On this episode, the Now Spinning crew share the albums they are most excited about this year, from highly anticipated releases, to recent favorites. They discuss upcoming music from Paul McCartney and explore the evolving sounds of artists like Jordy Greep, The Strokes, and Slayyyter. Listen along to discover new music and follow new artists, as they push their creativity in new directions.

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Website: LCC Vinyl Record Club

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Now Spinning, the official podcast of the Lansing Community College Vinyl Record Club. We meet twice a month to listen to vinyl and talk about music. Stay tuned to learn about how you can get in touch with us and attend our meetings.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Now Spinning. With me today, I have... Leo Ackerman.

Tyler Reck.

Jacob Zokvic.

And I am Simon Medina. Right, right? That's my name.

I think. I think that's true.

You threw me off so bad just now because the last one we recorded, you did your name first.

I gotta keep you on your toes. Gotta keep you on your toes.

I'm glad that Leo was ready for it because if you'd have switched to me, I'd have been interested in trouble. But why don't you start us out then?

Why don't we chit chat?

Start us out. Let's start us out. So today we're gonna be talking about our most anticipated releases coming out this year.

Or if it's already out, we're gonna talk about what our most anticipated release of the year was and what we liked about it.

So see if it ends up being our album of the year when we inevitably record that episode.

Definitely. This one probably won't be for mine, but I am looking forward to an album called the Boys of Dungeon lane by Paul McCartney. Yep, that one. He's.

You might have heard of him.

He was in a band. It's like Wings, I think.

Yeah, Wings was huge in the 70s.

Wings. Wings.

Oh, yeah, Wings. I know them.

They're pretty good. Yeah, good band. Anyway, he's got a new album coming out at the time of recording in less than two weeks now, which.

Yeah, but as a. The album was McCartney 3. It was pretty good. It was like a Covid album. He recorded the whole thing in his home studio. He played all the instruments.

It's really impressive for like a. Especially for someone who was like 78 years old when he made it. And this one's coming out.

He's now 84 years old and I don't think he played all the instruments on this one, but it's a. It sounds pretty interesting. So far he released two singles. One of them is Featuring Ringo. The other guy who was in that.

He wasn't in Wings, he was in a different band with him.

Ringo starring, like a childhood friend thing.

Yeah, it's a. It's a pretty good song from what I've heard so far. The album title, the Boys of Dungeon Lane, that's a reference to.

I think it's a street near where he grew up. The whole thing seems to be a big nostalgia thing, which a lot of his albums.

I think every album he's made since at least, like the 80s, has been very heavily nostalgia based. Which I guess it makes sense when you're Paul McCartney and you've been doing this for literally 60 years or more. I think more than 60 years.

They were. They were teenagers, man.

Yeah, they're doing this for almost 70 years now. I mean, the. Just the concept of releasing an album when you're 84 years old and then still continuing after that is crazy.

Like, he's still touring and everything. I haven't been able to see him. Last time he was near us was in Ohio. And it was like $500 a ticket.

Like, literally it came out, I was like refreshing the page to get a ticket. And as soon as I got in, it was like, you are 38,000th in line. And I'm like, well, never mind. I guess I'm not going.

Yikes. Yeah.

But still, I'm looking forward to the album. I think I have reason to believe it's gonna be pretty good. It hasn't really made any bad albums recently.

I granted, he hasn't made an album in six years, but the ones before that are pretty good.

Chaos and Creation. That one's a great album, too. I just got that one physically. I will probably bring it into a club meeting and I'll talk about it more then.

Yeah.

You know, I think that's the mark of a true artist. Being able not to get stuck in one thing, even that late into your career especially.

That really defines his entire career, though, was always experiment. Yeah, he's always doing Something new. I mean, from the very beginning, they were. They were trying new things.

And, like, I mean, obviously the Beatles were, like, famous for, like, inventing new styles of music and the way music was done. And then he continued to do it. And, you know, he's got, like, songs from the 80s that were, like, totally electronic and freaking weird.

That's awesome. I feel like he's only just now.

I feel like he's only just now getting the acclaim for, like, being as diverse, like, having such a diverse discography. Like, for the long time, he was kind of like the butt of the Beatles because they were like, oh, he broke up the Beatles. And his solo.

