Vinyl Me, Please Unboxed – T. Rex ‘T. Rex’

Good things comes in 12 inch packages. Delivering limited edition vinyl pressings of new and classic albums directly to your doorstep, VMP operates under a simple philosophy: The Album Lives! With a carefully curated catalog of new and hard to find releases, the subscription service is more than just a record club, it’s a lifestyle choice for folks who wish Record Store Day could happen every month… in their living room.

Here’s how it works. You send Vinyl Me, Please some of your hard-earned money (a 3-month membership will set you back about $119) and they send you one carefully selected album they feel is Essential to any record collection. Yes, it truly is as easy as it sounds. You even get FREE SHIPPING. Each custom pressing (often on colored vinyl!) also comes with killer extras like original artwork and informative listening companion booklet.

You’ll have membership privileges in the VMP store too, which means you can grab a copy of previous VMP selections from the archives – including their incendiary May re-issue of Little Richard's landmark rock & roll album Here's Little Richard – or choose from a slate of super-limited releases pressed exclusively for Vinyl Me, Please. The store is open, and Team VMP are dropping fresh new selections to their stock every single week. Do not miss out.

Word to the wise, while the store is open to the public, subscribers are privy to reduced “Members Pricing” as well, so joining the club definitely has its rewards. If you’re peckish about relinquishing control of your record collection to complete strangers, know that VMP’s Swaps Program is in full effect. That means you can flip any VMP pick you’re not interested in for a past featured album from any track (including Essentials, Country, Classics, and Rap/Hip Hop). My advice? Don’t overthink it. Do your turntable a favor and sign up today.

As for June, I couldn't pass up the chance to get my glam on with VMP's killer reissue of T. Rex's 1970 self-titled rocker. Let's have a look.

For The Love Of Vinyl, Please DO NOT BEND

If you're one to track all five vinyl releases VMP puts out into the world each and every month, you likekly know that T. Rex's self-titled album did not earn the company's coveted Essentials tab. That honor went to Isaac Hayes' immortal album Black Moses. And yes, that album is beyond essential to any vinyl collection. So much so, that I already have a super clean play copay in my own, and didn't feel the need to double-up purely for the sake of honoring Mr. Hayes with an unboxing piece. Rather, I swapped into the rock track to snag a copy of 1970's T. Rex, which I'd somehow managed to never listen all the way through.

That's even more baffling to me because, well, I'd probably rank T. Rex's Electric Warrior (1971) and The Slider (1972) among my favorite rock records from the era. If you even casually dabble in the rock & roll recorded in the '70s, it's likely you do too, since those glam-tinged masterworks remain as fresh-sounding and massively influential today as they were when Marc Bolan and his various band of guitar and drum weilding comrades recorded them.

T. Rex is, however, not quite as revered as those seminal glam rock offerings, if only because it found Bolan and company plotting their course to that singular sonic desitation. But if you're a fan of what Bolan and T. Rex were doing in the band's heyday, that makes the album as essential as any that has ever earned the label from Vinyl Me, Please or any other taste-making faction on the planet.

As for the songs on T. Rex, they skew heavily towards the more mystical folk sound Bolan and his bandmates had been recording over the five albums previously released as Tyrannosaurus Rex. But with a little help from producer Tony Visconti (who also played bass and recorder on the album), the band was clearly pushing further into the boogie-minded electric guitar rock arena that informed much of T. Rex's celebrated '70s output. Among the electric guitar driven standouts on T. Rex are “Jewel” (a legit showstopper that would've been right at hom on Electric Warrior), “Childe,” “Beltane Walke,” and “One Inch Rock” – a run of groove-minded oddball rockers that served as whistle-wetters for the direction Bolan was dancing and riffing giddily towards.

Dropping those heavy hitters among the more soulful mystic folk numbers on T. Rex makes for a bit of a wild ride, to be certain. One might even argue it makes T. Rex feel a little uneven when you listen to it front to back. Even still, it's a consistently engaging, and occasionally ingenious collection of songs that stands as a stunning document of Bolan's artistic and musical progression in the early '70s. And I can assure you it's rarely looked, or sounded as great as this Vinyl Me, Please pressing.

Cover Matters

The name-change from Tyrannosaurus Rex to T. Rex wasn't set in stone during the recording of T. Rex. As Fans of Bolan's work after this 1970 release know, ensuing albums tended to feature his face alone. With the carryover, however, Bolan is sharing this particular cover with long-time drummer Mickey Finn. And I gotta say, the fold out effect on this one is a thing of visceral coolness.

As for the back, well, it's part of the front, of course.

And yes, when you unfold it, you get a shot of Bolan and his Tyrannosaurus Rex drummer Mickey Finn in all their hard-rdocking glory, with the former proudly displaying the electric guitar that woud inform the best of his recordings from the 1970s.

There's also a foil-stamped VMP Rock logo on the front, forever denoting the album's rock & roll vinyl cred.

There's also a track list on there, with album credits and full lyrics inside the flap.

On the OBI strip cradling the spine of T. Rex, you'll find some vital stats about this pressing as well as an excerpt from the accompanying listening notes.

As for the listening notes, they're adorned with lovely sketches of Bolan and Finn on the front and back, and pop-culturalist Jesse Diamond has spotted the pages within with some fascinating insights about Bolan and the recording of T. Rex. Check it out.

In case there's any question, the “Jewel of Frost” colorway is suitably stunning … even if it's pretty much just “Coke Bottle Clear” vinyl.

You'd better believe it'll totally glam-up any deck on Earth or those lingering out in the astral plane. But I gotta say, it looks particularly dazzling on the red ones.

Give VMP a spin

How's it sound? In two words … epically dandy, and I could not be happier to have added it to my vinyl library. After all, apart from discovering bands and music you might never have heard before, one of the best things about being part of a vinyl record club is plugging holes in your own collection. Over the years, I've managed to track down clean O.G. pressings of my favorite T. Rex albums (1971's Electric Warrior and 1972's The Slider), but T. Rex has always managed to elude me save for the absolutely shredded copy I almost took home in Amsterdam a few years back.

Anyway, if you're a fan of rock music from the 1970s, T. Rex releases are absolute must-owns. And if you're a diehard fan of Bolan's hard-boggieing ways, T. Rex is a stunning prelude to the iconic work he was on the cusp of creating. Thankfully, Vinyl Me, Please has more than done the album justice in what may be one of their streongest VMP Rock releases yet. Pick one up for yourself if you doubt me.

A big THANK YOU to our friends at Vinyl Me, Please for sponsoring this subscription. Don’t forget to check out the Vinyl Me, Please website and sign up to get some choice wax delivered right to your door each and every month! Be sure to check back next month to see what vinyl treasure Team VMP sends our way!