TS: classic Rough Trade vs the revitalised Rough Trade

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Smiths vs the Strokes. Galaxie 500 vs Low. Go Betweens vs Bele & Sebastian. Two Nice Girls vs Moldy Peaches

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 04:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Rough Trade are back together again? It's pretty hard to beat all of their old singles, like "High School Confidential", "All Touch", etc....oh, you mean the label.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 04:46 (twenty-two years ago)

ok, fine, it was obviously a stupid thread to start

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 04:51 (twenty-two years ago)

it's funny, I would have assumed that new Rough Trade would be definitionally rubbish, but when you list the bands they have now --- kind of alright. Yeah.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 10:30 (twenty-two years ago)

What about even earlier Rough Trade? My favourite point was 81-83 Young Marble Giants, Weekend, Disclocation Dance etc.

― Jez (Jez), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 10:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, serious time now. I actually have really great memories of classic Rough Trade...that logo appearing on the side of a few really stunning cassettes I somehow managed to track down in the backwaters, so for a while there I thought that Rough Trade was automatically a stamp o' quality. I remember getting my hands on some compilation that was just filled with stuff I'd never heard of, and loving it to pieces at the time. Sadly, I can't remember anything about it, other than thinking Microdisney was on it.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

No label that has British SEA POW-AHHHHHHHHHH!!! (as they should be spelt, really) can ever be a bad thing.

― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought that Rough Trade was automatically a stamp o' quality.

Absolutely! I had exactly the same feeling - along with Cherry Red...although the amalgamation of the two to form Blanco y Negro is another story.

― Jez (Jez), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Native Hipsters vs ?

― dleone (dleone), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Not even a contest. You can't beat 1979-1983 Rough Trade, and they had a decent run at the turn of the '90s with Scrawl, Two Nice Girls, Galaxie 500, etc. I like some of the bands they've got now, but I don't see the same *identity* that RT has had during its peak moments. Low, Pulp and B&S, though three of my favorite bands, had already built their names and reps before signing onto the label.

― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 17:32 (twenty-two years ago)

And yeah, I know that RT has always done licensing deals (Electric Eels, LiLiPut, Pixies), but you can't argue that Pulp and B&S were much more established by the time they joined the roster.

― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

the best RT record is RT 001 (a metal urbain single)

― duane, Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I really like Metal Urbain; I'm not exactly sure which single of theirs is the first Rough Trade record. I don't know if I'd think their songs would necessarily retain anything I liked in them if another group played them, though.

― tom (other one), Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, oh, I mentioned the label sampler above, the one with a Microdisney song. Does anyone else remember...or have...any of their label samplers? I'm trying to remember the details on that, what else was on it. Anyone?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 20:08 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

This is retared, but what is the connection between the Rough Trade label and the Rough Trade shops?

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

they were connected til '83, since then the shop has been run by different people.

― purple patch (electricsound), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

*retarded

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 02:15 (twenty-one years ago)

the rough trade shop has its own record label, the fab For Us imprint.

― purple patch (electricsound), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 02:22 (twenty-one years ago)

sadly nu-rough trade seems a rather tacky, charmless affair. i mean galaxie 500, young marble giants, weekend vs. eighteen separate beachwood sparks side projects.

― dave amos, Wednesday, 4 August 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Classic Rough Trade by far - "automatically a stamp o' quality" is absolutely right.

Perversely (or perhaps inevitably?), although the success of The Smiths may have allowed the label to continue (cf. also New Order did with Factory and Depeche Mode did with Mute) when so many of it's "competitors" were going to the wall (Small Wonder, Stiff, Fast Product, Postcard, Radar etc. etc.) it also sadly seemed to represent their peak in terms of quality.

Or maybe that's just me.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

speaking as a non-smiths fan, Rough Trade's peak in quality and interest to me was earlier, Wanna Buy a Bridge is one of those few genre-defining, scene-defining, moment-defining, life-defining records.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i still think the new rough trade is one of the most consistently great labels around at the moment..

― purple patch (electricsound), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

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