His solo work isn't good. His solo discography, if we're being frank, is probably the best of any Beatles.

Yeah, I agree. I'm a big, like. I'm a big George Harrison fan, like, really big.

But I'd say, like, Paul's got, like, a ton of, you know, like, great things and, you know. But of course, you know, he's been doing it a lot longer than George Harrison has. But, you know, George Harrison, like, sadly, you know, has like a.

A couple clunkers of albums, like maybe something called Extra Texture or something like that new Zotrope out for it, though. So for some reason I bought that.

I know people who bought.

You can buy it with money.

Yeah.

Can purchase.

Why do you want to.

But, yeah, Paul, I feel, is. I'm really glad that he's getting, like. I know he's had a ton of good pr, Right? The ton of documentaries about him. You know, the.

The Get Back doc, and then the one about, I think this one.

Yeah. Man on the Run.

Man on the Run.

I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it's good.

Yeah, it was great.

Yeah.

I'm really glad he's getting his flowers finally. As much as, you know, a beetle can get more flowers, you know. But, yeah, I'm excited. I think this is going to be.

It's going to be interesting for him because I've never seen him like, this sentimental. Like, he's a sentimental guy.

Yeah.

But, like, he's never like. Yeah, I'm like an older dude now and, like, I grew up here and these are my friends and, like, they're gone now. It's like, oh. Oh, I didn't. I don't.

I don't like Paul McCartney getting old.

What's funny about that is that's kind of what Penny Lane is.

Yeah.

He's been doing it in a weird way.

I mean, to Be fair, the. The beginnings of sergeant Pepper was supposed to be like a nostalgia based album.

Like only Northern Song, Strawberry Fields being about, you know, the whole Salvation army thing and when I'm 64 being about, you know, kind of nostalgia.

Being an old man.

Yeah.

But now that he's feeling it, it's like it feels different for him being like, oh, I wrote all these silly songs about being an old man. This is a lot.

Yeah.

Different than I thought it would be.

Looking forward to it.

I think. We all are.

We'll see how it is when it actually comes out. I might mention it again. I did pre order it. I'm that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I did though that guy.

Buddy.

Unfortunately.

Yeah.

What's the second one? There's a second one? That's a hypothetical.

Oh, well, my. Another album coming out that I was vaguely interested in.

This has been something that's been like hinted at but no concrete details have come out yet. It's Jordy Grief's second album, which. His first album, obviously the New Sound.

Like I listened to that and I started listening to like a ton of artists he said inspired him. Like Brazilian artists. Like you said in the last episode. Shores have been, you know, Milton Neschmento. Just all sorts of.

I pronounced that horribly, but all sorts of like MPB stuff like that. But this next album he's working on, he's been citing a very like wide range of influences for it.

I remember when he first was like teasing it in like interviews when they were doing the, like the news, the new sound press circuit. He was talking about how he wanted to do like a Keith Jarrett thing. Yeah, kind of like a very ECM jazz. ECM jazz. And he.

Every time he goes on like those shows, like, you know what's in my bag? The Miba Records thing. Great series. I love that.

Every time an artist I know goes on there, it's always very enlightening to see their influence like that. He got pretty much exclusively like jazz fusion stuff. He had like a Joni Mitchell jazz fusion thing as well, which is awesome. That's very awesome.

But he got a lot of ECM jazz, which is a really great stuff. I love that kind of. It's very mellower, more like acoustic stuff. But by the way, check out east, like the ECM label. Stuff like that. Ever Hard Weber.

Ever Hard Weber. Colors of Chloe.

Oh, My magical stuff. It'd be interesting to see him follow that more like mellow sound. Because the new sound is a lot of things, but it is not a very mellow album.

It's very in your face, maximalist aggressive singer.

He's doing that black MIDI thing where he sings about just horrible, evil people and how much they suck, but you kind of feel a little bit bad for them because they're so pathetic deep down. But I. I'm very curious to see where he goes with it. Like I said, the cryptic hints he's been dropping.

He's been posting about classical music a lot lately.

