Dem Vinyl Boyz are dropping the needle this week from the Franklin Social House taking their vinyl on the road for all to hear. 'Billy Joel's Greatest Hits' was released in 1987 which includes the artist's work from 1973 to 1985 and contains some of his most renowned records such as “Piano Man”, “Uptown Girl”', and “The Longest Time”. The album is certified double diamond and has sold over 23 million units tying Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' for the sixth most certified album of all time in the United States. 

The album kicks off with "Piano Man," the first disc runs through a good chunk of his early work before arriving at his golden age of the late '70s; some of these songs, including "Captain Jack" and "New York State of Mind," weren't strictly hits, but were popular within his stage show and became radio hits. Over the next disc and a half, there's so many hits, it's inevitable that some are left off such as "Honesty" and "Sometimes a Fantasy" but still includes "Just the Way You Are," "Only the Good Die Young," "My Life," "You May Be Right," "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," "Don't Ask Me Why," "Allentown," "Tell Her About It" and "Uptown Girl," among many others are present and accounted for. In short, Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 encapsulates exactly why Billy Joel was one of the most popular singer/songwriters of the late '70s and early '80s and is still described as a legendary artist today.

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Dem Vinyl Boyz are back this week we’re diving into one of the most prolific debut albums that tackles political issues with undeniable conviction, Rage Against The Machine. These guys created this album with a purpose, displaying a photo of the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức, a vietnamese monk, on the album cover. He was protesting President Ngô Đình Diệm's administration for oppressing the Buddhist religion and the international attention this photo gained persuaded U.S. President John F. Kennedy to withdraw support for Diệm's government. The songs on Rage Against the Machine all feature political messages with activists such as Provisional IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton are listed in the "Thanks For Inspiration" section. Through this album's success, it remains an essential call to activism and a necessary lesson on how to withstand the opposition.

Aside from the album's obvious political themes, the music itself defies the way "normal" albums would be released and offers a genre-bending experience that makes it difficult to categorize as one specific thing. Throwing mixes of rock, funk, and rap throughout the album, it is recognized as one of the first albums to successfully merge the seemingly contrasting sounds of rap and heavy metal. The album peaked at number 1 on the US Billboard Heatseekers chart and number 45 on the US Billboard 200 and has gone on to achieve triple platinum sales certification in the US.

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Dem Vinyl Boys are back droppin' the needle on one of the most legendary Hip Hop albums of the 90's, "Doggystyle", by none other than Snoop Dogg himself. This was Snoop's debut album and also one of his most notable with critics praising Snoop at the time for the lyrical "realism" that he delivers on the album. His distinctive West Coast style of hip-hop that he developed from Dr. Dre's first album continued on "Doggystyle" and was brought forward with this album. It helped introduce the hip-hop subgenre of G-funk to a mainstream audience and made West Coast hip- hop a dominant force in the early-mid 90's.

Snoop is something special, with unpredictable turns of phrase, expressive imagery, and a distinctive, addictive flow. "Doggystyle's" unique sound and West Coast G-Funk style lead the album to earn recognition from many music critics as one of the most significant albums of the 1990s, as well as one of the most important hip-hop albums ever released. "Doggystyle" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 806,858 copies in its first week alone in the United States, which was the record for a debuting artist and the fastest-selling hip-hop album ever at the time.

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Dem Vinyl Boyz are back again to listen to some classic 80s vinyl from legendary pop star Madonna. Her sophomore album 'Like a Virgin' dropped November 12th, 1984 and while making her a household name also came with a lot of controversy because of her overtly sexual lyrics and performances. The album sold over 21 million copies and is one of the best selling albums of all time, often regarded as the birth of pop as we know it today. Madonna went into 'Like a Virgin' wrestling Warner Bros. for more artistic control. After she had negative experiences working with Reggie Lucas, she wanted to have a bigger voice for the production of the album, and she found a winning collaborator in guitarist Nile Rodgers, who’d just worked on David Bowie’s Let’s Dance.

 

“Like a Virgin,” was Madonna’s first No. 1 pop hit. It’s here that she most explicitly tackles sexual politics and explores that whole virgin-whore thing so central to her image. The other is “Material Girl,” a winking gold-digger anthem that can be taken a couple of different ways. Though not as innovative as her debut, the album stands as one of the most definitive pop artifacts from the indulgent Reagan era. Thanks for tuning in and remember to like and subscribe !!

Dem Vinyl Boyz are back again this week to drop the needle on David Bowie's fifteenth studio album, 'Let's Dance'. This was Bowie's best selling album of his career, reaching number one on charts in numerous countries. This commercial success led David Bowie into becoming a major superstar and getting well recognized by the populous. On this album, Bowie apparently chose to only sing and played no instruments, instead he got some new players including Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan playing the lead guitar. 

