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The official National Calendar says today, August 12, is National Vinyl Record Day, so I cued up a few of my favorite new vinyl offerings — including the latest 2LP studio set from a longtime favorite, a 4LP box set that contains an album I’ve been waiting decades to get on vinyl, and a brand-new-to-2024 throwback 45 — to celebrate the theme of the day.

The balance of my comments that follow focus almost entirely on that box set, seeing how it was what took up the bulk of my listening day, but herewith are a few brief words about what I palate-balanced that extended listening session with — namely, a) Mark Knopfler’s April 2024 180g 45rpm 2LP set One Deep River on limited-edition light-blue vinyl (British Grove/Blue Note), and most especially the song “Tunnel 13” (Side B, Track 3), a moody tale that embodies Knopfler’s uncanny knack for Americana storytelling blended with his impeccable guitar tone, pedal-steel counterpoints, and wafting wordless female background vocalizing, and b) Def Leppard’s “Just Like ’73” 7-inch 45 (Bludgeon Riffola/UMe), with guest guitarist Tom Morello on Side A (a.k.a. “That Side”), a loving nod to the Slade/Sweet style of stacked cheer vocals, handclaps, stomps, and of-era riffage that the Leps long ago made into their own sound during their ’80s heyday — and to this day as well, for that matter.

Sidenote: I will likely post a separate in-depth review of the Knopfler 2LP set in the not-so-distant future, because it’s just that bloody good. If you can’t wait, you can order the black vinyl edition of One Deep River for an SRP of $45.99 via the Music Direct link that’s directly above this paragraph. If you want the Def Lep 45, go here, where it has an SRP of $14.98. (If you want it on blue vinyl, that version goes for $16.98.) As always, feel free to chime in about your own LP spins on this most hallowed of days in the Comments section that follows this story. And now — to the box set!

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
20TH CENTURY LINDSEY
4LP (Rhino)

Lindsey Buckingham’s solo career has typically been looked at through the lens of his career-defining work with Fleetwood Mac, but I prefer enjoying his LPs on their own respective merits. Oftentimes on these solo releases, the eclectic guitarist/vocalist/producer tends to go even further “out there” with his production and arrangement choices, since he tended to err on the side of the group dynamic whenever he worked with the mighty Mac — sans for, perhaps, the wildly bold sound palette of their October 1979’s 2LP set on Warner Bros., Tusk.

My favorite entry in Buckingham’s solo C.V. has always been June 1992’s Out of the Cradle (Reprise), which was only available on CD during its initial release phase a few decades prior to the streaming era. That said, six tracks from Cradle first appeared on vinyl when they were included on his October 2018 3LP set from Rhino, Solo Anthology: The Best of Lindsey Buckingham. Finally, on June 14, 2024, the entire 16-song Cradle album made its way onto vinyl as part of Rhino’s 4LP box set oh-so-appropriately titled 20th Century Lindsey. This collection includes his first three solo LPs — October 1981’s Law and Order (originally on Asylum), July 1984’s Go Insane (Elektra), and Cradle — plus a fourth, eight-song LP dubbed Rarities. The SRP for the 20th Century Lindsey box set is $99.98, and you can order it directly here.

As soon as my own site-ordered copy of the box set arrived, I cued up Cradle first. Much less tech-obsessed than its direct predecessor Go Insane, Cradle sticks closer to one-man instrument-playing band basics. The turgid “Wrong” (LP3, Side One, Track 3) anchors the front half with quite the wide soundstage, right-channel piano accents, center-left tambourine, down-the-middle percussive punctuation marks, and a pair of breakneck guitar solos, both of which teeter on the cusp of distortion but are firmly held in check, just as the arrangement dictates. Also listen for the wailing siren effect that goes back and forth across the soundstage during the second solo — subtle, yes,, but properly placed in the mix.

If you want Buckingham at his most tender, take heed of the full-song breathy vocal layering on “All My Sorrows” (LP3, Side One, Track 4). If you want Buckingham at his most muscular, dig into the push-pull volume dynamics and how the urgent, gnarly solo punches “This Is the Time” (LP3, Side 1, Track 6) to its hard-stop denouement (albeit with some post-solo dust settling, as it were).

Side Two of opens with the slow build and release of “Street of Dreams,” which is buoyed by misty drips of a dewy nature a bit back in the soundfield during the first verses, accompanied by subtle wash effects as the rain continues to pour, sounding just like it would if you were sitting on an open-air front porch hearing it hit the ground in front of you. “I’ve gotta stop this obsession,” Buckingham repeat-whispers to himself in the confessional spoken intro to “Surrender the Rain” (LP3, Side Two, Track 3), but I’m perfectly content to enable his going down this particular rabbithole.

I also appreciate the bonus material on the Rarities LP, such as the faux Prince-like instrumental break in the middle of “Go Insane (Extended Remix)” (LP4, Side 1, Track 3), and the underlying storms a-brewing all throughout “Twisted” (LP4, Side 2, Track 4), a duet with Stevie Nicks from the original 1996 Twister soundtrack. The opening lines that Stevie sings here and then returns to later in the song — “You think you hear demons / I think you’re the demon” — remain quite chilling.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t cite a few other tracks from the box set’s first two LPs, such as the high harmonies and unmistakable character of Mick Fleetwood’s drumming on the hit Law and Order single, “Trouble” (LP1, Side 1, Track 2) — not to mention the quirky new-wave shuffle of the opener, “Bwana.” And then, on Go Insane, I remain enamored with the layered varispeed title phrase and echoing “let’s go” refrain repeat all throughout “Slow Dancing” (LP2, Side 1, Track 3) — replete with an acoustic-guitar outro foreshadowing the multiple instrumental breaks on Cradle — and the insistent enticement of the drum machine slap-meets-acoustic/electric combo desires of “Loving Cup” (LP2, Side 2, Track 2). Incidentally, if you’ve never owned Go Insane on vinyl, you’ll either admire, or curse, the endless runout groove that follows the Side 1 closer, “Play in the Rain” — and then marvel, or murmur, at how it continues onward as if nothing happened when the track resumes at the start of Side 2.

Ratings-wise, Cradle itself gets a 9.5 for Music and an 8.5 for Sound. Since it’s a digital source and a digital recording to begin with, that’s as high as I can go on the latter — but dayammm, does it really, really, really sound as good as I could have hoped for/expected. (For the record, the overall 20th Century Lindsey box set Music rating is an 8.5, as is its Sound.)

Though its music has all been born, bred, and baked in that prior-to-now 20th century, the balance of the contents of this fine, fine 4LP Lindsey Buckingham box set are easily appreciable on LP here in the first quarter of Century 21 — and most certainly and most likely beyond it.

And with that: Viva la National Vinyl Record Day! Let’s do it again next year!!