Thirteen 90s Albums Psychobabble Would Like to See on Vinyl

I devote a good deal of my energy and wallet to vinyl, but even I have my limits. In fact, I'm pretty satisfied with my collection, currently bubbling under 1,000 LPs. However, there is still a healthy handful of albums I'd love to have on vinyl that currently aren't easily or affordably available (it takes a lot to get me to pay more than $40 for an album). 

Almost all of these albums were originally released in the nineties, when vinyl was viewed as hopelessly antiquated and inferior to the utterly futuristic compact disc, when only novelty-level quantities of new releases were pressed on PVC. 

Now that we're nearly two decades in to the so-called "vinyl revival," most of my personal favorite albums of the nineties have been released as LPs. But there are still quite a few that have yet to show any signs of ending up on our turntables any time soon. Here are a baker's dozen of my most coveted no-shows, presented alphabetically by artist for your enjoyment:

1. Bettie Serveert- Lamprey

The slicker follow-up to this Dutch indie quartet's 1992 debut, Palomine, was dismissed by some critics for being a bit too overblown, although I personally think that, song-for-song, Lamprey is at worst as fine as Palomine and at best quite a lot better. "Ray Ray Rain" stacks up beautifully next to the classics on Bettie Serveert's debut, specifically "Tom Boy" and "Kid's Alright", and the 1995 album never loses steam, as Palomine does a bit toward the end. 

Matador did give us a one-year delayed thirtieth anniversary edition of Palomine in 2023, so I'm fairly hopeful Lamprey will make its own comeback by 2026.

2. The Blue Up? - Spool Forka Dish

Minneapolis's The Blue Up? is probably the most obscure group on this list. In the mid-eighties they began as garagey sixties revivalists not too far removed from the early Bangles, but The Blue Up? had to wait a solid decade to put out a widely distributed album. By then they'd evolved into a much trippier yet no less sixties-indebted group that balanced psychedelic folk rock with ornate punk screamers quite beautifully. 

As produced by former revolutionary Bobby Z, Spool Forka Dish is a bewitching album that couldn't really be called forgotten because very few people knew about it in the first place. Although it had a major release via Columbia, I have no idea if the label (currently absorbed into Sony's gelatinous blob-body) even remembers it released this album, assuming labels even have memories. So I have low hopes that it will ever make its way to wax. Sigh.

3. Cornershop - Woman's Gotta Have It

Fusers of indie rock and trad Indian music, Cornershop are remembered by most as one hit wonders who broke through in 1997 with the single "Brimful of Asha" from their third album, When I Was Born for the 7th Time. That song is catchy enough, but it's their second album I most want to see return to vinyl.

Woman's Gotta Have It is a sharp potpourri of long sitar grooves, dancey Indian folk music, and gnarly indie rock. It was originally released on the tiny Wiiija label, which is currently defunct but was absorbed by Beggars Banquet Records, which is, to coin a term, funct. So hopefully a vinyl reissue could happen at some point. 

4. Daisy Chainsaw- Eleventeen

If Guns N' Roses had a baby with the main character of Mumsy, Sonny, Nanny and Girly, the filthy offspring would be Daisy Chainsaw. As melodic as they are punishing to the eardrums, the British punk-noise-pop group, and particular singer KatyJane Garside, made all other groups with some sort of out-of-control persona seem like the hopeless posers they were. And that goes for you too, Guns N' Roses! 

Daisy Chainsaw only put out one LP while Garside was still in the band, and that's the one I'm dying to see back in the shops. There was an RSD single of the group's signature song, "Love Your Money", a couple of years ago, released on a Bolan-centric indie called Easy Action Records, of all things. I'm not sure if that label's rights to the Chainsaw archives extend to the rest of Eleventeen, which was originally released on One Little Indian (since less offensively renamed "One Little Independent"). That label is still a going concern, and has done a fine job bringing Bjork's output to vinyl. Couldn't they do the same for another outre artist?

5. Frente - Shape

Here's another one for which there may still be some hope. Although it hardly made the splash that Frente's first album, Marvin the Album, did, 1996's Shape was also quite strong, if a tad darker, without losing any of the group's ingratiating personality or melodiousness. Frente stretched out with tougher beats, longer songs, stormier atmospheres, and on one song, an Ian Anderson-esque flute solo. 