Let's Dance has been reviewed musically as a post-disco record, with elements of dance-rock, dance-pop and new wave. It holds three cover songs: Iggy Pop's "China Girl", which Bowie and Pop had recorded together for the latter's The Idiot (1977); Metro's "Criminal World"; and a reworking of "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", originally recorded by Bowie and Giorgio Moroder in 1982 for the film "Cat People". The album also contained four hit singles that were all commercial successes, but the air play of music videos for "Let's Dance" and "China Girl'' on MTV were one of the main sources for the success for this album. Overall this is one of Bowie's most captivating and successful albums of his career, selling over ten million copies worldwide. Thanks for tuning in and remember to like and subscribe !!

This week Dem Vinyl Boyz are back and dropping the needle on the best selling reggae album of all time "Legend" by Bob Marley. Legend is a greatest hits collection of singles in its original vinyl format. It has sold over 12 million copies in the US, 3.3 million in the UK and an estimated 25 million copies sold globally and in 2003, the album was ranked number 46 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". It also went on maintaining the ranking in a 2012 revised list, but dropping to number 48 in the 2020 revised list.

Bob Marley and the Wailers "Legend" was such a massive success that even still as of December 13, 2022, Legend has spent a total of 760 nonconsecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart—the second longest run in history. Legend is a historic album and remains a compelling introduction to Bob Marley’s music and to reggae as a whole.

Dem Vinyl Boyz are coming straight outta your speakers and into your ears. This week they're dropping the needle on one of the most iconic records of all time 'Straight Outta Compton'. The debut album from late 80s and early 90s rap group N.W.A. set the world on fire depicting the violence you may see on a day to day basis in south central L.A. and even threatening the corrupt L.A. police. It’s a pioneer of the rap industry and was a staple for many of the hip-hop albums you'll hear today. This record sold nearly four million copies and was Gangsta Rap's first platinum record, needless to say it deserves its props. The openers — “Straight Outta Compton”, “Fuck tha Police”, and “Gangsta Gangsta” — are what the album is remembered for and rightly so. They are as prominent a rap group as you’re ever likely to hear, and the flows of Ice Cube, MC Ren, and Eazy-E bounce off of each other effortlessly. The synergy of the group still inspires awe. Together they comprised, as Kendrick Lamar recently put it, ‘the perfect cast of characters.’ This album is still an essential entry for hip-hop and the fact that it remains broadly relevant after 30 years is a testament to its quality. Thanks for listening to Dem Vinyl Boyz.

 

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Dem Vinyl Boyz are back and this time we talk about one of the top women artists of all time, ranking at number seven for all time most record sales for a female artist with over 200 million sales, Whitney Houston. Houston influenced many singers in popular music and was known for her powerful, soulful vocals and vocal improvisation skills. She is the only artist to have had seven consecutive number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, from "Saving All My Love for You" in 1985 to "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" in 1988. Her recordings and films generated both great success and controversy. She received numerous accolades throughout her career and posthumously, including two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 16 Billboard Music Awards, and 28 Guinness World Records, as well as induction into the Grammy, Rhythm and Blues Music, and Rock and Roll halls of fame.

Dem Vinyl boys take a trip through Whitney's exhilarating and tragic life inside the music industry and her own personal life. They also take a look at some of her all time classics and her first studio album "Whitney Houston". The Vinyl Boys talk about the somewhat recent Whitney Houston documentary called "Whitney" which takes a deep dive into her family life and struggles with addiction during her career.

The Vinyl crew is here to listen to Motley Crue's fourth studio album 'Girls, Girls, Girls'. This 80s record reached No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200, sold over 4 million copies and received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Though the band put nearly no energy into making it, Mötley Crüe achieved its most substantial commercial success to date with “Theatre of Pain” (1985). That probably wasn’t the best motivation to work harder on the follow-up, 1987’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.” It doesn’t mean the band was complacent. The opener, “Wild Side,” is an ominous, deep track illustrating an urban nightmare of drugs and violence, a clear indicator that the glossy, pop-metal sheen of “Theatre of Pain'' is a thing of the past. It’s followed by “Girls, Girls, Girls,” the ultimate exercise in self-indulgence and maybe the greatest strip club anthem ever written. No pair of songs in the Mötley catalog describes the band better than this one. Girls, Girls, Girls continued Mötley Crüe’s super stardom while becoming the band's third straight album to go quadruple platinum. Overall, it’s an astute journal from a band that was having the time of their lives and just enjoying the ride—while simultaneously making great music.

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Them Vinyl Boyz are back again and this week they're dropping the needle on a record that dropped nearly ten years ago 'Unorthodox Jukebox' by Bruno Mars. Listening to his second album, you can clearly see why this gifted, well rounded artist is so successful; the most famous thing out of Hawaii since Barack Obama and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. There’s a free spirited attitude that balances the album’s ambitions. Despite similarities to Adam Levine and Gavin DeGraw, lyrically talented artists who also use a watered down form of retro soul as the foundation for their mediocre pop-rock, Mars is by far the more talented vocalist. His sophomore album signals a move from street-side troubadour irrelevance to a bigger, stadium-filling sound. Much of the credit should be given to a trio of new collaborators—including superstar-grade producers Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker, and Diplo. The album reached Number one on the Billboard top 200 and sold nearly nine million copies.

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