Thirty Something (2021, Reissue)
If I'm doing one of those deals where I have to pick desert island discs or rank my all time favorite record, there is absolutely no way that Sunday's Worst Enemy would not be on whatever list I made. It is easily one of the ten best albums I have ever listened to in my life and I feel just as strongly about it today as I did the first time I heard it back in 1997. If you were able to find it, if you looked at the December year-in-review issue of my college newspaper, I put Sunday's Worst Enemy as my number one record of that year. My love for this album has not changed one bit since then.
Within seconds of the opening song "Repetition," I lose my goddamn mind when that pick slide hits and the band breaks into the first verse. What follows is a cavalcade of gigantic guitars, passionate vocals and pounding drums. There's a definite Sugar/Bob Mould influence, but as much as I love everything that Bob puts out, to me these Starmarket songs perfect the sound he's most associated with. We even ended up putting out this record on PopKid in America, though we had to trade the epic "You Can't Come" for the equally great, but very different "Your Style" from their first album. We proably should have done vinyl, but we didn't.
When this album originally came out on Dolores records out of Sweden, they did do a vinyl version. That said, it was only available as a picture disc. Pretty much the worst way to listen to a record on vinyl. I've had a copy of that since it came out, and though I wouldn't ever say it sounded bad necessarily, it is lacking in dynamics a bit. That's a crime as this is one of the most dynamic records I've ever heard in my live.
These reissues sound excellent. And though I am trying to cut down on the number of variants I buy for any single record, I just couldn't help but get all of them for this album. It's too important of a record to me. I am so happy to have a version of this album that sounds great and can play at will. If this one isn't in your collection, you should go grab a copy before they are gone, import shipping costs be damned.
Starmarket - Sunday's Worst Enemy
(I can't find the regular version of this on the Thirty Something or
Starmarket Bandcamp pages, so here's a link to the PopKid one. It
doesn't have "You Can't Come" or some of the other bonus tracks that the
new LP has.):
You can buy the LPs from, Thirty Something here: https://thirtysomethingrecords.bigcartel.com/product/starmarket-sunday-s-worst-enemy-lp-pre-order
https://popkid.bandcamp.com/album/starmarket-sundays-worst-enemy
not sure why I never listened to this when it came out or since but this post inspired me. think i heard the one before this at a college radio station in 1996 or something. this record rules. probably never would have gave it a shot if not for your blog.
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