noted that it was stronger as a portrait of ZZ Top’s superstar years than as a perfect full-career survey. Its timing is interesting. In 1992, grunge and alternative rock were changing what mainstream rock looked and sounded like. ZZ Top did not try to dress up as a Seattle band. Instead, this compilation almost argues for their durability. Beneath the videos, cars and polish, their music still ran on riffs, groove and attitude. That kept them relevant even as tastes shifted. ### 🔧 Big label band, self-made identity ZZ Top were never an indie act in the business sense, but there is still a self-directed streak here. They built a world of their own, beards, hot rods, innuendo, blues licks and all, and stuck with it through changing fashions. *Greatest Hits* catches that consistency beautifully. It shows a band adapting to a decade full of pop sheen and rock fragmentation, yet still sounding unmistakably like three blokes from Texas making a groove feel enormous. - View Greatest Hits on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/greatest-hits-38885634/) - View ZZ Top on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/zz-top/) ## (The Best Of) NewOrder by New Order 🎛️ ### A compilation made at a turning point ⏳ Issued originally in 1994, *(The Best Of) NewOrder* arrived when the band had already travelled a very long way from the shadow of Joy Division. It was not a simple greatest-hits package. It was assembled after *Republic* in 1993, at a moment when New Order were easing into a break, and it pulls together key singles, soundtrack cuts, club favourites and newer material from that polished early-90s phase. Your vinyl pressing keeps that story intact, with the running order moving from the freshly updated “True Faith-94”, “Bizarre Love Triangle-94” and “1963-94” into *Republic* tracks like “Regret”, then back through the mid-80s and late-80s catalogue. Those “-94” versions mattered. They were new edits or remakes prepared for the compilation campaign, with Stephen Hague involved again on some of them. Hague had helped shape New Order’s more streamlined pop side before, so these updates gave familiar songs a cleaner, tighter 90s finish rather than tearing them apart. “Blue Monday-88” also tells you a lot about the set’s logic. Instead of reaching for the original 1983 version, the compilation uses the later remake that had already repackaged the song for a new dance-pop audience. ### The sound, bass first, machines close behind 🔊 What makes New Order distinctive is how naturally they joined guitar-band thinking to sequencers, drum machines and club rhythm. Bernard Sumner’s guitar often works in clipped, airy lines rather than big riffs. Peter Hook’s bass does something far stranger and far more memorable, climbing up into the tune and acting almost like a lead instrument. Stephen Morris gives the music its snap, mixing live drumming with machine precision, while Gillian Gilbert’s keyboards fill the spaces with melody and mood. Across this set you can hear that method changing shape. “The Perfect Kiss” and “Thieves Like Us” have long, hypnotic dance structures. “Fine Time” and “Vanishing Point” bring in the acid-house pull of the *Technique* years. “Regret” and “Ruined In A Day” fold that electronic pulse into a brighter, more direct pop-rock frame. ### New Order in the grunge decade 🎸 By 1994, grunge and alternative rock were dominating the wider conversation, but New Order did not chase distortion or slacker grit. This compilation almost argues for another route through the decade. Here was a band proving that alternative music could still be sleek, danceable, melancholic and emotionally restrained. That mattered in a decade when guitar rock, house, indie, club culture and chart pop were all rubbing against each other. Their Factory background also still hangs over the whole set. Even when the production became more expensive and radio-ready, the group kept that experimental Manchester habit of trying ideas first and sorting out the rules later. ### Reception, legacy and why it still works 💿 The album sold well, hitting the UK Top 5, and it helped keep New Order’s catalogue in view during their hiatus. Some reviewers preferred the sharper focus of *Substance*, but *(The Best Of) NewOrder* has its own appeal because it is messier in a revealing way. It lets you hear New Order as they really were, not one style, not one era, but a band moving between post-punk, synth-pop, house, soundtrack work and football-pop without losing their identity. That legacy is huge. You can hear New Order in later indie dance, electronic rock and synth-driven alternative bands all over the place. Put this record on and the reason is obvious. Few groups made rhythm feel this cool, or made sadness move this well. - View (the best of) NewOrder on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/the-best-of-neworder-37907823/) - View New Order on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/new-order/) ## OX4_ The Best Of Ride by Ride 🎸 ### A reunion-era map of the band 🗺️ Released in this European Sire vinyl edition on 18 April 2015, *OX4_ The Best Of Ride* arrived at exactly the right moment. Ride had reunited in 2014, vinyl had become a serious part of music culture again, and a new generation was finding 1990s guitar bands through playlists, YouTube clips and festival posters rather than old weekly music papers. This set was first compiled in 2001, years after