Manchester Special: The 10 best vinyl deals available on Amazon this week
Welcome back to Far Out’s weekly vinyl corner feature, where we bring you a tempting selection of records from some of our favourite artists, bargain vinyl deals to look out for, and unmissable limited-edition releases. This week we’re celebrating some of the greatest bands from one of the UK’s most musically fertile cities, Manchester.
In 2021, the recent vinyl resurgence observed another milestone year as record sales surpassed that of CDs for the first time in three decades. The return of the record has been on a steady climb since the invasion of streaming services in the late 2000s. While the weightless, highly accessible and practical format is great for discovering and consuming lots of new music while you’re out and about, there’s nothing like coming home for to bit of vinyl.
Fellow collectors around the world will agree that if there’s an artist or album you love, there’s always a good reason to have the turntable at the ready and a 12” space reserved on the shelf for inevitable expansion. The sound quality of vinyl brings something more hearty and vibrant with its analogue warmth and crisp definition that there really isn’t a substitute for.
So if, like me, you have a soft spot for these groovy discs of plastic, allow me to walk you through ten hot picks for this week. We have a selection of post-punk favourites from The Chameleons and Joy Division and some indie classics from The Smiths and James.
The following selections have been handpicked by Far Out Magazine, and as a result, we may earn from qualifying purchases.
The 10 best vinyl deals available on Amazon this week:
Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
Unknown Pleasures, released in 1979, was the seminal debut album for Manchester post-punkers Joy Division released on the famed Factory Records. The album was produced by Martin Hannett, who incorporated a number of unconventional production techniques into the group’s trademark industrial and gritty sound.
The iconic cover artwork was designed by graphic designer and frequent collaborator of Joy Division and New Order, Peter Saville. He made the design using a data plot of radio signals emitted from a pulsar (neutron star). The album is home to some of Joy Division’s most-loved classics, including ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘New Dawn Fades’, ‘Disorder’, and ‘Shadowplay’.
Available for purchase here for £21.31.
James – All The Colours Of You
This year, Manchester indie group James celebrate their 40th anniversary. Famed most for their work in the 1990s with classics such as Gold Mother and Laid, James took a hiatus in 2001. Since their reunion in 2007, James have never ceased to impress with a steady stream of brilliant albums.
One of the band’s latter career highlights is their latest album from 2021, All the Colours of You. The album was partially made up of material the group had been working on before the Covid-19 pandemic and completed in the midst of lockdown hysteria. Personal highlights include ‘All the Colours of You’, ‘Recover’ and ‘Isabella’.
Available for purchase here for £21.84.
The Smiths – Strangeways, Here We Come
Some say The Smiths peaked with their third album, The Queen Is Dead, but in my opinion, they were perhaps one of the most consistent bands of the 1980s. I find it difficult to place any one album of their four above another. Each is brilliant in a different way.
The band’s final release before the mighty partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr fell apart, was Strangeways, Here We Come. The album is distinct from its predecessors, chiefly because of Marr’s newfound fondness for using keys in the studio. The album is awash with gems, including ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’, ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’, ‘Death of a Disco Dancer’ and ‘I Won’t Share You’.
Available for purchase here for £24.47.
Happy Mondays – Pills ’N’ Thrills and Bellyaches
Factory Records’ rave scene pioneers hit their commercial peak with their third studio album, Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches, in 1990. The perfect fusion of danceable rock with Shaun Ryder’s Mancunian mumble made a big impression on the ravers of Manchester’s famous Hacienda club and sounds just as fresh today.
This record is the perfect bridge between rock and dance music. You can put it on at a party just as easily as popping it on for some solitary sit-down listening. The album holds a healthy selection of the Mondays’ greatest hits, including ‘Step On’, ‘Kinky Afro’, ‘God’s Cop’, ‘Loose Fit’, and ‘Bob’s Yer Uncle’.
Available for purchase here for £35.07.