A lot of Wagner.

Yeah, yeah. It's gonna be. It's gonna be something. I can feel it. This is entirely based off of vibes, though.

Literally has not announced, has not released any singles, nothing like that. But I feel like it's gonna be something. It's gonna be something monumental.

So to segue off of that, there were a few records I was looking forward to this year. All of my anticipated albums for this year have kind of already come out. The album Xavier by Xavier so Based was excellent. Sorry.

The album, my new band Believe, by my new band Believe, which is Jordy Greep's former bandmate in black middy Cameron Pickton. That record was excellent. And then there was the record Pompeii Utility by the rappers Mike and Earl Sweatshirt.

Just this like kind of edgy punk rap collective that's like full of skaters and it's very edgy, very California. And I ate that up. In high school. I paid for T shirts that were 30 bucks that I should not have paid for because I felt so cool in them.

You know, you're only 15 and lame once, so you want what's.

What's more punk rock than selling out with a T shirt, you know what I mean? And 15 year olds that wear them, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I love that stuff though.

This. This kind of goes back to Odd Future and one of their young breakout stars at the time, Earl Sweatshirt.

He was just this 15 year old who was like unbelievably brilliant at a young age. Like he was out wrapping his contemporaries while he was still in high school and he like took this stuff so seriously and.

He linked up with this rapper called Mike who was inspired by him. He linked up with Mike and he started releasing very abstract, very loop heavy recordings that were a bit more optimistic, a bit more mature.

He's just been growing more and more and now he's like a loving father and he has like a great family and everything's working out great for him. He has this album called Live Laugh Love that came out last year. I think that was. That's probably my favorite album of last year in retrospect.

I've just been listening to it over and over and over again. It's just so easy to throw on.

And despite what I said about him being very comfortable in this loop heavy production and things being very spacious and him maturing and growing with his colleague Mike. I don't know why I said colleague. I'll say colleague.

That's a. That's a very correct way to refer to.

Just so formal, very stuffy.

But, you know, he's partner, maybe.

Yeah, his partner. Collaborative. I'll say, like musical partner.

He.

He's been with Mike for a little bit and they were like, you know what? Let's just. Let's make a collab album.

And they threw the loop heavy production completely out the window and started working more in cloud rap and plug territory. Way more modern and a lot more, I guess.

I guess more eclectic than his fans had come to expect because a lot of his fans kind of expect him to stay in this very moody, somber, like, I'm 15 and the world is terrible territory. But sometimes, I don't know. He's in his 30s, he wants to hop on trap beats and he wants to talk about how much he loves his wife and kids.

And it's awesome. And he's still like out wrapping everybody without really trying. Like, he's kind of on autopilot and everything. He does sound sounds great.

I haven't really mentioned Mike very much. I think his side of the record is very fun, very danceable and. And like, I mean, he's. He's a great writer in his own right. But I was.

I was mostly excited for Earl's side, which is very spacey, very moody, has a lot of the, like kind of PS2 style synthesizers.

Okay.

I don't know. Love it to Death. Was very happy, very, very happy with it when it came out. And I'm only happier with it now. Very big fan. Love you or a sweatshirt.

That's all I got to say.

Okay, so my like, same with Leo's. Mine's kind of similar in terms of mine. Already released.

My most anticipated album of the year was Smoke and Mirrors by a band called the Velvet Daydream, a band out of Colorado. And they're like this kind of like classic rock, kind of like psychedelic rock kind of revival kind of thing, I guess.

But it's like their lead single from this album, Love is like kind of very Jim Morrison vocal esque.

Okay.

Okay. Like, I really like that. Lyrically, it's. It's pretty interesting. Like Lemonade, the song on set album.

Like there's a vocal or a vocal, there's a lyric that goes, you are my lemonade. She is my main squeeze. You know, it's fun, you know, but. Yeah, they're going to be on tour. Well, they're on tour right now. Touring.

Kind of like more like mountain. Like mountain west area, stuff like that. Because they're still like pretty new. They only have like.

Well, they're gonna start from their base.

Yeah.

They expand out.

Yeah.

Where are they based out of, by the way?

Colorado.