the band had split, then returned in 2015 as both a collector’s object and an ideal way back in. Your pressing’s running order works like a quick history of Ride rather than a pile of obvious singles. Side A digs into the early EP run, with “Chelsea Girl”, “Drive Blind”, “Like A Daydream” and “Taste”, all from that astonishing 1990 burst when Ride seemed to have appeared fully formed. From there it moves through *Nowhere*, *Today Forever*, *Going Blank Again*, *Carnival of Light* and finally *Tarantula*. That means the compilation keeps the whole story intact, including the less fashionable later years. ### From shoegaze rush to widescreen rock 🌫️ What makes Ride distinct is how musical and physical they always sounded. Yes, they are central to shoegaze history, but they were never just haze and volume. Mark Gardener and Andy Bell built songs from chiming guitars, sheets of feedback and bright melodic hooks, while Steve Queralt’s bass and Laurence Colbert’s drumming gave the music real drive. The early material, much of it shaped in sessions with producer Marc Waterman, has that thrilling collision of noise and tune. “Dreams Burn Down” and “Vapour Trail” still sound huge, but never muddy. By *Going Blank Again*, with Alan Moulder helping at the controls, Ride had become more expansive. “Leave Them All Behind” and “OX4” stretch out into long, rolling pieces that borrow from psychedelia, krautrock pulse and classic pop instinct at once. Later tracks such as “Birdman” and “Black Nite Crash” show a band pushing towards heavier, more overtly rock-based ground. ### Reception, reputation and afterlife 💿 The original 2001 compilation reached the UK Top 30, and the 2015 vinyl return did well on the specialist vinyl chart, which says a lot about how listening habits had changed. In the CD era, a best-of was a tidy summary. In the streaming era, it became something else: a curated path through a catalogue that listeners might otherwise meet as disconnected tracks. Critics have usually treated *OX4* as a strong introduction rather than a replacement for the albums. That feels right. *Nowhere* and *Going Blank Again* are still full-statement records. But this compilation has real value because it lets you hear Ride changing in real time. ### Oxford roots, indie spirit, modern meaning 📡 Ride were never a slogan-heavy political band, so this record does not answer the 2010s with direct comment. Its connection to the decade is cultural. The 2015 reissue fitted an era obsessed with rediscovery, scene history and physical editions that felt personal. Even the title, taken from Oxford’s postal district, gives it a local stamp, a reminder that great indie music often begins with a place, a circle of mates and a sound worked out from the ground up. That independent streak matters. Ride signed to bigger labels, but they kept following their ears instead of freezing themselves as a “shoegaze band”. *OX4* captures that refusal neatly. It is the sound of a band that started with beautiful noise and kept moving. - View OX4_ The Best of Ride on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/ox4-the-best-of-ride-6901033/) - View Ride on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/ride/) ## MTV Unplugged by Alice In Chains 🔌 ### 🎙️ A fraught return, caught on tape Alice In Chains recorded *MTV Unplugged* on 10 April 1996 at the Majestic Theatre in Brooklyn Academy of Music, after nearly three years away from the stage. That gap gives the set much of its charge. This was not a band casually dropping in for a prestige TV slot, it was a fragile reunion in front of a small audience, with Layne Staley visibly unwell and the group’s future uncertain. The original album arrived in July 1996, while your 2026 worldwide vinyl edition spreads the thirteen-song set across four sides, which suits the pacing beautifully, from the hush of “Nutshell” to the farewell feeling of “Over Now” and “Killer Is Me”. Toby Wright worked with the band on the audio, and you can hear how carefully the performance was handled. The aim was not to sand off their edges. Instead, the acoustic format keeps the room sound, the pauses, the little imperfections, and the sense that anything could wobble at any moment. ### 🎸 Acoustic, but still heavy What makes *Unplugged* so distinctive is that Alice In Chains do not turn into a gentle coffee-house act. Their songs stay bleak, tense and oddly massive. Jerry Cantrell’s acoustic guitar arrangements carry the same dark architecture as the electric versions, with low-end thump, open-string resonance and unsettling chord shapes. He does not simply strum along, he rebuilds each song so the riffs still matter. That is why “Rooster”, “Would?” and “Angry Chair” retain so much weight without distortion. Sean Kinney’s drumming is restrained but never limp, and Mike Inez gives the whole set its physical depth on bass. In an acoustic setting, that rhythm section matters even more. It stops the music floating away. Above all of it, the Staley-Cantrell vocal blend remains spellbinding, bruised and precise at once. ### 📈 Reception, then and now The album was a commercial success straight away, debuting at No. 3 on the *Billboard* 200, and it later reached double-platinum status in the US. Early reviews were strong, though some writers noted that songs from *Sap* and *Jar of Flies* already lived partly in this acoustic world. With time, that criticism has faded. What lasts is the