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Finding gifts for record lovers can prove difficult: the hobby is uniquely personal, often expensive, and comes with the fear of what your gift recipient does and doesn’t already own. As the holidays rapidly approach, we’ve compiled a list of recommended budget turntables, phono preamps, record accessories, LPs, and books. These products are independently selected, and we’ve personally experienced every listed item (or a very similar previous iteration) listed.

Primal Scream’s Screamadelica, released in September 1991, captured late 80s/early 90s UK rave culture’s peak. Unlike that era’s other UK “guitar bands” making dance music, Primal Scream was a Rolling Stones-esque rock band that—with the help of producers including Andrew Weatherall, The Orb, Terry Farley, and Hypnotone as well as singer Denise Johnson—drew from acid house in a seamless transition towards the current time. While it now sounds a bit dated, it remains a well-produced, relevant piece of rock history whose energy transcends any stylistic setbacks.

Okay, the photo has nothing to do with the text but I thought you might enjoy it and it's possibly good clickbait. This little dust up with Mike Esposito was really me doing what I've been doing since calling out the B.S. that was the compact disc revolution when the industry, both on the hardware and software side, was insisting that this new format sounded better than the old one when in fact it clearly did not, especially at that time. As Chad Kassem pointed out in the stream, we and others were subjected to major levels of abuse and told to "get with the program" and that we were just used to, and preferred distortion. You still get that today but it's easier to ignore.

The always defiant, sometimes bitter and often angry Charles Mingus had a habit of declaring more than a few of his records as his best, including this one. He might be correct about The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady recorded January, 1963, though Tijuana Moods and several others are definitely in the running.