Bleachers

Let’s Get Married (by Mitski)

Mickey Mantle Comes Alive

There are probably two groups of people reading this right now; my regular readers, and Bleachers fans who stumbled upon this site somehow or another.

To the Bleachers fans (I assume you outnumber my regular readers), welcome! Here are some high-quality vinyl rips of those songs you’re looking for. They sound better than the ones you found on Dropbox. Trust me on this. And hey, if you like Bleachers, bookmark me, I occasionally share 80s pop and other shit you might enjoy. And you don’t need to jump through any hoops to download those songs. Just right-click and “save as.”

Now, if you’re not a die-hard Bleachers fan who came here specifically to find these songs (and hence, already know what they are), an explanation/backstory.

In 2016, Bleachers, a side-project of Fun’s Jack Antonoff (who also produced at least one hit song you like – he gets around) released Terrible Thrills Vol. 2, a track-by-track covers album of the group’s debut album Strange Desire that featured new versions of the songs on that album reworked by woman singers.

(In case you were wondering, Terrible Thrills Vol. 1 was a single by Jack Antonoff’s earlier group, Steel Train).

While Terrible Thrills Vol. 2 can be easily purchased digitally on iTunes and other digital storefronts (and I assume it’s on Spotify, but fuck if I care) ,(edit: apparently this is no longer true) it only received a limited, vinyl-only physical release. That sucker is pretty rare now, goes for about $50 on Discogs. Even if you can’t track down a vinyl copy of it, I highly recommend buying the digital versions. With vocals by such amazing artists like Charli XCX, Susanna Hoffs, and Sia, in some ways, it’s better than Strange Desire itself, not a small feat considering that’s probably my favorite album of 2014.

Now Bleachers’ sophomore effort Gone Now is getting the “Terrible Thrills” treatment for Vol. 3. But this time, Antonoff has decided to do something a bit different. For starters, it’s not a track-by-track collection of covers by women artists, half of it is that, but the other half consists of new versions by Antonoff himself, featuring reworked lyrics and different production. Secondly, it’s not an album at all, and is instead a collection of 7″ singles that are now being released piecemeal.

The first part in the set came out a few weeks back, and I finally got my copy in the mail this week (I live in Japan, shit takes time). And if this introductory volume is any indication as what’s to come, I’m very stoked to hear the rest of the records when they come out.

The A-side is a cover of the single “Let’s Get Married” that features new vocals by Mitski. I’ll be 100% honest here. I don’t know anything about Mitski at all (I’m a middle-age out-of-touch gay white man in Tokyo, I can’t keep up with everything). But after hearing her take on this track, I’m eager to check out her stuff. The song is entirely re-imagined. What was once a big, bombastic ode to gated reverb (like most of Antonoff’s stuff – and I mean that in a good way) has now been reworked as a ballad with the majority of the instrumentation coming by way of vocal harmonies and simply synths. It sounds halfway between a demo and the fully-fledged final version. Love it.

The B-side is reworking of Gone Now‘s opener “Dreams of Mickey Mantle,” retitled “Mickey Mantle Comes Alive.” It’s an odd rejiggering, featuring purposely distorted vocals and an extended outro that’s a barely audible conversation. Taking what was previously a rather standard (if fucking great) pop song and morphing it into Sleigh Bells-lite was a bold choice, and I’d be lying if I said I’m 100% in love with it. I do like the added drums though, and the new production on the choruses is good too.

I mentioned at the top that these rips are better than the ones that have already been made available. I think the fans that ripped these earlier didn’t really know what they were doing. Not their fault, they’re not idiots like me who have been ripping vinyl for over a decade. While those were just straight-up audio rips, mine have been cleaned up a bit. I ran it through some noise reduction to get rid of the background noise, and also scrubbed it clean of clicks and pops. Finally, I gave it a slight EQ boost to give it a richer, fuller sound. If none of that is your game, then hey, those raw rips are still on Dropbox.

If you do like my rips, please feel free to share them however and wherever you like. Antonoff said himself that we can rip and share these tracks!