atmosphere. Many listeners now hear *Unplugged* as one of the finest releases in the whole MTV series. ### 🌧️ Grunge at the point where it turns inward By 1996, grunge had already changed from a live, messy movement into a major-label story with a long shadow behind it. *MTV Unplugged* catches Alice In Chains at exactly that turning point. They were part of the alternative rock explosion, but always a little apart from it, more metallic, more harmonically warped, more willing to sit with dread. There is no strict DIY story here, since this was a major-label and MTV production, yet the spirit still feels stubbornly independent. The band refused to prettify itself for the cameras. In a decade full of genre cross-pollination, they answered with a set that mixed metal weight, grunge exhaustion, acoustic intimacy and old-fashioned songwriting craft. That is why this album still hits so hard. Strip away the amps, and the songs sound even more exposed. - View MTV Unplugged on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/mtv-unplugged-38509347/) - View Alice in Chains on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/alice-in-chains/) ## Celebrity Skin by Hole 💄 ### Recording a glossy, bruised album 🎛️ *Celebrity Skin* came out in 1998, and it arrived after a messy, drawn-out creation process that fits Hole’s history almost too perfectly. The band worked on songs across several studios, with Michael Beinhorn producing after Billy Corgan’s early involvement in the writing and arranging stage. Corgan ended up with co-writing credits on key tracks including “Celebrity Skin”, “Malibu”, “Hit So Hard”, “Dying” and “Petals”, which helps explain the album’s huge choruses and sharp melodic shape. The sessions were far from smooth. Patty Schemel, Hole’s drummer, played on demos and helped shape the songs, but the final album used session drummer Deen Castronovo for the main drum tracks, a decision that caused real hurt within the band. That tension matters, because *Celebrity Skin* sounds sleek and controlled, yet there is strain underneath it. You can hear a group trying to keep its edge while making a bigger, brighter rock record. ### A grunge band meets late-90s melody 🎸 What makes *Celebrity Skin* distinctive is the way it pushes Hole’s punk and grunge roots into a more polished late-90s form. The title track is all flashbulb glamour and sneer, “Malibu” has a sunlit melancholy, and “Northern Star” stretches out into something almost dreamlike. Instead of the raw attack of *Pretty on the Inside* or the ragged force of *Live Through This*, this album goes for layered guitars, cleaner hooks and radio-sized choruses. Eric Erlandson’s guitar work is a big part of that shift. He is not showing off with flashy solos. He builds the songs with thick rhythm parts, chiming figures and walls of distortion that open up at just the right moment. Melissa Auf der Maur’s bass gives the record weight and shape, while the drumming is tight and forceful, more controlled than chaotic. The result is a sound that still hits hard, but with far more sheen. ### Reception, success and late-90s context 📻 The gamble worked commercially. *Celebrity Skin* reached the Top 10 on the *Billboard* 200, the title track hit No. 1 on the US Modern Rock chart, and the album earned Grammy nominations. Critics largely liked its ambition, even if some missed the rougher, more dangerous feel of earlier Hole records. It also caught a moment when alternative rock had changed. By 1998, grunge was no longer an underground shock. Alternative had splintered into post-grunge, Britpop, pop-punk and glossy modern rock. Hole responded by making an album that kept the emotional bite of grunge but accepted that hooks, polish and big production were now part of the decade’s language. ### Why it still matters ✨ Its legacy is bound up with that contradiction. *Celebrity Skin* has major-label gloss, but it still carries an indie spirit in Courtney Love’s writing, especially her attacks on fame, beauty and the machinery around celebrity. That friction is the point. This is an album about image, power and damage, made as a highly crafted object. On vinyl, the running order works beautifully. Side A charges out with “Celebrity Skin” and “Malibu”, then digs deeper with “Reasons To Be Beautiful” and “Dying”. Side B feels darker and more bruised, building towards “Petals”, one of the album’s most fragile closing statements. It is Hole at their most accessible, and still deeply unsettled. - View Celebrity Skin on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/celebrity-skin-38849316/) - View Hole on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/hole/) ## Requiem For A Village by Steven Wilson 🌾 ### 🛠️ A record built from atmosphere and restraint *Requiem For A Village* arrives as a late-period Steven Wilson work, issued on Fiction Records as a double LP, and the shape of the tracklist already tells you plenty. Twelve pieces spread across four sides suggests a record paced like a film, with shorter linking scenes such as “Swirl In A Lark’s Eye”, “Hiraeth” and “Cursus Fingerprint” set against longer centrepieces like the title track, “Now Departing” and “Murmuration”. That stop-start flow fits the descriptions around the album’s creation: Wilson has spoken about moving away from slick, over-corrected modern production and leaning into real performance, texture and chance. Early reports describe the album as one of his