Kranky Style - 2 playlists to celebrate 20 years of Kranky Records

When people talk about Chicago's history of fiercely independent record labels, they usually bring up Touch and Go, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey. It's too bad that Kranky Records, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013, doesn't come to mind more often, because it certainly belongs in that company—it's proved just as reliable, creative, and uncompromising as any of those better-known imprints. (from Kranky's 20 Uncompromising Years, Chicago Reader)

I was not a fine connoisseur of Kranky Records music, but when I read articles such the one above, or this one, or this other one, I wanted to know (& listen to) something more about this label. So I entered in a world made with the kosmic kranky sounds of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Deerhunter, Atlas Sound, Tim Hecker, Low, Grouper, Labradford, Out Hud... And I liked it.  

Results: two playlists. The first one is a kind of unofficial and absolutely questionable best of, compiled basically on the preferences of Last.fm community, revised by some personal aesthetics. The second one is a new evidence of the incurable encyclopedical pathology affecting myself, made possible by Kranky official website: a complete archive of all Kranky albums I found on Spotify (it's a heavy one: 1385 tracks). 

So you have two roads diverging in the dark Kranky wonderwood, you can enjoy the most travelled one or shuffle into the infinite forest. Both, I slowly discovered, may give you great satisfactions. 

KRANKY STYLE 69

KRANKY ARCHIVE*

* Chronologically following the catalog numbers, from the oldest to the newest. I haven't found just 14 of almost 200 albums: Beat (Bowery Electric, Krank014), Pan American (Pan American, Krank025), 360 Business / 360 Bypass (Pan American, Krank041), F (Fontanelle, Krank048), The River Made No Sound (Pan American, Krank051), Avec Laudenum (Stars of the Lid, Krank059), The Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of Light (Growing, Krank073), Kranky Compilation (Various Artists, Krank077), Cached (Nudge, Krank083), The Pyschic Nature of Being (Linches, Krank086), Precis (Benoit Pioulard, Kranky098), Temper/Precis (Benoit Pioulard, Krank123), Nothing Ever Happened (7") (Deerhunter, Krank126), A Winged Victory for the Sullen (A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Krank157). As usual, their lack may be local, in my own country's Spotify catalog. 

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From ACT's Point of View (a tribute to 20-year-old ACT Music label)

Stop your clocks. Turn off your electric guitars. Forget your daily life noise. Press the play button. Open a book and start reading it slowly. Or just take a seat and look out of the window. The nighter, the better. Cognac allowed. This playlist is jazzy. Contemporarily jazzy. Filled with slow piano ballads and silken female voices. It starts with the late Esbjorn Svensson, it goes through a Norah Jones cammeo, some flamenco, a Vietnamese-reinvented Eleanor Rigby and it ends with a nice rendition of The Simpsons' theme. It features a lot of musicians with exotic, non-anglosaxon birth names: Bugge, Nils, Leszek, Rigmor, Paolo, Youn, Solveig, Iiro, Nguyen, Viyaj, Ulf, Viktoria...  It's a 20-song happy-20th-birthday to ACT jazz label. I got the idea while reading this article on The Guardian. ACT is based in Germany, it was founded by Siegfried Loch in 1992 and almost incredibly it hasn't an English Wikipedia page, yet. If you sprechen Deutsch, there's the German one. Consider it as a quiet parenthesis in the barbaric yawp of chaos. Enjoy it. Then, start yawping again.

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FROM ACT'S POINT OF VIEW
(A tribute to 20 years of ACT Music)

Esbjörn Svensson Trio – From Gagarin's Point Of View
Bugge Wesseltoft – Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker
Nils Landgren – When All Is Said And Done
John Abercrombie & Arif Mardin – El Vito Cante
Richard Galliano, Paolo Fresu, Jan Lundgren – Que reste-t-il de nos amours?
Rigmor Gustafsson – Empty Hearts
Leszek Mozdzer – Svantetic
Youn Sun Nah – My Favorite Things
Gwilym Simcock – These Are The Good Days
Solveig Slettahjell – Take It With Me
Tonbruket – Balloons
Joel Harrison & Norah Jones – Tennessee Waltz
Iiro Rantala – Tears For Esbjörn
Nguyên Lê – Eleanor Rigby
Magnus Ostrom – Piano Break Song
Vijay Iyer – Human Nature
Ulf Wakenius – Dancing
Lars Danielsson feat. Viktoria Tolstoy – From Above
Wolfgang Haffner, Hubert Nuss, Lars Danielsson – Silent Way
Panzerballett – The Simpsons

