Blanc de Noir: In Praise of B sides

by Paula Redes Sidore
 

“I feel like B sides are always better, no matter whose record it is.”  - Alicia Keys

I’ve been a fan of B sides since, well, pretty much since there have been B sides. Record companies have historically used vinyl’s flipside as a holding pen for unreleased or less desirable concept material. Pieces that don’t fit the brand; supplementary songs with minimal hopes and lower aspirations. Filler. Yet, to me B sides embody the edgy and unpredictable, the vulnerable creative underbelly of both artist and medium. 

Let’s call rosé, the pink “wunder” of the last decade, our A side. 

Industry figures show that rosé now constitutes some 9% of the global wine market. Thirty-nine percent of wine drinkers in the U.S. alone acknowledged in a recent trade study that they drink rosé two to five times a week. That’s the vinous equivalent of Cyndi Lauper’s 1984 hit single “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” —  fun but not likely to end up in a museum.

Making Blanc de Noir our B side. 

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