most sound-focused projects, with strict self-imposed rules to stop it slipping into routine prog. That is very much in character for Wilson. He has spent years questioning the limits of progressive rock, and here the idea seems to be less about virtuoso display and more about mood, space and unease. ### 🌲 Folk horror, prog and modern genre blur What makes this album distinctive is its reported “folk horror” angle. Rather than the cosmic sweep of some earlier Wilson projects, this one seems rooted in the British countryside, memory, ritual and old places. Even the song titles carry that pull, from “On Chapel Slope” to “The Old God Is Buried”. There is a very English eeriness in those names, and it places the album in a line that runs through pastoral psychedelia, acid folk and uncanny television soundtracks as much as classic prog. That matters because Wilson has never treated genre as a fence. This record appears to sit between progressive rock, ambient sound design, folk shading and spoken-word storytelling. In today’s musical climate, where artists move freely between forms, that approach feels perfectly current. It is prog, yes, but not in a museum-piece way. ### 🎸 Guitar, rhythm and the slow-burn pull Reliable track-by-track musical breakdowns are still thin on the ground, so it is wise not to invent specifics. But the available information points towards guitar and rhythm being used for tension rather than flash. Wilson has long known how to make a guitar part feel architectural, whether through clean repeating figures, acoustic detail or a sudden swell of distortion. On a concept with this kind of rural dread, that sort of patient construction matters more than soloing for its own sake. The rhythm section also seems likely to work in that same slow-burn spirit, grounding the stranger textures without crowding them. On a double album with several substantial pieces, pacing is everything. ### 📰 Reception, themes and what may last Because this is such a recent release, hard evidence on chart performance and long-term influence is still limited. Early commentary has focused on the ambition of the sound world and the immersive production. If the album does leave a strong mark, it will probably be because it catches a present-day fascination with haunted landscapes, local history and the feeling that old places still carry a charge. That gives *Requiem For A Village* a timely resonance. It seems less concerned with headline politics than with cultural memory, belonging and the unease of what has been lost or buried. For Steven Wilson, that is a fresh route into progressive music, and an intriguing one. - View Requiem for a Village on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/requiem-for-a-village-38931157/) - View Steven Wilson on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/steven-wilson/) ## *Little Earthquakes* by Tori Amos 🎹 ### 🎙️ From label doubts to a singular debut The 2015 European Atlantic vinyl in your collection revives an album that had a famously difficult birth. After the commercial failure of *Y Kant Tori Read*, Tori Amos stripped things back and returned to the piano, writing songs that felt far more personal and far less interested in late-80s polish. *Little Earthquakes* was recorded during 1990 and 1991, with sessions at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles and at Stag Studios in England. Production was shared between Amos, Eric Rosse, Davitt Sigerson and Ian Stanley. Atlantic did not instantly hear a hit. Early versions were seen as too odd, too intimate, and not obviously radio-ready at a moment when guitar-heavy alternative rock was taking over. That tension shaped the finished record. Amos and Rosse kept pushing, and songs such as “Girl”, “Precious Things”, “Tear In Your Hand”, “Mother” and the title track helped sharpen the album into something more forceful. You can hear that sequencing on this pressing: side A moves from the biting self-scrutiny of “Crucify” to the emotional ache of “Winter”, while side B grows darker and more exposed, ending with “Me And A Gun” and the title track. ### 🎹 A piano album that thinks like a rock record What makes *Little Earthquakes* distinctive is that the piano is not soft furnishing. Amos uses it like a rhythmic engine, a weapon, and sometimes a stage. “Precious Things” pounds forward with real fury, “Silent All These Years” turns conversational phrasing into melody, and “China” feels almost suspended in air. The guitar work is secondary but well judged. It adds atmosphere and tension rather than taking charge, which leaves space for Amos’s voice and piano to carry the drama. The rhythm section matters in the same way. Drums and bass rarely dominate, but they give songs shape and pressure. On “Little Earthquakes” and “Precious Things”, the pulse follows emotional shifts instead of locking everything into a standard rock groove. ### 🌍 Reception, themes and afterlife On release in 1992, critics largely admired the album’s nerve, even when they found it unsettling. It became a steady success rather than an overnight smash, reaching the UK Top 20 and later building a strong reputation in the US as touring and singles spread the word. “Silent All These Years”, “Winter” and “Crucify” helped turn Amos into a major alternative voice. Its subject matter still hits hard. “Me And A Gun”, written about Amos’s experience of sexual assault, remains one of the starkest songs of