Okay. Okay.

I would say. I say, oh, they only have, you know, but they have 15,000 point. 15.6 Thousand. Follow people listening on Spotify, which isn't like.

That's pretty good.

It's not like something where it's like, you know, small or whatever, but it's not big. Yeah, no.

Definitely not a cool underground kind of find.

Denver's a lot of interesting.

Yeah. Next time is really. I think it's really good because it's goes in this little thing. It goes. Yeah, I really dig them. They're really cool.

I recommend them, you know. And they're coming to Michigan. Well, Westland, which is a little far, but, you know, it's all right on July 9th. So very cool. Yeah.

So what we're saying is. What's the band name again?

Velvet Daydream.

So Velvet Daydream, what we're saying is if you hear this, please come on the show. We'd love to chit chat. We'd love to have a key.

Yeah. I guess since we're doing multiple per time. I guess I'll talk about this other band. They.

They just released a single like this past Friday, so like three days ago called Now She's Gone. I played a little bit before we recorded. It's like very, very skiffle.

Like very, like very Meet the Beatles.

Yeah, very much so. So like they're actually gonna like go for. According their Instagram.

They're going for a physical release of 500 copies and better pre order that Spotify. They have drum roll 153 monthly listeners.

Whoa, dang. That's niche.

So you might not need to pre order it. You might actually.

But you know, and like they might release an album with maybe like. I'd say it's a little bit early, but it might be in the cards.

It might not be considering they like released a single usually, you know, you release a single and then in a few months, album announcement, you know.

But EP at the very least. Yeah, I mean, come on. You got it.

Yeah. But if they're going for a physical release on a 45 there, they could go for a physical release on EP or something like that. But they're.

Let's see, they're a three piece guitar band driven by melody, immediacy and the kind of live energy that turns casual listeners into regulars, which, you know.

That's good.

Yeah. Sharp songwriting and harmony led approach of traditional blues and Mersey beat and the sound of the 60s British Invasion.

The band delivered concise, hook filled songs that feel current rather than nostalgic, you know. It's pretty interesting. Very cool. Yeah, let's check it out. Yeah, I'll. I mean they're on Instagram too. It's just the 44 is all one word there.

It's a cool band name too, if I'm being honest. That is pretty deep. Yeah. Anyway, Jacob, I love these transitions.

We're doing great.

Yeah.

So we are. Come on. I think having fun. We're doing great. So.

Yeah, I would like to talk about what is, I hate to admit it, probably my favorite band of all time, the Strokes there. Hopefully I don't need to introduce the Strokes that much. Maybe not quite as famous as Paul McCartney, but pretty well known.

More famous than 44s, sure.

So, yeah, I. I have loved the Strokes since I was a teenager. They are just one of those bands that every single song on every single album I can listen to. Even the album that nobody liked. The. What's it?

Come Down Machine.

What's next from the Strokes?

I heard that about. See, that was Angles was the one. I heard that one.

They were like, oh, the Strokes are back. This is so good. They. They did new things.

They were experimental, but they also had stuff that was quite like some of their old stuff, you know, I mean, it still felt very much the Strokes and that sort of like this is the new direction for rock and roll kind of style that they were used to be doing, but now they're using a lot more electronic instruments and. And getting a lot more experimental with it.

And, yeah, they keep doing this thing and they've done it their whole career of five to seven years between albums. And I'm just. Was dying, waiting for another one going like, ah, the new ALB Normal, man. It got me through the pandemic. I just adored it.

And I've been waiting, waiting, waiting, and they finally are coming out with it. Yeah, reality awaits.

This cover looks so cool. I'm looking at it right now. It's. It's, you know, cowboy.

You would. You would.

The audio listeners. For the audio listeners, which I'm sure that's the only way you can.

I'll show the camera.

Okay. So for the audio listeners, because they can't. It's a horror. It's a guy on a white horse. He seems to be in maybe Utah. I don't know.

It's just somewhere.

Somewhere in the southwest.

Geese was the blueprint.

I'm just saying, this was the blueprint.

Guy with the cowboy hat on the album cover. That's.

Mmm. It's never been done before. This is next level stuff.

