The first three Silverchair albums are all excellent and it's pretty pleasing to finally have the first, Frogstomp, on vinyl. I've been listening to this album for more than half of my life, which isn't something I can say about very many albums yet; I was 14/15 when I first started properly getting into music so now that I'm approaching 30 it is something that's starting to be true for increasingly many records. It's a curious thing to dwell on, but it's strange thinking about all those younger versions of me sat there listening to Frogstomp.
Of course, it's also worth mentioning that Silverchair themselves were only 14/15 when they wrote this record (no post about Silverchair is complete unless the young age they started out is mentioned!). It's a well-known fact that they grew out of this album much faster than I did, so much so that the one time I saw them they didn't play a single song from Frogstomp. A friend who went to the second night of four London shows said they played Israel's Son, which made me pretty gutted I'd gone the night before. I didn't expect to hear many Frogstomp songs (it was a Neon Ballroom/Diorama-heavy set) but Israel's Son was all I was really after. It's an odd song, in the fact that there's not another Silverchair song that feels very much like it. They certainly didn't write any others that sounded quite so angry or urgent. In fact, Frogstomp sometimes feels like a single with 10 b-sides (maybe it's the way that the tracklisting shows Israel's Son in a slightly larger font - something that I always found strange).
Don't get me wrong though, there are some great songs on the rest of the album and, depending on the day, I might even say better songs, but Israel's Son was always the lead, the single, the song you put on mixtapes to show people quite how cool Silverchair were. Shade is an absolutely incredible song (and the one that I sometimes consider better) but I don't think I ever put it on a mixtape. Tomorrow, Madman and Leave Me Out were always highlights too.
This copy is from the second pressing (/1000) of the recent Shop Radio Cast reissue, which I picked up at their stall at Fest last year. They've done a pretty nice job on the whole thing, the etching on side D being a particularly lovely touch. The original vinyl copy (which I remember seeing a few times on eBay back in the day, but was out-priced even then) squeezed all the songs onto one disc, but they've made it a double here. As on the original vinyl, Blind has been included between Shade and Leave Me Out. Many years ago I bought the best-of compilation in order to hear Blind and the vocal-version of Madman (which wasn't as good) so I was already quite familiar with the song. My only complaint comes with regards to that song - listening to the LP you can tell that Blind has come from a different source and was mastered differently; it just doesn't sound right. The volume and the production drops, especially on the heavier parts. The compilation version sounds fine, but I can see how it might be tough to get it to match the sound of the rest of the album. I'd love to hear the original vinyl to see how it sounds there.
Otherwise, SRC have done an excellent job on the reissue. This copy is slightly different to most in that one of the centre labels has the wrong colour frog on it (apparently - I'm colour-blind so it's quite hard to tell what's the same colour and what isn't sometimes). Side C has the green frog that appeared on the centre-labels of the first press. This misprint version cost me $2 more than a regular version, which is basically the same (I'm pretty bad at treating US currency like Monopoly money). $2 at Fest is a can of PBR (minus the tip) so spending that on a slightly different version of an LP sounded fine to me. Whatsmore, it worked out to be £17, which is still about £5 cheaper than most LP's are over here these days anyway. It was the most expensive record I bought on that whole trip, but it was definitely worth it.
Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £17 new
Bought: Fest Registration, Tampa
When: 29/10/13
Colour: Transparent orange
Etching: Picture of a frog on side D
mp3s: no