its era. More broadly, the album gave female anger, religious guilt, sexuality and trauma a central place in alternative rock. ### 📱 Why it still feels current Although it comes from the early 90s, *Little Earthquakes* fits modern listening remarkably well. Individual songs travel easily in the streaming era, yet the full album rewards being heard in order. Online, it has kept finding new listeners who connect with its candour and feminist edge. Long before social media confession became normal, Tori Amos made private pain public art, and did it without sanding off the sharp bits. - View Little Earthquakes on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/little-earthquakes-6886034/) - View Tori Amos on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/tori-amos/) ## Graceland by Paul Simon 🌍 ### 🎙️ How *Graceland* was made Released in 1986, this Irish Warner Bros. vinyl pressing captures an album born from a very unusual process. Paul Simon had hit a dry spell in the mid-80s and became fascinated by a cassette of South African township music, especially the elastic grooves and bright guitar patterns of mbaqanga. Instead of writing a set of finished songs and then hiring players, he went to Johannesburg in early 1985 with engineer Roy Halee and built tracks with local musicians in the room. That matters, because *Graceland* does not sound like a pop record with “world music” added on top. The shape of the songs came from collaboration with players such as guitarist Ray Phiri, bassist Bakithi Kumalo and drummer Isaac Mtshali, plus singers Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Simon then completed the album through overdubs and editing in New York, London, Los Angeles and Louisiana. The running order on this LP makes that journey clear, from the accordion-led bounce of “The Boy In The Bubble” to the loose, rootsy closer “All Around The World Or The Myth Of Fingerprints”. ### 🥁 Guitars, grooves and studio craft What makes *Graceland* so distinctive is its sense of motion. Ray Phiri’s guitar work often avoids standard rock strumming and instead uses clipped, repeating figures that lock into the rhythm like percussion. Bakithi Kumalo’s bass does far more than hold down the bottom end, it sings, darts and answers the melody, nowhere more memorably than on “You Can Call Me Al”. Roy Halee’s production is polished in a very 80s way, but never cold. Digital editing, layered overdubs and contemporary studio tools helped shape the album’s clean, spacious sound. There are synth textures and modern production touches around the edges, yet the record keeps the feel of live musicians pushing against one another in real time. That balance is a big part of why it still feels fresh. ### 📺 MTV, pop success and the politics around it *Graceland* became a huge success, reaching No. 1 in the UK, hitting the Top 5 in the US and winning the Grammy for Album of the Year. MTV helped, especially with the brilliant “You Can Call Me Al” video, where Chevy Chase lip-syncs beside Simon. It gave the song a comic, unforgettable visual identity and brought Simon to younger viewers in the video era. At the same time, the album arrived with real controversy. Recording in South Africa during apartheid brought heavy criticism because of the cultural boycott. That debate has never disappeared, and it remains part of the album’s story. ### 🌟 Why its legacy still feels alive The legacy of *Graceland* is both musical and moral. It opened many listeners’ ears to South African styles and gave Ladysmith Black Mambazo a much bigger international audience. It also helped define how late-80s pop could meet sounds outside the usual Anglo-American rock world without losing hooks or radio appeal. Songs like “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes”, “Under African Skies” and “Homeless” still feel light on their feet, full of detail, and impossible to confuse with anything else from 1986. That is why this record remains such a fascinating listen: joyous, carefully made, hugely influential, and still worth arguing about. - View Graceland on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/graceland-5416395/) - View Paul Simon on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/paul-simon/) ## 45 (Volume 1) by XTC 🎛️ ### Early singles, newly framed 📻 Despite the 2026 release date, *45 (Volume 1)* is not a new XTC studio statement. It is a carefully assembled Ape House vinyl set built from the band’s early A-sides and key single-era recordings from 1977 to 1980. That matters, because the album plays like a fast-moving origin story. Side A begins with the wiry jolt of “Science Friction” and runs through to “Making Plans for Nigel”, while Side B picks up with “Ten Feet Tall” and pushes on to “Take This Town”. The running order turns a handful of singles into a compact portrait of a band changing in real time. These songs were originally made during XTC’s first burst on Virgin, when Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding were sharpening a style that felt twitchy, clever and slightly unruly. “Science Friction”, “Statue of Liberty” and “This Is Pop?” catch the group in its most jumpy, art-punk mood. By the time you reach “Life Begins at the Hop” and “Making Plans for Nigel”, the hooks are bigger, the arrangements tighter, and Colin Moulding’s writing is becoming central to the band’s identity. ### Why it still sounds so distinctive ⚡ What makes this set such a