the zombies
The Reissue Section: Fall 2021
Vinyl sales have gone up 94% this year, according to a report by the RIAA. That helps the massive flux of reissues that dotted the fall. But that’s not the good news. What really makes this column hum remains the variety of choice titles that are released on CD, and sales of that sturdy little plastic silver disc went up 44% in the first half of 2021 as well. And with the slew of choice archival titles that dropped like so many acorns across the autumn landscape, both formats will certainly be seeing a significant bump in those numbers as the holiday season closes in. Now let’s get into it. Here are the best reissues of Fall 2021. Violent FemmesWhy Do Birds Sing? Expanded Edition (Craft Recordings) For a lot of kids who came of age in the 1980s, the first real taste of college rock came co...
5 Albums I Can’t Live Without: Rod Argent of the Zombies
Name Rod Argent Best known for Founder and keyboard player of The Zombies and Argent. Writer of “She’s Not There”, “Time of the Season”, “Tell Her No,” “Hold Your Head Up” and many album tracks. Current city Petersfield, in Hampshire, U.K. Really want to be in West Sedona/Boynton Canyon, Arizona. I would be walking and wandering with Cathy, my wife, in one of the most magical and healing places we’d ever visited. It’s considered a sacred place by the indigenous Native American tribes of the Southwest, and after staying there some years back, I can understand why. Excited about The new Zombies album we are currently recording. I’ve now written two-thirds of it, and we’ve already recorded close to half….we’re recording for the first time in my studio, it’s only small, but brilliantly acousti...
How Entering Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Financially Impacts Artists
They get a statuette, Wikipedia update and maybe even a legacy boost. But does being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall actually help artists financially? Particularly when a performer, while fully deserving of the honor, isn’t currently a stadium-level star? The Zombies, the English rockers known for haunting songs like 1968’s “Time of the Season,” were inducted into the Rock Hall in 2019 — after their fourth nomination in five years. “It’s going to give you a bump in activity on streaming and socials,” the band’s manager, Chris Tuthill, tells SPIN, “because people are talking about you and seeing you. But beyond that, it doesn’t automatically flip a switch. It doesn’t mean you’re going to draw more people to a show. It doesn’t mean the promoter’s going to pay you more, that you’re goin...
The Reissue Section: September 2020
The whole reissue concept didn’t come across my obsession desk until my first tour of duty at SPIN as an editorial intern in the fall of 1997. One of my tasks during my two days in the office — back when it was on 18th St. near Academy Records — was opening the editors’ mail. I’ll never forget ripping open Sealed Air envelopes for Charles Aaron and just being so amazed at all this cool stuff he’d get sent to him. Now, this was during the time when both Rhino Records and the Sony Music catalog division, Legacy Recordings, were really busting out the big guns: We’re talking the soundtrack to Zabriskie Point with a bonus disc of rarities from the Pink Floyd sessions, that gang of Miles Davis reissues that included Dark Magus and Live-Evil. Island Records released the legendary Lee ...