The reason I'm hopeful is that Marvin got a 30th anniversary reissue in 2002, albeit only in the group's native Australia. In any event, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and my eyes open for a thirtieth anniversary edition of Shape next year.

6. Guided by Voices - Suitcase

Guided by Voices fans have been rather lucky over the last few years, as much of their most obscure output was reissued on vinyl by Scat Records. But there are even obscurer platters than Same Place the Fly Got Smashed and Vampire on Titus. 

Bob Pollard always produced more music than could ever be released on GBV's proper albums, and much of that was collected on Suitcase, a 4-CD compilation released in 2000. Very few of its 100 tracks have been released on vinyl (good luck finding a copy of the single-LP distillation Briefcase!), and though it is a hit-or-miss affair, there is certainly a good two or three-LPs worth of excellent stuff on Suitcase. In my estimation, tracks such as "Taco, Buffalo, Birddog, and Jesus", "Dorothy's a Planet", "Tobacco's Last Stand", "Shrine to the Dynamic Years", "I Can See It in Your Eyes", "Perch Warble", and "Scissors and the Clay Ox (In)" rank with the band's best... so does the one track exclusive to Briefcase, "Sensational Gravity Boy". 

I wouldn't be so greedy as to expect all 101 tracks to make it to vinyl, and frankly, I'm not sure I'd even want that. But I would love to see a smartly selected comp along the lines of 2022's compilation of EP tracks, Scalping the Guru.

7-8. Shudder to Think - Get Your Goat & 50,000 B.C.

Just when I though that history had completely forgotten one of the great art rock bands of all time, this past Record Store Day saw looooooong overdue reissues of two excellent and utterly dissimilar albums by Shudder to Think, both originally issued on Epic Records. As much as I cherish my new copies of Pony Express Record and First Love, Last Rites, I am a typical fan, which means the only words on my mind are "more, more, more." 

The more in question are Shudder to Think's first truly great album, 1992's Get Your Goat, and their final traditional band album, the extrovertedly glammy 50,000 B.C. I would be hopeful that both of these might see a similar reissue for this November's RSD if it weren't for the fact that Get Your Goat was originally released on Dischord, before the group moved to Epic. If Dischord still has the rights, hopefully they'll be inspired by the grand success of these recent StS reissues and give GYG the same treatment. But that would only make me demand even more, since the Funeral at the Movies mini-album might be the best thing Shudder to Think ever made.

9-10. Throwing Muses - University & Limbo

While The Pixies continue to be (rightfully) celebrated as grand godparents of nineties alternative rock, their fellow New Englanders, Throwing Muses, remain a quietly appreciated cult combo. Consequently, they have been completely passed over in the vinyl-reissue sweepstakes. Fortunately, original copies of the albums the Muses released on 4-AD and Sire in the eighties and early nineties are still fairly get-able on the secondary market. Unfortunately, their final two albums of the nineties, both released after the CD takeover, are nearly impossible. 

4-AD gave Kristin Hersh's first solo album, Hips and Makers, a thirtieth anniversary RSD release last year, so I'm hoping they can at least do the same for University and Limbo, although these albums really deserve standard, non-limited releases...Hips and Hersh's second solo, Strange Angels, do too for that matter. 

11. Velocity Girl - Simpatico!

One would think there'd be hope for a vinyl revival of Velocity Girl's second album, since their first one got a lovingly remixed and expanded one last year. However, the most recent word I've heard about a second-life for the slicker, poppier Simpatico! is that "nothing has been discussed", despite the band's wish for such a thing. 

I'll just echo that wish. I'd also love to see a reissue of the group's self-titled EP comp from 1992, which was originally released on Slumberland Records. This is not beyond the realm of possibility since that label is still a going concern...

12-13. Versus - The Stars Are Insane & Secret Swingers

...so is Teenbeat Records, which hasn't totally forgotten about the tough, tense, and tuneful Versus, having reissued their debut mini-album Let's Electrify! a few years ago. 

I was hoping we'd get a similar reissue for the thirtieth anniversary of Versus' first non-mini album, The Stars Are Insane, last year, but, alas, that milestone passed without a peep from team Teenbeat. Next year will be the same anniversary for the higher-fi Secret Swingers, another atmospheric dumpling of angst and beauty, which nineties bands like the ones I've covered here did better than anyone else.