Listen on Spotify: HTTP, URI. (SR0819)

Spin's 20 Essential Songs from the Dearly Departed Arista, Jive and J Records

Pop around the world

From Spin.com: "This week, RCA announced that it would shutting the doors to its Arista, Jive, and J Records imprints, ending 37 years of service on the frontlines of punk, new wave, hip-hop, dance, and teen pop. At first this seemed like a great opportunity for another trend piece about the decaying state of the music industry — hmmm, it has been a suspiciously long time since a record label treated us to a champagne brunch. But instead, we decided to pick the 20 best tracks from these three fallen totems, displaying how they often turned fringe genres into the sound of now".

Enjoy!

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SPIN'S 20 ESSENTIAL SONGS FROM THE DEARLY DEPARTED ARISTA, JIVE AND J RECORDS
Source: Spin.
Songs available on Spotify: 16 out of 20 (80%)

Patti Smith Group – Gloria
Bay City Rollers – Saturday Night
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson – Johannesburg
Lou Reed – Street Hassle
Anthony Braxton - Composition 82
A Flock Of Seagulls – I Ran (So Far Away)
The Kinks – Come Dancing
Whodini – Freaks Come Out At Night
Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Too $hort – Freaky Tales
Boogie Down Productions – My Philosophy
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince – Parents Just Don't Understand
Lisa Stansfield – All Around The World
Three Times Dope - Greatest Man Alive
The KLF - 3 a.m. Eternal
A Tribe Called Quest – Scenario
'N Sync - Pop
Britney Spears – Toxic
Kelis – Milkshake
R. Kelly – Trapped In The Closet (Chapters 1-5)

Listen to it on Spotify: HTTP, URI.

... while if you prefer indie labels, don't forget The Indie Labels Party.

The UK Blue Stax Singles Collection 1967-1968

Just to prove you that I'm not Nick Hornby's Annie Wilkes and that I care more for taking some good musical advices from him than dissecting his books, here it comes a new playlist. Actually, Hornby suggested it, when he wrote - in the first pages of Fever Pitch - "We would be left to rot with our Arsenal programmes or our collection of original blue-label Stax records...". Blue-label Stax records? What's that? Here's the answer: a collection of old vinyl records, out in the UK in 1967 and 1968. Below, you find it almost completely (83,33%) spotified. A good soundtrack for your vintage soul parties, with Otis Redding, Carla Thomas and many other great black acts. Enjoy!

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THE UK BLUE STAX SINGLES COLLECTION 1967-1968
Source: Staxman.co.uk (whose table below I shamelessly copied and pasted, and where you can find some useful infos if you're a vinyl collector...)
Songs available on Spotify: 70 out of 84 (83,33%)

