VMP Magazine

“When rock was young, in the 1950s, it was swarms of young girls in the audience that first registered the impact of those songs, artist, and records, and made for cheerfully unruly live shows,” music journalist Ellen Sander wrote in the preface of her seminal, first-hand account of rock’s heyday, titled Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties. She continued, “Most of the hits were lovelorn songs about or addressed to the girls. Girls were the reason for rock ’n’ roll.”

Rock music was having a crisis in the late ‘90s. Grunge had faded out like the jeans and flannel it was known for, Nu Metal was having a disproportionately huge moment, and attempts to resurrect indie rock were siloed off into cities and local scenes inaccessible to the alt-music starved masses.

But then, as if punk rock and new wave bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s à la Joy Division and the Ramones had strategically skipped rocks in a river decades in advance, the ripples finally made their way to the shore, and by the early 2000s, the post-punk revival pushed unknown bands to mainstream success. The sounds were retro, punctuated by melodic basslines, and the talent was touting guitars and playing synthesizers. Much like their punk rock forefathers, they had an eye for aesthetics, donning skinny ties and shag haircuts that exemplified a generation of stylish youth.

Here, in all its glory, is a “painstakingly hard to limit to just 10” list of the post-punk revival albums you should own on vinyl.

Julian Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr., Fabrizio Moretti, Nick Valensi, and Nikolai Fraiture had been freshly ordained “saviors of rock and roll.” But, as the daunting task of creating and promoting their sophomore album set in, they were feeling burnt out from walking on so much water, or at the very least, from turning too much of that water into wine.

VMP Rising is our series where we partner with up-and-coming artists to press their music to vinyl and highlight artists we think are going to be the Next Big Thing. Today, we’re featuring farawayfromeveryoneyouknow, the latest LP from New York quartet altopalo.

WIVES debut LP, So Removed, opens with the timely and befitting lyrics: “Happy ever after / this place is a disaster.” According to Jay Beach, the vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the four-piece WIVES, this is the track that best embodies their sound. It’s Drone-y, crammed with clever observations, and still catchy enough to make you forget the world is ending despite being told straight to your face. “Waving Past Nirvana” embraces my favorite sentence in the band’s bio, which describes the sentiment of their debut as “tethered to daily anxiety without resorting to cynicism.”

Photo by Tom Ham

Every week, we tell you about an album we think you need to spend time with. This week’s album is CRAWLER, the fourth full-length album from British punk rockers, IDLES.