Fiona Apple – Spinning Platters

Spinning Platters’ Top 20 Albums of 2020

By The Spinning Platters Editorial Staff

What a shit year, am I right? I guess that’s the consensus all around. It was also a weird year for music… The first half of the year had a bunch of great records that were released with touring in mind, full of epic live songs that are meant to be heard in a crowd and that simply didn’t happen. The second half was full of intense projects made while in seclusion. Projects where the recording is really the only means of connecting. This was a great year for the art of the album, despite it being a terrible year for musicians to make a living. Which is why we are giving you a top 20 this year! A lot of independent artists mixed in with the big ones, so please buy a record or two, or some merch to help keep them alive and able to hit the road when it’s safe.

A quick note: We begin this process in October, so our years is 11/1-11/1. So, yes, you will see at least one late 2019 album on this list. Continue reading “Spinning Platters’ Top 20 Albums of 2020”

Spinning Platters’ Top 50 Records from our First Decade: 11-30

As Spinning Platters has managed to continue for far longer than anyone would’ve expected us to, so has this list. Here are records 11-30 from the first decade of Spinning Platters. For those looking to read #31-50, click here!

Continue reading “Spinning Platters’ Top 50 Records from our First Decade: 11-30”

Let’s Go Crazy With The Best Albums of 1999!

Are we gonna let the elevator bring us down?

All conversations converged to one singular point at the close of 1999: The End of the World, and because of it, every possible best list of the century. Whether it was about greatest album, or greatest toenail clipper, a list was compiled by the fanciest per-milenium robots. Now the singular list missing from the cornucopia of lists was: The Music of 1999. Everyone, consumed in their chicken little theories of Y2K and end of the world were too mad to see what was really happening. The end of music as we knew it! In reality it seemed to set the youth of America back about twenty years. (If you take a look at the top record sales for 1999, trust me, you’ll want to cry). I’m as easy going as the next guy, but the Grinch himself would have shuddered at the sound of pop music sung by teen queens, boy bands, and all the music to come out of the entire state of Florida. They all belonged on the naughty list, and should have been banished to the island of misfit albums.

Luckily I was able to see through the doomsday smoke, and find some albums to balance out the slew of trash on radio airwaves or Total Request Live. Continue reading “Let’s Go Crazy With The Best Albums of 1999!”

Show Review: Fiona Apple and Blake Mills at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, 10/8/2013

Fiona Apple & Blake Mills played anything they wanted at Zellerbach Hall

Fiona Apple isn’t interested in how anyone thinks she looks. I know because when I found myself back on my alma mater’s campus at Zellerbach Hall earlier this evening, she said she was on “the tip of ‘don’t fuck with people for how they look.'” Whether this is because she recently asked security to remove an audience member in Portland for heckling her appearance, or because she’s heard controversy over her waif-like physique since her “Criminal” video circa 1996, I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that none of that matters much to me. I didn’t go out this evening to gawk at a skinny woman, nor to speculate on why she’s thin. I went to hear her sing, because she’s a strange, dark little songbird that sings a haunted melody, and I wanted to experience it live. I didn’t know of Blake Mills, with whom Apple shared the stage, but I liked that they chose to call this tour “Anything We Want” after her song of the same name, and I went ready to see just what it was they wanted. Continue reading “Show Review: Fiona Apple and Blake Mills at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, 10/8/2013”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 10/3/13-10/9/13

Rocktober is already in full swing this year. Early Rocktober is starting with a lot of folk music and a two rare public appearances by groundbreaking 80’s bands. It’s gonna be a good one!

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 10/3/13-10/9/13”

Spinning Platters Presents The Official List of the Top 20 Albums of 2012

By The Spinning Platters Staff

Every website has a Top XX albums of the year list. This one is ours, and there is nothing by The xx on it. I mean, I really like The xx’s Coexist. There were just 20 records that came out this year that were better. Maybe you’ll find something that you missed?

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Presents The Official List of the Top 20 Albums of 2012”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 7/26/12 – 7/31/12

This week is heavy on the world music… Maybe it’s time that you took a leap and tried something completely new? It will be quite good for you.

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 7/26/12 – 7/31/12”

Spinning Platters SXSW Report: 25 Instant SXSW Gig Reviews

Approximately .0003% of the attendees at SXSW 2012

This is my fifth year straight where I descended to the great city of Austin, Texas to enjoy the most insane week of live music you will ever enjoy. I took a little easier than most years, but I still had a very fulfilling week of music. I get to enjoy a wide array of great stuff, and, without further adieu, here are my thoughts on that time:

Continue reading “Spinning Platters SXSW Report: 25 Instant SXSW Gig Reviews”

Gift Guide For Music Nerds: The Best Records of 1997

This is how you would have had to search for music in 1997. It's easier now.

Have no clue what to do? Has a large green creature come and snagged all the good presents away? Don’t fret because the Spinning Platters elves have present ideas to fill up Santa’s sleigh…

It seems it’s that time of the year when the days in number
seem to fall off the calendar into slumber.
And there is only one thing you could possibly find,
that wouldn’t be on kind people’s minds.
It’s better than socks. It’s better than butter. It’s better than delightful hot cocoa with a candy marshmallow ring.
It rocks so hardly in summer,
maybe even some with a mutter,
and it’s let you go along, allowing you to dance and sing.
It’s pure but complicated, not dirty or replicated.
It’s as tasty as fresh warm bread
even those that are of leaven,
it’s just what you always thought it was, it’s the music of 1997!

Here are the Top 15 most important reasons…or in some cases, non reasons, to buy your loved one, or enemy for that matter (the holidays don’t discriminate) an awesome gift from 1997! Continue reading “Gift Guide For Music Nerds: The Best Records of 1997”