Albums that should be available on vinyl...

Of course, some companies now seem to have spotted that niche and decided to cater for it with one-off premium (or sometimes "premium") pressings for Record Store Day and the likes - e.g. I finally laid hands on a vinyl incarnation of Terry Hall's splendid Home last year after a 26-year wait spent tolerating the CD version. Other third-party reissue specialists (Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab et al) also do limited runs of previously-digital-only albums, presumably when they negotiate the individual rights - but these are super-premium anyway, and if you miss 'em when they're released they end up going for silly money on Discogs. Case in point - a copy of the MFSL single LP of Aimee Mann's Bachelor No.2 (for which I paid about £30 in the late '00s and thought that steep) would now set you back at least £150 or more - though in that instance, I see that Aimee's tackled it from both sides by issuing her own 2LP version for (US & Canada) RSD to undercut the fleecers .

Anyway, what I'd really like would be some sort of more comprehensive all-year-round reasonably-priced programme of first-time-on-LP issues from the major labels in particular - kind of like the Back To Black thing, but without the "back", if you see what I mean. There must be a market for this, no?

All of which thinking led me to making my own list of albums that really need to be available on vinyl. Here's my top 10 (all of which I've already got on CD, inevitably )...

1) Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)

2) Aimee Mann - I'm With Stupid

3) The Klezmatics - Rhythm + Jews

4) Richard Thompson - You? Me? Us?

5) Brian Eno - Another Day On Earth

6) Wynton Marsalis Septet - Citi Movement (Griot New York)

7) Chico Hamilton Quintet With Eric Dolphy - The Original Ellington Suite

8) Don Pullen - Random Thoughts

9) Mark Eitzel - 60 Watt Silver Lining

10) Stan Tracey & Bobby Wellins - Comme D'Habitude

So - what albums would other people like to see finally vinylised, eh? 

f.

PS - apologies if the Discogs links don't work - they previewed OK, but I've been having real trouble with getting them to work in my postings...

Yep, I reckon they'd count - especially if never available in Europe. Canada seems to be a bit of a goldmine for such stuff...

Jon - I've ordered individual LPs from 2 or 3 different Canadian sellers* on Discogs and always had positive experiences. To be fair, that's also true of my (rather larger) orders from the US - though I did get hammered for VAT on one particular purchase when the US seller listed the price I'd actually paid for a couple of rare LPs as the import "value" . Luckily, most out-of-UK sellers seem to be wise to this and list "used LPs" as being worth only a nominal amount . If in doubt, you could always ask a seller to list a low "value" figure on the export declaration - it's no skin off their nose, and (as a now-retired Royal Mail employee) I very much doubt whether either HMRC or the Mail have any real idea of the price/value of "used" vinyl...

Market-wise, Canada naturally seems to get almost anything pressed in the US feeding into its own sales networks - and it's also clear that the big US companies (Columbia, WEA et al) maintained Canadian manufacturing plants at least into the 70s/80s, often producing highly-thought-of variants (e.g. of Blonde On Blonde). Canadian pressings IME tend to be as good as the best US ones.From a GB viewpoint, the fact that the Canadian dollar is weaker than its US equivalent probably helps pricewise as well.

Of course, I should also have acknowledged probably the highest-quality non-European s/h vinyl source of all - Japan. Again, I've had only positive Discogs experience when buying (mostly jazz) LPs from there - stuff takes a while to arrive, but it's always pristine and in bombproof packaging IME . Plus there's lots of stuff that gets issued there and nowhere else...

Hope I haven't tempted you to empty your wallet still further! 

* i can probably dig out the details of those suppliers if you want...

no I'm not tempted at the moment (I am now waiting on the Boygenius EP can't wait to hear it on my system the sound quality will be better than my laptop)

As I have said before I only buy what I like and at the moment nothing springs to mind but that may change, someone may post something on this forum to tempt me!!

As for details of suppliers I'm OK, I can always ask later if I find something but great tip on the  VAT side of things