601001	Eddie Floyd	Raise Your Hand	1967	42	Stax 208A
		I've Just Been Feeling Bad			Stax 208B
601002	Carla Thomas	Something Good (Is Going To Happen To You)	1967	--	Stax 207A
		It's Starting To Grow			Stax 207B
601003	Johnnie Taylor	Ain't That Lovin' You	1967	--	Stax 209A
		Outside Love			Stax 209B
601004	Sam & Dave	Soothe Me	1967	35	(none)
		Sweet Pains (remastered 2006 version)			(none)
601005	Otis Redding	Day Tripper	1967	43	(none)
		Shake			(none)
601006	Sam & Dave	When Something Is Wrong With My Baby	1967	--	Stax 210A
		A Small Portion Of Your Love			Stax 210B
601007	Otis Redding	Let Me Come On Home	1967	48	Volt 146B
		I Love You More Than Words Can Say			Volt 146A
601008	Carla Thomas	When Tomorrow Comes	1967	--	Stax 214A
		Unchanging Love			Stax 214B
601009	Booker T. & M.G.s	Hip Hug Her	1967	--	Stax 211A
		Summertime			Stax 211B
601010	Mable John	Same Time, Same Place	1967	--	Stax 215A
		Bigger And Better			Stax 215B
601011	Otis Redding	Shake (live)	1967	28	Volt 149A
		634-5789 (studio; original single was live)			(none)
601012	Otis Redding & Carla Thomas	Tramp	1967	18	Stax 216A
		Oooh Carla, Oooh Otis			(none)
601013	Rufus Thomas	Greasy Spoon	1967	--	Stax 221B
		Sophisticated Sissy			Stax 221A
601014	Bar-Kays	Soul Finger	1967	33	Volt 148A
		Knucklehead			Volt 148B
601015	Albert King	Born Under A Bad Sign	1967	--	Stax 217A
		Personal Manager			Stax 217B
601016	Eddie Floyd	Things Get Better	1967	31	Stax 187A
		Good Love , Bad Love			Stax 187B
601017	Otis Redding	The Glory Of Love	1967	--	Volt 152A
		I'm Coming Home			Volt 152B
601018	Booker T. & M.G.s	Groovin'	1967	--	Stax 224A
		Slim Jenkin's Place			Stax 224B
601019	William Bell	Eloise (Hang On In There)	1967	--	Stax 227A
		One Plus One			Stax 227B
601020	Ruby Johnson	If I Ever Needed Love (I Sure Do Need It Now)	1967	--	Volt 147A
		Keep On Keeping On			Volt 147B
601021	Otis Redding & Carla Thomas	Knock On Wood	1967	35	Stax 228A
		Let Me Be Good To You			Stax 228B
601022	Judy Clay	You Can't Run Away From Your Heart	1967	--	Stax 230A
		It Takes A Lotta Good Love			Stax 230B
601023	Sam & Dave	Soul Man	1967	24	Stax 231A
		May I Baby			Stax 231B
601024	Eddie Floyd	On A Saturday Night	1967	--	Stax 233A
		Under My Nose			Stax 233B
601025	Bar-Kays	Give Everybody Some	1967	--	Volt 154A
		Don't Do That			Volt 154B
601026	Booker T. & M.G.s	Chinese Checkers	1967	--	Stax 137A
		Plum Nellie			Stax 137B
601027	Otis Redding	(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction	1967	--	Volt 132A
		I've Been Loving You Too Long			Volt 126A
601028	Rufus Thomas	Down Ta My House	1968	--	Stax 240A
		Steady Holding On			Stax 240B
601029	Albert King	Cold Feet	1968	--	Stax 241A
		You Sure Drive A Hard Bargain			Stax 241B
601030	Sam & Dave	I Thank You	1968	34	Stax 242A
		Wrap It Up			Stax 242B
601031	Otis Redding	(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay	1968	3	Volt 157A
		My Sweet Lorene			Volt 157B
601032	Carla Thomas	Pick Up The Pieces	1968	--	Stax 239A
		Separation			Stax 239B
601033	Otis Redding & Carla Thomas	Lovey Dovey	1968	--	Stax 244A
		New Year's Resolution			Stax 244B
601034	Mable John	Able Mable	1968	--	Stax 249A
		Don't Get Caught			Stax 249B
601035	Eddie Floyd	Big Bird	1968	--	Stax 246A
		Holding On With Both Hands			Stax 246B
601036	Bar-Kays	A Hard Day's Night	1968	--	Volt 158A
		I Want Someone			Volt 158B
601037	Rufus Thomas	The Memphis Train	1968	--	Stax 250A
		I Think I Made A Boo-Boo			Stax 250B
601038	William Bell	A Tribute To A King	1968	--	Stax 248A
		Every Man Oughta Have A Woman			Stax 248B
601039	Derek Martin	Soul Power	1968	--	Volt 160A
		Sly Girl			Volt 160B
601040	Otis Redding	The Happy Song	1968	34	Volt 163A
		Open The Door			Volt 163B
601041	Linda Lyndell	Bring Your Love Back To Me	1968	--	Volt 161A
		Here I Am			Volt 161B
601042	Albert King	(I Love) Lucy	1968	--	Stax 252A
		You're Gonna Need Me			Stax 252B

Listen to it on Spotify: HTTP, URI. (SR0722)

UK Blue Stax singles were slightly different (with some previously unissued songs) and definitely less numerous than US singles. If you think this playlist is not enough and you wanna more soul, check the 244-song boxset Stax-Volt: The Complete Singles 1959-1968.

The Indie Labels Party - 5 new labels (Sub Pop, Secretly Canadian, Merge, Acuarela, Morr)

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