pleasure is how clearly it captures XTC’s early chemistry. The guitars are clipped and angular, the rhythm section is restless, and the melodies arrive with just enough sweetness to offset the nervous energy. Partridge often sounds as if he is trying to outrun the beat, while Moulding brings a calmer, rounder melodic sense. That contrast gives the record its shape. There is also a lovely tension between pop craft and awkwardness. “This Is Pop?” practically argues with its own title. “Are You Receiving Me?” turns communication into a source of anxiety. “Ten Feet Tall” opens the window and lets some air in, then “Generals and Majors” slips satire into a tune catchy enough to whistle on the way home. ### Reception, politics and afterlife 📰 Several of these songs were admired before XTC became widely known, but “Making Plans for Nigel” was the breakthrough. It gave the band a proper commercial foothold and remains one of the sharpest British singles of its era, a song about conformity and control disguised as new wave pop. “Generals and Majors” still lands hard too, with its bright surface and anti-militarist bite. “Towers of London” adds another thread, touching history, power and national memory. That is why this compilation still feels timely. Its themes, authority, war, identity, social pressure, media language, have not gone anywhere. ### Ape House and the independent spirit 🛠️ The 2026 release itself has a strong DIY flavour. Ape House treats this material as something to curate, not merely repackage. There is no pandemic-era remote collaboration story here, because this is an archival release drawn from historic recordings. Its modern quality comes from how it has been presented: a band-controlled label, vinyl-first thinking, and a focus on sequencing, sound and artefact. In that sense, *45 (Volume 1)* fits the current appetite for genre-fluid listening rather well. It reminds you that XTC were already mixing punk bite, pop intelligence, art-school wit and guitar rock long before “indie” became a catch-all term. This record catches them discovering that language, one single at a time. - View 45 (Volume 1) on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/45-volume-1-38964026/) - View XTC on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/xtc/) ## Gods own medicine Limited MMXXVI MWIS Edition by The Mission 🖤 ### Recording history, and what this 2026 edition actually is 🎛️ A quick but important point first: your **Limited MMXXVI MWIS Edition** is a **2026 Demon Records vinyl reissue**, not a newly recorded studio remake. The music comes from **The Mission’s 1986 debut album, *God’s Own Medicine***, originally produced by **Tim Palmer** and recorded in a short, intense burst at **Ridge Farm** and **Utopia Studios**. That speed matters, because the album has the feel of a band arriving fully formed, full of belief, drama and momentum. This new pressing has real interest for collectors because it restores parts of Wayne Hussey’s original vision. Demon’s notes around the release point to a **new remaster by George Shilling**, recreated artwork, and, most notably, the **full-length “Love Me to Death”** in the running order. Your copy’s sequence, ending side two with “Love me to death”, gives the album a more sweeping, emotionally final close than some earlier vinyl configurations. On the pandemic question, there is no solid sign that Covid-era remote work shaped the making of the music itself. This is an archival, curatorial project rather than a remote-collaboration album. ### The sound: gothic rock with size, melody and muscle 🎸 What makes *God’s Own Medicine* hit so hard is that it never settles for murk alone. Yes, it is gothic rock, but it is also **anthemic, melodic and physical**. The guitars chime, surge and ring out in layers. Wayne Hussey and Simon Hinkler build songs less from fancy solos than from **overlapping textures and big rhythmic strums**, which gives tracks like **“Wasteland”** and **“Bridges Burning”** their scale. The rhythm section is just as important. **Craig Adams’ bass** gives the songs weight and movement, while **Mick Brown’s drums** keep everything driving forward. Even at its most romantic, this album has a pulse. **“And the dance goes on”** and **“Dance on glass”** show that side especially well, with the beat doing as much emotional work as the lyrics. ### Reception then, and why it lasted 📻 Back in 1986, reaction was mixed. Some critics found the album too grand and theatrical, while others heard exactly why The Mission connected so quickly: they took post-punk darkness and gave it a wider, more tuneful frame. Commercially, it helped establish them as one of the major British goth bands of the late 1980s. Its legacy has grown because it offered a route between underground gloom and bigger rock songcraft. You can hear that in **“Severina”**, which wraps melancholy in something close to pop grace, and in **“Sacrilege”**, where desire and blasphemy sit side by side in classic Mission fashion. ### Why it still resonates now 🌙 The album’s themes still travel well. **“Wasteland”** speaks easily to modern feelings of social exhaustion. **“Bridges Burning”** suits an age of division and collapse of trust. The band’s mix of spiritual imagery, erotic charge and end-times mood also feels very current in a culture that is always picking through questions of belief, identity and ruin. In today’s genre-blurring listening habits, *God’s