Their most recent album, 2015’s Better Nature has become a fan favorite, and considered an underrated classic by indie rock aficionados. Better Nature was also the first LP released on their own independent imprint New Machine Records, and was fan funded with a Pledge Music campaign, allowing the band the freedom to make this record entirely on their own terms. The sonic pallet of this record was showcased with the lead single “Nightlight” with its grinding guitars and epic chorus, the song was an exciting introduction to a new era for the band’s sound. Retaining all of the classic trademarks of their debut, but with a darker mood and more complex arrangements.

Better Nature’s second single “Circadian Rhythm (Last Dance)” was an infectious entry into the band’s catalog, with one of the groups most memorable melodies, and swooning interplay between Nikki and Brian’s beautifully complementary vocals. Over the span of the album’s ten tracks, the band hit some major highs, with some of their most beautiful moments and engrossing arrangements to date. The record, helmed by the production skills of Garret “Jacknife” Lee who has worked with U2, R.E.M. and The Cars, delivers an incredible analog experience. The album packs a punch, with diamond sharp clarity, expert mastering and incredible use of dynamic range. The album has a wonderful sense of space and breath, and avoids the trappings that many over-polished modern rock records seem to fall into. An album that could easily be classified as a sleeper classic, that is finding a greater audience with each passing year. However, there is no substitute for hearing it for the first time in its full analog glory on a high quality stereo console.

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AMOEBA RECORDS HOLLYWOOD

Hands down the world’s largest independent record store, and a mecca for vinyl record lovers the world over. The amazing thing about this store is that no media format is a dead format here. The large vinyl record stacks sit along side CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks and even the odd sony mini-disc. They also carry the largest selection of current new vinyl LP releases I have personally come across in my travels. Not to mention they consistently have one of the best rosters of in-store concerts, bringing in a wide range of artists from Dungen to Paul McCartney, who all take part in their weekly free concerts.

RECORD SURPLUS

Record Surplus makes our list as they’re another awesome record shop with a massive selection that rivals that of Amoeba Records. However where Record Surplus has the edge, is that they have some incredible vintage finds at some of the lowest prices you’re going to find at a physical store.

VACATION VINYL

Vacation Vinyl has one of the best curated selections of vinyl in Los Angeles, catering primarily to the tastes of those who enjoy the full spectrum of indie, punk, industrial, goth and metal. Now calling a new location home off Santa Monica, they still deliver one of the coolest selections of music in the city. The team at Vacation have some of the most in-depth knowledge about the albums and artists they sell, and is a great place to go to have a conversation about your favorite micro-genre or band that you’ve assumed you were the only one who had heard.

PERMANENT RECORDS

Permanent Records has become another beloved fixture in Los Angeles’ music scene, not only selling some of the coolest records you’ll find in the city, but they also play host to some of the best in-store live performances we’ve seen. They also run their own imprint and have released records by Martin Rev, Frankie and The Witch and many others.

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KANYE WEST’S MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED SLUSHIE

1 bottle 1964 Glenlivet ‘The Winchester Collection’

1 bottle of Coca Cola

1 bag of ice

Hundred dollar bill

Grab a bottle of 1964 The Glenlivet ‘The Winchester Collection’, a bottle of coke and a bag of ice. Throw it all in your Slush Puppie machine. Pour into a Baccarat Crystal Louxor whiskey glass, garnish with a hundred dollar bill and have a toast to the douchebags – then runaway as fast as you can!

If you love this one, check out our whiskey cocktail recipe for AC/DC Back In Blackberry Fizz.

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On tracks like “No Option” and “Leave,” Post Malone showcases his vibe at its best, laid back, with a voice that doesn’t 100% fit the mold of other current artists in trap. It almost has a throwback 90s feel to it in some ways, but there is a deeper level he achieves with his tracks than the typical throwback party anthem. There’s another dimension of  depth that seems to be resonating with his fans, an emotional chord that he effortlessly strikes on almost every track from Stoney. While he is rooted purely in hip-hop, one of his other passions is emo music, and this complexity is on full display on tracks that strike a balance of his two favorite worlds like “I Fall Apart.”

Whereas the traditional function of emo music is pure catharsis and release of angst for its listener, there’s a perspective that comes across in Post Malone’s lyrics and delivery that almost achieves celebratory heights. There are other artists in trap that display an emotional complexity, but this usually comes across as a representation of the binary, either party anthems or slow jams. But its the nuance and his turn of phrase displayed, unusual word usage paired with his voice and delivery that makes this debut what it is. The record was even able to withstand a guest appearance from Justin Bieber, which actually is one of his best cameos, and sees him blending into the Post Malone aesthetic.