Cameron Winter, nachos just completely stealing this thing. But, yeah, it's a dude in the horse. It's a dude in the horse. And he looks. It's a very friendly horse.

Anyway, the Strokes, I have not listened to the single yet. I'm just gonna wait for the album to release in like a month or two, whenever it is. I'm calling this right now.

It's probably gonna be my album of the year. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe it'll be bad, but I highly doubt it. I think it's gonna be great.

A big part of the last one was them all working together again. I'm sure they're gonna, like, really learn from that and be like, okay, let's keep. Keep doing with what works. And I think this one's gonna be great.

I'm really looking forward to it. I've loved every Strokes album, so I. I'm probably gonna like this one a lot too. So.

Yeah, the other album that I'm really looking forward to, that's coming out pretty soon, I think is by the band Ill Peach. Eavesdropping is, I believe what it's called.

But yeah, basically they. It was a du at first, and they were writing music, trying to sell their music to other performers to like, you know, they were.

They were writers and everybody was like, yeah, this isn't really what we're looking for. This is a little too experimental. This isn't really what we want. And finally someone's like, why don't you just record it yourself?

And they did, and it was amazing. Yeah. And then they released an album a couple years ago after releasing a couple eps, and it was just amazing.

It's just kind of like a mix of high energy and chill, like electronic, but also like shoegazy inspired songs. And it's just so cool. And it's one of those bands that, like, I barely hear them ever. I will. I'll give credit to 88. 9 Again.

I do hear him on 89 every once in a while.

They do. They have a lot of singles, you know, like, I couldn't.

So before that album released. What is. What is that album?

This is not an exit.

There you go.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So.

But yeah, they had a lot of singles before that. Like Gum. I remember just loving that song. That might have even been the song that I discovered them through. But, yeah, I. I thought that was great.

And I'm really looking forward to this one. Everything they've done, I've liked, and I can't imagine they're gonna screw this up now.

I think we've got like 10 more seconds here, so I'm gonna sneak in one more.

Since y' all talked about albums that already got released, I'm gonna talk about, like a genuinely electro pop album that released a couple weeks ago. Slater, the worst girl in America.

Sorry.

It's.

Love that record so much.

Outrageous. I. I'm sure anybody that knows me be like, really? That's Jacobs listening to that. Yeah, I am. It's absolutely outrageous.

I. I have no excuses for it and neither does she. And I don't think she looks for excuses ever. But there's some people that define these musics in certain way.

But, yeah, electro pop is probably the Best way to describe it.

Yeah, I think that's the simplest. Like, it's ludicrous.

It's ludicrous pop music and very like there's a song like I'm actually kind of famous, where it's kind of recognizing that like, oh, wait, like people actually kind of know who I am now. And you know, it's not like, it's not subtle and it's not even humble really. You know what I mean?

It's not brash or you know, to, to self centered either, but it's. It's very cool to, to have people that are just like still pushing that electro pop. Like Britney Spears.

Yes.

Like, but pushing past it in. In a way that it feels very 20, 26 and very like stick it to everybody else. But yeah, the song Cannibalism, absolutely my favorite.

She directed the music video for it herself.

Really?

It's pretty good. Go give it a watch. It's. It's weird, but yeah, that's all I got. It's been a good year for music so far and.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I'm definitely plenty more we could talk.

About, but you know, it's a good year for music when me, the guy that listens like exclusively like, like 60s and 70s and stuff like that is actually like digging like this year's music.

Yeah. Pay no attention to the fact that the things you pulled out are referencing back to older styles. Yeah, but that's cool.

That's a big part of what music is now is like this, like looking back and doing new and experimental things with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very, very nice stuff.

But if you want to hear old stuff, you want to hear new stuff, you want to hear any kind of music coming out around this time, you can come check out our meetings.

Those dates are going to be on our website, where you'll also be able to find past playlists, past podcasts, any other information you need to know about the club. It'll all be there in one beautiful location. Go check it out. We'll be linked with the show.

That's one of the best segues you've ever done.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I agree.

And thank you all for tuning in. We hope to see you next time. Bye bye, Bye bye. Love you. Love you.

Goodbye.