We love a good challenge, we know you do too (you wonder why we’re always moving the sections around…to keep you on your toes.) Well, here’s another one for you, intrepid pure pop fans – guess the top 10 selling albums for 2010 here at Pure Pop Records in proper order, and win a 15$ gift certificate. It’s that simple. We’re even gonna make it easier for you and give you a pool of 30 potential artist/albums to choose from. Submit your numbered titled list on The facebook to be entered into the competition.
Choose your top 10 from the following 30
(these are in alphabetical order.)
Arcade Fire – Suburbs
Avett Brothers – I & Love & You
Band of Horses – Infinite Arms
Beach House – Teen Dream
Black Keys – Brothers
Broken Bells – Self Titled
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Deerhunter – Halycon Digest
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
Go Go Bordello – Trans-continental Hustle
Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
Jimi Hendrix – Valleys of Neptune
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – I learned the Hard Way
Ray Lamonagne – God Willin’ and the Creek don’t rise
LCD SoundSystem – This is Happening
MGMT – Congratulations
Anais Mitchell – Hades Town
Mumford & Sons – Sigh no More
The National – High Violet
New Pornographers – Together
Joanna Newsom – Have one on me
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – Self Titled
Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
The Roots – How i got over
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Up from Below
She & Him – Vol. 2
Spoon – Transference
Vampire Weekend – Contra
Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
xx – Self Titled
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – Self Titled
Grace Potter means business. She lets you know from the get go with the first “UH!” on her band’s new self titled album, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals. This isn’t some poppy, Adult Alternative record; it’s a gritty, passionate affair with swagger, soul and plenty of classic rock influences.
The opening track, “Paris” kicks things off with a heavy guitar riff and the sleaziest drums this side of Don Henley’s The Long Run days. Singing about getting what she wants, Potter proves that she’s a woman with strength and conviction and knows how to work it. Grace Potter & The Nocturnals is full of songs that have a deep groove and a bit of an edge to them, such as “Oasis” and “Medicine,” which feature the kind of exemplary guitar work you’d expect to hear from the Allman Brothers on any given night. This may come from the Nocturnals’ years of touring, or it could be the new chemistry in the band. For this new album The Nocturnals include lead guitarist Scott Tournet and drummer Matt Burr joined by newer members bassist Catherine Popper and rhythm guitarist Benny Yurco; Potter covers the piano and organ. Read the full review
Ratatat – LP4
Past outings from Brooklyn duo Ratatat have been marked by bright lines, big blocks of color, and a sort of inoffensive coolness. It was electronic music delivered by cock-rocking guitarists, but with most of the gristly bits polished away: Think arena-electro for grocery-store aisles. But LP4 is refreshingly strange, the kind of album that’s fine to zonk out to, but even finer to pick through with a big set of earphones. Read the full review
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
We know from interviews that Ariel Pink grew up absorbing throwaway pop from the 70s and 80s, finding a way to make it all fit into his cracked worldview. Something overlooked about those songs, though, is that the people writing them were pros who knew something about intros, codas, and middle-eights, how a certain kind of chord change can cause the turnaround to the chorus to hit a little harder. Ariel Pink’s best songs are surprising, and there’s a real sense of musical delight on Before Today; the sections sound logical but never predictable, and there are wild bridges and short bits that emerge seemingly randomly but wind up taking the song somewhere unexpected. So “L’estat (Acc. to the Widow’s Maid)” goes from a rollicking organ-led opening section to a catchy call-and-response chorus hook the Monkees might have liked to a short double-time instrumental section to a jubilant coda, and all the while the stitches never show. Songs like “Little Wig” have so many interesting interlocking parts that they can almost feel proggy, despite their relative brevity and tight pop structures. Read the full review
The Cure – Disintegration (remastered / expanded)
For the huge number of fans who discovered The Cure through the pop hits off 1985’s Head on the Door and 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, the release of the band’s eighth album, in May 1989, was something of a revelation: Disintegration found Robert Smith sliding back into the thematic darkness of the Pornography era, but with that record’s bleak, brittle sheen replaced by much-needed melody and musical depth.
The resulting album still stands as The Cure’s greatest achievement, a work that’s both filled with despair and heart-rending beauty — as if Smith, however fleetingly, finally struck the right balance between his twin musical personas. Now, 21 years later, Disintegration is the subject of a wildly anticipated three-disc retrospective that not only delivers a sonic upgrade to the original album, but offers before-and-after context via a disc’s worth of demos and outakes, and a full live airing of the record. Read the full review
Record Store Day is this Saturday folks, (April 17th 2010 for you exact date lovers) We’re seeing our shipments starting to arrive with all our various exclusive releases. Because there’s such a limited quantity of these releases not every indie store in the country is getting all the items, but we can tell you that we’re trying to get as many as we can. Here’s just a teaser of a few we know we’ll have in stock (albeit, in limited quantities) on Saturday. Better set that alarm and get down here cause i’m sure they’re gonna go fast.
Grace Potter Live EP
Grace and some of the Nocturnals will be down here later in the evening around 7pm till close they’ll be signing copies of their new exclusive live EP and spinning some of their favorite tunes!
Gogol Bordello – 7 Inch
Ex Pure Popper/Burlington Scene alumni cum mega-indie Balkan punk rocker Eugene Hutz is dropping an exclusive 7″ for all you Gogol fans out there, and judging by album sales, we know there are a bunch of you.
Flaming Lips, Henry Rollins & Peaches doing Darkside of the moon.
On Vinyl… Yeah this total oddity (Henry Rollins & Peaches?) will definitely be available in limited quantities for all you lovers of The Lips, or maybe Floyd fans, or maybe Rollin’s fans… Peaches, etc….
And just a few more lovely pieces of vinyl coming out of the shipping boxes as i type this…
Modest Mouse – Moon & Antartica, Pantera Catalog & The Magnetic Field 69 love songs box sets!
We’re a little over a week away from Record Store Day 2010. The last two were a lot of fun, so we’re pretty excited. There are a ton of titles this year on all formats, including exclusives, reissues, live material and all sorts of other neat stuff. In addition to all the Record Store Day releases, we’re going to be running some cool sales and putting out a ton of cheap used cd’s and lp’s.
This year we have an extra-special treat. We will proudly be hosting Grace Potter and some of her band-mates from The Nocturnals. They are going to come in to sign albums and meet fans. As if that wasn’t enough, Grace will also be DJing at the store for the final hours of the event. One can imagine a high-calibar songstress like herself having great taste! They should be arriving around 7pm.
Feel free to call the store with any questions you may have. Please take note of a few details before you do:
-Store Hours on Record Store Day will be 10am-9pm
-All of our orders for Record Store Day titles are in. We tried to get just about everything. Given the limited nature of these releases, we’re not sure exactly how much we’ll be getting of anything.
-We will not be reserving any of the event’s exclusive titles for customers. No exceptions. All items are first come first serve. If you really want that Magnetic Fields “69 Love Songs” Vinyl box set, come at ten o’clock.
-More information can be found at the event’s official website.
-Here is a fairly comprehensive list of Record Store Day releases: Read the rest of this entry »
