This week brings the momentous news that Whole Foods will follow the trail blazed by Urban Outfitters and begin selling vinyl records alongside their quinoa, herbal teas, and organic, locally-made hand soaps. The grocery chain’s press release lists the solid if snoozeworthy list of artists they’ll carry– “including Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones, Daft Punk and Bob Marley” –but there are artist and albums far more worthy of the Whole Foods #brand. Here are a few:
The Roots – Organix: If Whole Foods carries one album, it should carry the Roots’ 1993 debut Organix. Because it’s called fucking Organix, and because the upper middle-class vaguely hip crunchy types that make up Whole Foods’ core demo love the Roots.
Guns N’ Roses – The Spaghetti Incident: The title of this GN’R album apparently refers to a food fight between Axl and Steven Adler, but it could just as easily refer to a cleanup on aisle nine.
Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass – Whipped Cream & Other Delights: Maybe whipped cream isn’t the first thing you think when you think “Whole Foods,” but who is going to object to that album cover at the checkout line?
MF Doom – MM.. Food: Mm… Whole Foods salad bar.
Lettuce – Rage: Lettuce is a jammy funk band you’ve likely never heard of if you didn’t either attend Berklee College of Music or have lots of friends who attended Berklee College of Music (yours truly falls into the latter camp). But they’re called Lettuce, so of course their record should be sold at Whole Foods.
Karsh Kale – Breathing Under Water: Kale! Get it, Kale? You get it.
Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul: Really, because any chance to get more people listening to Isaac Hayes, who is a titanically great musician but remains weirdly marginalized due to some unfortunate and not-so-unfortunate associations with Scientology and South Park, respectively, is a good thing.
Ludacris – Chicken and Beer: Whole Foods doesn’t necessarily scream chicken and beer, but what if it’s Sonoma Chicken Salad and a pumpkin ale brewed in upstate New York? Thought so.
The Smiths – Meat Is Murder: On the real, they’re shooting themselves in the foot if they don’t include this one.
KoRn – KoRn: Health-food types might not be so hot on corn nowadays, but these guys have the greatest vegetable-themed band name of all time.
For now they’re only selling records in a few California locations, but it seems like the coming Whole Foods in Gowanus — Brooklyn’s first! –seems like a natural fit.
(Image: Kyle Petreycik/ANIMALNewYork)
