The Album
Didn't He Ramble is Glen Hansard's second solo album, released in September 2015, three years after his solo debut Rhythm and Repose. By then Hansard had spent two decades leading the Dublin band The Frames, then became an international figure through the 2007 film Once, in which he starred with Marketa Irglova; their song 'Falling Slowly' won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and led to their duo The Swell Season. For this record Hansard worked with co-producers Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) and David Odlum, surrounding his weathered, generous voice with subtle folk arrangements enriched by horns and strings, with guests including Iron & Wine's Sam Beam and Sam Amidon. The songs are traveler's songs about perseverance, gratitude, and staying on the road - 'Winning Streak,' 'Her Mercy,' 'Lowly Deserter,' and 'McCormack's Wall,' which nods to the great Irish tenor John McCormack - blending modern Dublin songwriting with old-time Appalachian colors. Critics received it warmly, with NPR praising the kindness and warmth of Hansard's voice, and the album earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. It consolidated Hansard's identity as a solo artist distinct from both The Frames' intensity and the Once-era duets.
The Label
Both sides carry Anti-'s 2010s-era picture labels: side A a scratchy portrait graphic with a large 'A' and catalog number 87419-1 printed at the rim, side B the same portrait with the full track listing printed directly on the label. Anti- Records, the Los Angeles sister label of Epitaph founded in 1999, has been home to Hansard's solo work since 2012's Rhythm and Repose, and its 2010s catalog runs in the five-digit 87xxx series. There are no address lines or rim-text era markers, and crucially no promo text on the labels themselves, so the promo designation rests entirely on the plain cream sleeve with hand-written artist/title/label identification - a configuration that matches the documented 2015 US promo LP on Discogs (r23694284). The 'RJ / STERLING' runout signatures are identical to the retail editions, proving this is original 2015 campaign metalwork and not a later repress.
Fidelity
Lacquers cut by Ryan Smith ('RJ') at Sterling Sound, who handled much of the Anti-/Epitaph vinyl catalog in this period - a clean, quiet cut from high-resolution digital masters, as the album was tracked and mixed digitally. The retail 180g pressings (black US, clear European) share the identical RJ/Sterling metalwork, so this copy sits at the top of a shallow fidelity hierarchy: there are no audiophile reissues, alternate cuts, or all-analog editions of this title to compete with it. Forum and collector commentary on the vinyl edition is sparse, with no pressing-quality complaints on record.
Notes
2015 Anti- 87419-1, original-release-era US LP in apparent promo configuration. Decisive evidence: hand-annotated generic sleeve matching the documented 2015 US promo LP (Discogs r23694284), side-B label printing the full track listing under catalog 87419-1, and runouts '87419-A/B RJ STERLING' - Ryan Smith's Sterling Sound cut shared with the retail editions. Album released September 18, 2015. Honest caveat: the labels carry no promo text, so the promo attribution rests on the sleeve alone; it cannot be excluded that this is a retail pressing in a replacement generic sleeve, which would price it lower (see price_guide).
