Once upon a time, in that mythical era we called “the early months of 2016,” there was a recurring feature here on The Solute called “The Solute Record Club” that involved the gang going through artists discographies one record at a time. Matthew Crowe headed it up, and he did an awesome job until, for various reasons, the project fell dormant (with a notable wallflower exception). Now, after a few months of hiatus, I’m here to tell you that I (Michael O’Malley, although you’ll see me post here as “Cornelius Thoroughgood”) will be taking up the Record Club torch!

I’ll go ahead and tell everyone up front that I won’t do as good a job as Mr. Crowe; the reviews that he did were in-depth, eloquent, and well-thought-out, and even if I were capable of doing work of that caliber (a dubious prospect at best), I just don’t have the time. What I will do, however, is post brief thoughts (maybe about the length of the “Film on Television” blurbs, maybe a bit shorter, maybe a bit longer) in posts that can provide space for discussion of each album in the comments. It’ll be simple, but hopefully it’ll be enough to get everyone commenting about music again. This feature has long been one of my favorites on The Solute, and I’m excited to see it and all the regular voices in the comments return, even under my own unsteady hand.

As far as logistics go: The Monday-Wednesday-Friday frequency for posts ain’t broke, so let’s not fix it. Also, Matthew Crowe had a pretty lengthy schedule laid out, which you can find here, and we only ever got through The Beatles. I’m perfectly content to just continue on through that schedule exactly as it is (with the dates changed, of course), which would mean plunging right into Joy Division/New Order. However, if anyone wants to do something different, I’m open to new plans as well; just post your thoughts down in the comments. We’ll hash it out down there, and the next thing I post will be the record review. Then this flying umbrella will be up and running.

Thanks to Matthew Crowe and Julius Kassendorf for letting me do this. Thanks to you guys for reading and commenting. Peace!