Buzzcocks – Love Bites
Manchester’s answer to London’s Sex Pistols came in the form of Buzzcocks. Thanks to frontman Pete Shelley’s unique vision, they pulled themselves from under the shadow of local contemporaries and made a name for themselves as one of the most important bands of the 1970s.
Buzzcocks hit a critical peak with their second studio album, 1978’s Love Bites. The album is home to the group’s best-loved hit ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve), as well as a scattering of other timeless hits like ‘Love is Lies’, ‘Nostalgia’ and ‘Sixteen Again’.
Available for purchase here for £24.25.
Simply Red – Picture Book
Mick Hucknall, the charismatic frontman of Simply Red, claims to have been at the famed Sex Pistols concert at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall in a crowd of 40, which allegedly consisted of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook, The fall’s Mark E. Smith, Morrissey of The Smiths and Tony Wilson, the founder of Factory Records.
Where the others made careers in the post-punk arena, Hucknall was inspired to follow a more pop-oriented approach to his musical ambitions. Picture Book was Simply Red’s emphatic debut record and possibly their greatest. The album is home to such classics as ‘Money’s Too Tight (To Mention)’, ‘Holding Back the Years’, ‘Come to My Aid’ and ‘Picture Book’.
Available for purchase here for £21.99.
The Durutti Column – LC
One lesser-known but most interesting act signed to Joy Division’s Factory Records label was Vini Reilly’s long-standing group Durutti Column. While the band’s debut record, 1980’s The Return of the Durutti Column, garnered them due attention for the classic lead single ‘Sketch for Summer’, they hit their peak with the 1981 masterpiece LC.
The experimental new wave sound is trademarked by Reilly’s delicate guitar tracks that interweave with tumbling bass lines and backing beats. The album is one that should be taken as a whole, hence the necessity to own it on vinyl, but highlights include ‘Jacqueline’, ‘Messidor’ and ‘Sketch for Dawn’.
Available for purchase here for £25.16.
Oasis – Definitely Maybe
Some might say that Oasis’ 1995 effort (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? was their greatest, but for me, the rough and ready debut from 1994 was the early height of Britpop. The Gallagher brothers had just started out on what would become a seminal odyssey in rock ‘n’ roll. Liam’s voice offers a raspy Mancunian arrogance framed by some of Noel’s most interesting compositions in Definitely Maybe.
The album is Oasis’ most balanced before they got completely taken away with the ideal of the perfect anthem. The album is jam-packed with weighty classics from ‘Slide Away’ and ‘Supersonic’ to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ and ‘Live Forever’, but also offers the slower intrigue of ‘Shakermaker’ and ‘Married With Children’.
Available for purchase here for £23.76.
Doves – Lost Souls
Lost Souls is the debut LP for indie group Doves, originally released in 2000. The album was nominated for the year’s Mercury Prize but unfortunately just lost out to Badly Drawn Boy’s equally fantastic The Hour of Bewilderbeast.
The album started this Manchester powerhouse off with a bang earning them three UK top 40 singles in ‘The Cedar Room’, ‘Catch The Sun’ and ‘The Man Who Told Everything’. But the album holds much more beneath its successful surface. With deeper cuts like ‘Firesuite’, ‘Melody Calls’ and ‘Rise’, the bar was set extremely high before subsequent efforts.
Available for purchase here for £37.62.
The Chameleons – Script of the Bridge
The Chameleons seem to be one of Manchester’s best-kept secrets of the post-punk era. The 1983 debut, Script of the Bridge, highlighted the band’s output. Their gloomy and atmospheric approach came reminiscent of the early material from The Cure but sadly attracted a fraction of the attention.
Script of the Bridge is one of those rare albums where every track is truly engrossing and adds something new to proceedings. It yielded four singles in ‘Up the Down Escalator’, ‘Don’t fall’, ‘As High as You Can Go’ and ‘A Person Isn’t Safe Anywhere These Days’, but the highlight for me is and always will be ‘Second Skin’.
Available for purchase here for £27.99.