Own Medicine* fits neatly beside goth, post-punk, alternative rock and even more classic guitar records. That is why this 2026 pressing matters. It is not just nostalgia on coloured vinyl, it is a reminder of how big, dark and melodic British rock could be when The Mission were in full flight. - View God's own medicine Limited MMXXVI MWIS Edition on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/gods-own-medicine-limited-mmxxvi-mwis-edition-38903982/) - View The Mission on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-mission/) ## Lost In The Dream by The War On Drugs 🌌 ### Recording a private crisis into widescreen rock 🎛️ Released on **18 March 2014** through **Secretly Canadian**, *Lost In The Dream* is the record where Adam Granduciel turned anxiety, insomnia and isolation into something huge and oddly comforting. He spent much of 2013 writing, recording, revising and rerecording the songs, often in a restless loop of home demos, band takes and overdubs. A lot of the material began in intimate spaces, with ideas worked out in his home set-up before being expanded in studios around Philadelphia, New York, Hoboken and Asheville. That mix matters. This is not a scrappy “captured live in a room” album, even though it has a real band’s momentum. Granduciel reportedly played most of the instruments himself, with key help from bassist Dave Hartley, keyboard player Robbie Bennett and engineer-producer Jeff Zeigler. He was famously obsessive about tone, tape, compression and room sound. The result is an album that feels open-road and panoramic, yet was built from careful layering and long hours of solitary tinkering. ### Why it sounds so distinctive 🚗 The War On Drugs had already drawn from Dylan, Springsteen and krautrock pulse, but *Lost In The Dream* brings those threads together with unusual grace. You hear chiming guitars, motorik rhythms, synth haze, soft-rock smoothness, saxophone touches and that blurred, windblown vocal style which makes Granduciel sound half inside the song and half drifting above it. On your vinyl copy, the sequencing really helps this world click into place. **“Under The Pressure”** opens side A with nearly nine minutes of rising tension and release, then **“Red Eyes”** gives the album its most immediate rush. By the time side D closes with **“In Reverse”**, the whole record feels like one long night drive. It is indie rock, yes, but it also slips between heartland rock, psychedelia, ambient texture and synth-led dream pop without sounding like a genre exercise. That post-genre ease is part of its charm. ### Reception, reach and the streaming-era paradox 📈 Critics loved it on release and many later treated it as one of the best albums of the 2010s. It also pushed the band into a much larger audience, charting strongly by indie-rock standards and growing through touring, word of mouth and repeat listening. What I love is how stubbornly album-shaped it is. In the streaming era, when songs were increasingly trimmed into quick hooks and playlist logic, *Lost In The Dream* trusted length, flow and atmosphere. Social media and streaming helped people find it, but the music itself asks for patience. That gave it a special place in the decade, modern in how it travelled, old-school in how it wanted to be heard. ### Legacy, mood and independent spirit 🌠 This is not a political record in any direct sense, yet it fits the 2010s perfectly. Its mood of uncertainty, drift and private unease feels in tune with a decade of overstimulation and low-level dread. Instead of protest songs, Granduciel gave us motion without arrival, freedom tinged with fear. Its independent spirit is just as important. Secretly Canadian gave the band room, and Granduciel used that freedom to make a meticulous, deeply personal record on his own terms. *Lost In The Dream* proved that indie rock could still be ambitious, polished and emotionally messy without losing its soul. - View Lost in the Dream on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/lost-in-the-dream-22419418/) - View The War on Drugs on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-war-on-drugs/) ## Around The World In A Day by Prince And The Revolution 🌍 ### Recording the left turn 🎛️ Your 2016 European Paisley Park vinyl reissue brings back one of Prince’s boldest moves. In 1985, with *Purple Rain* still huge, he could easily have made a sequel in spirit. Instead, he and The Revolution swerved into something stranger, softer round the edges, and far more psychedelic. Much of the album took shape during 1984, with sessions in Minnesota and Los Angeles, and it was finished by late December that year. What makes the creation story so good is the timing. Prince changed direction at the exact moment when repeating himself would have been the safe option. The Revolution mattered here too. Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman helped push the sound away from arena-rock thunder towards colour, texture and mood. Their influence can be heard all over the record, from the dreamlike title track to the hazy glow of “Paisley Park”. This is still very much Prince’s vision, but it feels more like a band record than *Purple Rain*. ### Psychedelia, funk and that beautifully odd mix 🌀 The tracklist on this pressing tells the story well. Side A opens with “Around The World In A Day”, “Paisley Park” and “Condition Of The Heart”, which immediately trade rock swagger for fantasy, romance and mystery. Then “Raspberry Beret” arrives with its bright, playful bounce, one of Prince’s greatest pop singles. By the time “Tamborine” snaps everything down to a wiry, skeletal groove, you know this album enjoys keeping listeners off balance. Its style is hard to pin down, which is the point. There’s rock guitar, but often as texture rather than heroics. There’s funk in the bass lines and rhythmic snap, pop in the hooks, soul in the vocals, and a whiff of 60s psychedelia in the strings, layered harmonies and surreal imagery. The title track’s non-Western percussion colours widen the palette even more. Prince treated genre as a box to break open. ### Reception, politics and the sound of the band ⚡ At first, some critics and fans were baffled. People expected another giant rock statement and got a more inward, more whimsical record instead. Even so, it was a commercial hit, reaching No. 1 in the US, with “Raspberry Beret” and “Pop Life” becoming major singles. “Pop Life” is especially sharp, taking a cool, relaxed groove and using it to prod at fame and emptiness. “America” brings politics in through rhythm rather than slogans, full of tension beneath its danceable surface, very much in step with mid-80s anxieties about national identity and power. Brown Mark’s bass and Bobby Z’s drumming keep the whole thing moving with a tight but flexible pulse, while guitars slash, shimmer and sting rather than simply dominate. ### Why it lasts, and why it fits now 📱 This album makes even more sense in the streaming age than people might expect. Individual songs travel well, “Raspberry Beret”, “Pop Life”, “America”, but the full sequence rewards a proper album listen, especially on vinyl. That suits a record with such a carefully shaped mood arc, ending in the feverish, conflicted “Temptation”. Its legacy lies in that refusal to be predictable. A lot of later genre-fluid pop owes something to records like this, where funk, rock, pop and studio experimentation live together without asking permission. Social media and streaming have helped people revisit it without the burden of *Purple Rain* expectations. Heard now, *Around The World In A Day* feels less like a detour and more like Prince opening another door. - View Around the World in a Day on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/album/around-the-world-in-a-day-9133687/) - View Prince & The Revolution on [russ.fm](https://www.russ.fm/artist/prince-and-the-revolution/) --- Group portrait of this week's artists: Ride, Steven Wilson, Tori Amos, Prince The Revolution ## Top Artists (Week 45) - [The Avalanches](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-avalanches/) (28 plays) - [ZZ Top](https://www.russ.fm/artist/zz-top/) (18 plays) - [New Order](https://www.russ.fm/artist/new-order/) (16 plays) - [Ride](https://www.russ.fm/artist/ride/) (15 plays) - [Alice in Chains](https://www.russ.fm/artist/alice-in-chains/) (13 plays) - [Hole](https://www.russ.fm/artist/hole/) (12 plays) - [Steven Wilson](https://www.russ.fm/artist/steven-wilson/) (12 plays) - [Tori Amos](https://www.russ.fm/artist/tori-amos/) (12 plays) - [Paul Simon](https://www.russ.fm/artist/paul-simon/) (11 plays) - [XTC](https://www.russ.fm/artist/xtc/) (11 plays) - [The Mission](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-mission/) (10 plays) - [The War on Drugs](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-war-on-drugs/) (10 plays) - [Prince & The Revolution](https://www.russ.fm/artist/prince-and-the-revolution/) (9 plays) ## Top Albums (Week 45) - [No Bad Memories](https://www.russ.fm/album/no-bad-memories-38742681/) by [The Avalanches](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-avalanches/) - [Greatest Hits](https://www.russ.fm/album/greatest-hits-38885634/) by [ZZ Top](https://www.russ.fm/artist/zz-top/) - [(the best of) NewOrder](https://www.russ.fm/album/the-best-of-neworder-37907823/) by [New Order](https://www.russ.fm/artist/new-order/) - [OX4_ The Best of Ride](https://www.russ.fm/album/ox4-the-best-of-ride-6901033/) by [Ride](https://www.russ.fm/artist/ride/) - [MTV Unplugged](https://www.russ.fm/album/mtv-unplugged-38509347/) by [Alice in Chains](https://www.russ.fm/artist/alice-in-chains/) - [Celebrity Skin](https://www.russ.fm/album/celebrity-skin-38849316/) by [Hole](https://www.russ.fm/artist/hole/) - [Requiem for a Village](https://www.russ.fm/album/requiem-for-a-village-38931157/) by [Steven Wilson](https://www.russ.fm/artist/steven-wilson/) - [Little Earthquakes](https://www.russ.fm/album/little-earthquakes-6886034/) by [Tori Amos](https://www.russ.fm/artist/tori-amos/) - [Graceland](https://www.russ.fm/album/graceland-5416395/) by [Paul Simon](https://www.russ.fm/artist/paul-simon/) - [45 (Volume 1)](https://www.russ.fm/album/45-volume-1-38964026/) by [XTC](https://www.russ.fm/artist/xtc/) - [God's own medicine Limited MMXXVI MWIS Edition](https://www.russ.fm/album/gods-own-medicine-limited-mmxxvi-mwis-edition-38903982/) by [The Mission](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-mission/) - [Lost in the Dream](https://www.russ.fm/album/lost-in-the-dream-22419418/) by [The War on Drugs](https://www.russ.fm/artist/the-war-on-drugs/) - [Around the World in a Day](https://www.russ.fm/album/around-the-world-in-a-day-9133687/) by [Prince & The Revolution](https://www.russ.fm/artist/prince-and-the-revolution/) This was written by Chat GPT; it is auto-generated and might not be 💯% factual.