Dear Criminal Records,
When you first opened, there wasn’t any gap in the Toronto record store scene. We had Rotate This, Soundscapes, Sonic Boom, we might have even had Sam’s still. Toronto’s music nerds were happy. Then you opened, I remember seeing your sign on Queen Street and being excited for this new record store, even though I had no use for ANOTHER one. Then one day, I went in, I was greeted with incredible prices, fantastic selection, wonderful staff/owners, and a lot of vinyl. Though we didn’t need another record store, we learned we needed a great record store, and you showed Toronto how amazing one can be.

It’s been years now, and today you close your doors for good. As I entered the store I immediately saw friends, all gathering around with their purchases saying goodbye to a Toronto institution. It was bittersweet flipping through the racks, seeing many albums that I wanted, it reminded me of the first time Sam The Record Man closed.

Some good did come out of today’s sad affair, I did walk away with a handful of records. I’m now going to listen to them and weep.

Yours,
Adam

For those interested, records acquired are:

• Paul McCartney – “We All Stand Together” 7″
• Fran Healy – “Wreckorder”
• Little Scream – “The Golden Record”
• Lady Gaga – “Born This Way”
• Mount Eerie – “Black Wooden”
• Papercuts – “Fading Parade”
• R.E.M. – “Chronic Town”
• Stereolab – “Not Music”

Stephin Merritt at one point wrote for Time Out New York. They recently posted all his works online.

Aluminum Tunes is not a new Stereolab album but two CDs of B-sides and outtakes and such. Three or four years ago, Stereolab was an indie-rock group with intentionally unintelligible singing, obscure words drawn from Marxist tracts, really long songs consisting of one chord, Velvet Underground shtick, lackluster playing skills and plenty of charm. Nowadays, it still has the charm part, but indie rock is dead—Stereolab helped kill it. Now its music is much better.

Stephin reviews Stereolab.

That has to be the greatest summary of Stereolab I’ve ever read.¹ Merritt also sums up McCartney’s classic Flaming Pie with “All around, this album is better than most.” Straight forward, to the point, and brutally honest. Or when reviewing McCartney’s former bandmate, Ringo Starr, Merritt says “his version of Lennon-McCartney’s “Love Me Do” only points up the insipid lyrics.”

Among my favourite is his biting review of a ’90s Joni Mitchell album, in which he says “she’s still doing that jazz thing and wondering why she doesn’t get enough respect while working in a combination of two contradictory dead languages: Singer-Songwriter and Jazz.”

Check it out. Laughs are to be had.

1. I love Stereolab. [↩]