This record is well produced and sounds excellent in its vinyl format, and is an exciting journey from first track to last. Make no mistake this album is primarily a trap record, but Post Malone is one of the first who has taken this extremely minimal sonic pallet, and woven it into a flow that pushes this genre into new territory, to become a genre defining work that will influence a flood of new talent entering the game.

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THREE CLUBS

This may not sound like a complement, but Three Clubs seems like a place that Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave would meet up to shoot heroin. It’s very dark, it embodies the style and comforts of another era, but it has a version of class that is almost so out of place in 2018 that it becomes a little seedy. Their jukebox is CD based, but its selection is fantastic and covers some bases that really suit their environment, and put them on the map as one of our favorite Los Angeles jukebox landmarks.

THE 101 COFFEE SHOP

There’s no better place to get the old school Los Angeles coffee shop experience, and play some incredible music, than The 101 Coffee Shop. An institution for generations of hipsters, but in this case the hipsters got it right. Hanging out here you get to touch a bygone that we all seem to long for, a simpler time that was richer in many ways, but somehow we keep pushing further away from into the complexity of technology. Great food, awesome jukebox, need we say anymore?

SWINGERS

Another great fixture of the classic Los Angeles coffee shops, Swingers is well known for having a very eclectic jukebox. Their selection over the years has included titles from artists as diverse as Bjork, The Smiths and Link Wray. After a night out at Hollywood clubs, most likely listening to some form of the current top-40 music being blasted at a volume that makes it almost impossible to realize how bad it really is, Swingers lets you unwind over some great food, conversation with your friends with a background of incredible music.

SEVEN GRAND

A whiskey bar that is as luxurious and handsomely decorated as you could possibly hope for, with the added bonus of an amazing selection of tracks on their jukebox. Some nights they have a live jazz combo, which is always a great night out too. But my favorite nights here are those when you get to pick out tracks from the albums you love, enjoy some incredible whiskey cocktails and just talk about music.

JOHNNIES PASTRAMI

Not the first place that may come to mind when you think of jukebox, but they have them, and the also have a pastrami sandwich that’s so good, it could make many vegetarians rethink their stance on eating meat. This place is caught in a time-warp, but in the best way possible. When you’re here enjoying one of the best late night food spots anywhere in the world, listening to Elvis, you start to realize what a special place Los Angeles is, and how lucky those are who explore it and discover its secrets.

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So now that I’ve exercised my evangelical style rant, it’s important for me to point out that this one album is just a drop in the bucket of one of the greatest catalogs of music ever released. His work with the legendary Mothers Of Invention, his collaborations with other incredible artists including Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet (who can be heard on Hot Rats), runs a staggering gamut of styles and genres, so much that there are times when you will experience disbelief that all of this music came from the same artist.  Do yourself a favor, go out and buy a copy of Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, play it on an a record console that will do it justice, and make today the first day of the rest of your life.

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30 Seconds To Mars – America

There’s nothing like the corporate world selling political ideas back to the people with a hollywood actor’s vanity project, that could maybe be the worst band ever to have charting singles. How the 30 Seconds To Mars train doesn’t derail itself after a decade plus of horrifying productivity is one of the last great mysteries. Pure nausea condensed into song form, filtered through vocoded trap vocals, with millennial whooping and lyrics that even Imagine Dragons would have left on the drawing board. My only wish in this life is for Jared Leto to get to hear his overproduced abominations through my ears. He should have quit while he was ahead with Frozen Embryos.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Stadium Arcadium

“Dani California” should be the only words I need to use to describe the horror in store for those bold enough to unwrap this record from its plastic. If that doesn’t frighten you away, I will add “Snow (Hey Oh)” as damning evidence of the least effort ever put into a top 20 hit. Their history of musical crimes is long, and it spits in the face of very very few redeeming moments. But this album is the case of having 20 years plus of continually favoring their worst qualities, and constantly refining what makes your music annoying and churning out constant gut punches for fans who believed they had a few good songs sometime in the early 90s. When we wake up from the nightmare that has been the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the album that will have us screaming in a cold sweat will be Stadium Arcadium.

The Black Eyed Peas – The E.N.D.

As Satan welcomes you into hell you can hear some of the biggest hits of both Fergie and The Black Eyed Peas playing in the background. They do fortunately let you choose which song from this album will be played during your descent into madness.

Katy Perry – Witness

It’s hard to believe that someone would go to such great lengths to make Taylor Swift look like the John Lennon of our time. I have not had the displeasure of hearing this on vinyl, but the only format this should have been released on is self-deleting MP3 that automatically drag themselves to your garbage. Her constant illuminati symbology and odd sense of humor that doesn’t always lead to distinguishable jokes has finally reached full maturity on this record. I would say she’s past her prime, but unfortunately it looks like this album is the ultimate distillation of whatever it is that she does. If you have any questions about the assertions made in this review, please click here.

Hoobastank – Self Titled

If you had ever hoped for an infinitely less talented version of Incubus, fortune smiled upon you in the early 2000s. A band that was so benign, pointless and unnecessary that it makes you nostalgic for the edginess of the dad from Gossip Girl’s fake television band. I honestly am not sure if this band ever enjoyed writing our playing these songs, which is the correct emotional response to tracks like “The Reason” and the endless garbage that comprise the rest of the indistinguishable tracks of this album. Songs that seem to freeze time, and stretch it into eternity, which makes sense they are warning you with the infinity sign in their logo.

Cleanse your pallet with one of our classic album reviews here.

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Oakley’s Thump Sunglasses

These wearable works of art, created by Oakley were endorsed by Dog The Bounty Hunter, and sold for a whopping $495 when they were first introduced. Beyond their stellar celebrity endorsement, and style that looks like it could have hoped right off of one of Wesley Snipes enemies in Blade, they had extremely limited storage when they were first released compared to the standards of mp3 players of that time. People say they were difficult to use, however they also say you have to suffer for fashion, and inconvenience is a small price to pay to look this good.

ZUNE MP3 Player

Despite users who were so excited about the technology that it actually lead one man to get a Zune tattoo, these units couldn’t compete with the more ubiquitous Apple “Mp3” offerings. They actually had some cool features in which you could share music directly between Zunes, however there were some limitations, you could only play acquired tracks three times within three days of having shared them, among a few other drawbacks. They tried to reinvigorate interest with an updated HD version of the player, that included gaming, but it wasn’t long before the Zune became the first digital mp3 player to go the way of the 8-track.

Sony Mini Disc Players

Despite being promoted in almost every late 90s movie about hackers or futuristic crime, they never caught on as being a popular format. Not to say they didn’t have their extremely loyal cult, who still use mini discs to this day. Some extremely obscure sub-genres of music still put out albums on this format, but price and a transformation of digital downloads with the advent of Napster had already began to change the landscape of storage capacity, and how people were listening to music. From a design standpoint this was one of the most practical updates to optical format data storage, that allowed for protection of the media with a plastic covering, based on the same data access door used on computer floppy discs.

8-Track Cassette Players

8-Track players, and the associated audio equipment, were extremely cool looking, so many of the players had incredible design, however many users had various complaints about these audio players. Many would report that the unites functioning and track switching were very noisy. It was also not a very reliable format, they would frequently have issues with playback and track switching. The 8-track tape players were also most popularly installed in cars, however the tapes themselves couldn’t stand up to the extreme heat of being stored in cars, as they would warp and melt into an unplayable condition.

DataPlay Disc Players

Almost an identical clone of Sony’s mini disc technology, however there were a few twists to DataPlay’s offering that was incredibly unique. As illegal downloading began to slowly dismantle the commercial music market, the DataPlay discs and players utilized a complex digital rights management system, which almost all but prevented the illegal copying or trading of tracks. It also allowed for those who have purchased a disc to pay to unlock additional content that was already recorded to the disc itself with a secondary purchase. With limited commercial releases available on the format, fans could however get their hands on Avril Lavigne’s first record and then pay to unlock multi-media and extra content. If that doesn’t give you a picture of why we aren’t using this today, then I don’t know what will.

Take a look at some audio equipment that we are very grateful for here.

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IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER THE BEST YACHT ROCK VINYL RECORDS EVER MADE

STEELY DAN – AJA

One of the funkiest albums ever recorded that you could also fall asleep to. This apple falls closer to the smooth jazz tree, but these ice cold jams will treat you real nice when when you’re out for a dinner with that special lady at the Bonaventure hotel, or taking an ocean drive in your metallic blue Lamborghini Countach, coked out of your mind. There are a lot of great Steely Dan records, once you fall down the SD rabbit hole, most fans never resurface and become raving evangelists of this incredible band.

ROXY MUSIC – AVALON

Many would want to strangle me for including this on a yacht rock list, but it ticks all of the boxes of our nautical genre. Not only is this album front to back flawless, it blends the sophisticated synth sound that brought Roxy Music into the 1980s. From its timeless classic “More Than This” to the etherial fantasy of “True To Life,” this album has some of the best studio recordings translated to vinyl I have ever heard.

THE DOOBIE BROTHERS – MINUTE BY MINUTE

All I have to say about this one is four grammys, count ’em 1, 2, 3, 4.  If that’s not enough for you, my secondary evidence is “What A Fool Believes.” Michael McDonald has one of the most distinctive and beautiful male voices of the 70s and 80s, he went on to achieve some of the greatest achievements of the Yacht Rock genre, this entire post could be dedicated to this somewhat under appreciated genius.

MIAMI SOUND MACHINE – PRIMITIVE LOVE

This album has almost all of the tracks that you love but may not know are performed by Miami Sound Machine. This album is a monster, I call this record soft proto-freestyle, but where it gained popularity was in the safe spaces that smooth jazz and adult contemporary provided during 1985. Gloria Estefan absolutely kills it on “Bad Boys,” “Conga,” and “Falling In love (Uh-Oh),” how did albums in the 80s each contain an endless amount singles?

DOUBLE – BLUE

A song that was un-escapeable between the years of 1986 and 1989, “Captain Of Her Heart,” was soothing yet haunting, and as beautiful and reassuring as the yacht itself. What many did not appreciate at the time, mostly because they were a one hit wonder in the US, was how great Kurt Maloo’s voice came across on every single track of their magnum opus Blue. This record could be the dictionary definition of what smooth jazz is, and defined the mellow sound of the elegant 80s, so much so that you’d swear this album was recorded on a yacht.

HALL & OATES – H2O

You can’t have this list without Hall & Oates, and it’s an extremely difficult decision as to which of their albums most deserves to be on this list. This one edges out Private Eyes primarily for how incredible this vinyl record sounds, and the diamond pristine production that went into making this one of the most iconic albums of the 1980s.

STEVE WINWOOD – BACK IN THE HIGHLIFE

Winwood has been a part of so many great music projects, but it’s hard to see any resemblance between the LSD traveler who sang “Dear Mr. Fantasy” with Traffic in the 60s reflected at all in the peak of his commercial success, Back In The Highlife. If you don’t think you know Winwood, you most probably do, his songs “Higher Love” and “The Finer Things” still haunt waiting rooms until this very day.

CHRISTOPHER CROSS – CHRISTOPHER CROSS

The only thing more impressive than McDonald’s 4 grammys with The Doobie Brothers, are the 5 that Christopher Cross won for his extremely impressive debut, that many refer to as the blueprint for yacht rock, referring to his timelessly smooth classic “Sailing.” His voice is as clear and beautiful as a horn, clearly an angel walking among us.

FLEETWOOD MAC – TANGO IN THE NIGHT

If you thought you couldn’t make Fleetwood Mac into an 80s band, think again. Lindsay Buckingham lead this incredible band into some of the most complex productions, and vocal arrangements of their career. This album is so smooth, there are literally almost no words to describe it. Every convention that 1980s production came to be known for is distilled here into one record. If you need to put on something to come down from listening to all of Christopher Cross from front to back, this could be one of the few records worthy of that challenge.

Please make sure that you listen to these albums responsibly on a quality hifi stereo record console.

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The Flip Tabletop Vinyl Storage Unit is handcrafted with solid walnut with solid brass details. It’s clean simple lines allow the beauty of the natural woodgrain to be showcased. Designed for browsing through your collection with ease and as a beautiful way to display a few of your favorite records. This piece can sit on a desk or table top and hold as many as 35 albums.

Tom Crates Vinyl Storage Unit brings a warm natural touch to any decor. They are handcrafted with reclaimed White Oak, feature dovetail joints, a hand rubbed oil finish and aged brass details. Each crate holds as many as 50 albums, crates can be stacked, flipped and have side handles  to make them easy to carry. The V-shaped front allows for easy browsing and a nice view of your records.

Jax Vinyl Storage Unit is a mid-century inspired design record storage cabinet that will bring a warm natural touch to a modern room. Made from exotic Zebrawood or Walnut it’s simple elegant design showcases the amazing grain patterns of the carefully selected wood and black lacquered legs add to the iconic mid-century look. This unit will hold up to 500 records and makes an excellent addition to any collectors home

Spektor Vinyl Storage Unit lets you browse your record collection with ease and display your favorites with record store style. This amazing cabinet can be ordered in two sizes, the largest holding up to 750 albums. The unit is handcrafted with American Walnut and is a well made lasting piece.

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