Friday, January 9, 2009

Vinyl fetish


















No, not that kind.











That
kind.


Dear Rock Band®,

Please stop exclusively releasing exclusive tracks on vinyl, exclusively.

Love and inclusion,

All of your new/old school CD buying fans.


P.S. The 70s are over, dudes. Now where did I put that copy of Master of Reality...

22 comments:

pissed off patricia said...

For real? Are there still vinyl records being made?

My simple mind was not aware of such goings on. Also my simple mind can also be fooled way too easily.

I have a rack of old 45s sitting here beside me. We just don't have the heart to dump them. Probably by now the rack its self might be a collectors item.

that girl said...

I bought a bunch of dollar vinyl at the record exchange to make record bowls for my cousins for Christmas and felt guilty when the guy asked me if I had a turntable for that Pink Floyd record.

I do, but I didn't have the heart to tell him it was going to get melted down and warped into a car key holder.

Evidently vinyl sales are the only music sales that went up this year, so I think you'll be getting screwed until the cost of petroleum gets prohibitive.

Really though, vinyl only and import tracks are frustrating in general.

Randal Graves said...

POP, oh sure. I can't speak for other genres, but there's tons of non-major label metal vinyl.

I don't what what tunes you have, but it might not be a bad idea to check their value. Or buy a turntable, heh.

thatgirl, somehow, melted Floyd makes sense. Maybe it's a Syd Barrett acid thing.

I'd rather have a physical copy than a download, but at least make the songs available in some other format. Damn cultists.

that girl said...

Syd Barrett meets Salvador Dali, or something. Too bad I didn't stay an art student.

lisahgolden said...

We went ages without a working turntable. Finally got one and MathMan got busy digitizing stuff. I guess that's how it works now.

Tom Harper said...

When are they gonna start releasing new music on 8-tracks? Come on, man, this is heavy, man.

Randal Graves said...

thatgirl, if you do art, and you're a student of the human condition, then you remain an art student. Just, you know, not scrounging for financial aid.

lisa, I remember he had told me about that über-project. Is he finished yet? Not a bad idea, actually.

tom, with every purchase of an 8-track, get a free pair of bellbottoms and a Gas, Grass or Ass bumper sticker!

Dean Wormer said...

How do those things work?

(the albums, not the girl in latex.)

Utah Savage said...

I'm now purchasing my Itunes one 99cent tune at a time, all old jazz. have dumped all my CD's onto my Itunes collection, and have better sound from my Imac that I ever had from the turntable or the CD player. I know that's now what your talking about, but I did want you to know I am paying attention dammit.

Bull said...

If I'm not mistaken, you can buy turntables to hook up to your computer via USB and play vinyl that way.

I guess I'd do that if I ever felt the need to play my old "Haunting the Chapel" EP.

If I could find it.

susan said...

We have a couple of thousand cd's in storage with the music all downloaded to an external hard drive and through that to the i-pod. The thousands of vinyl albums got donated to our sister-in-law along with a bunch of other stuff we'd been paying to store in RI for 20 years. If we want to listen to old albums we do what Utah does and go to i-tunes or buy the imports. It's the music that's important, not the format, once your ears get too old to note the subtle differences.

La Belette Rouge said...

Is vinyl a new Mac product?

Commander Zaius said...

My son saw a vinyl LP at some antique store a few months ago. It was the soundtrack to the original Star Wars movie back before all the "episode" shit got included in.
He looked at it baffled and asked me was this all I had for music when I was young. First, I said yes, that when I was his age we didn't have CD's, iPods, and MP3's. Second, I grounded his ass for the rest of the day for suggesting I wasn't young.

Randal Graves said...

dean, I don't know, my wife won't let me find out.

I don't think I have a future in comedy.

utah, no, that's certainly on topic. Despite the specificity of my post, it's more a lament of confusion at bands and the music biz.

bull, I'll have to look into that. Behold! Captor of sin!

susan, I think it's similar to a book; I like the physical thing, the artwork, the booklet. Since we're a greedy species, I don't think that'll ever completely go away (witness the whole vinyl gig), but I'd rather have a CD than something only available via download.

LBR, Linux, I think.

BB, HA! Aesthetically, vinyl is still tops, but it's too goddamn unwieldy. And destroys cheapo shelving. I like your dealing with the age assault, for it was certainly deserved.

MRMacrum said...

As we used to say about vinyl siding, "Vinyl is final". I have about ten feet of old vinyl albums. I would have twice that had not that loser Hallowell broke in my place back in the 70s and fed his smack habit with the 50 bucks he got for the 200 plus albums he ripped off. Damn that guy. Love to kick his ass even now 30 plus years later. But I hear he's dead. Well dammit, dig him up, I want to kick him......

I have a very nice turntable and stereo system gathering dust just behind me. I have not listened to a vinyl record for years. I don't get the attraction for vinyl. But then like not having that sophisticated palate for grub, I guess, I don't have the sophistication to truly appreciate the pops, cracks, and scratches a vinyl album adds to the music.

And what's up with wearing vinyl? I can think of no other material I would hate to have wrapped around all the naughty bits. But there's that lack of sophistication thing again rearing it's ugly little head.

Betty Carlson said...

I sold most of my vinyl for a pittance about 15 years ago after stupidly putting them all on cassettes, which recently went into the garbage.

I'm now selectively repurchasing quite a few of my favorites, music I have pretty much lived without for the past twenty years. It is great fun, actually.

Anonymous said...

You're not fooling me! That vinyl fetish IS the clothing kind for sure. I know you! Muuuuawwwwwwwhahhahaha

Mauigirl said...

We still have about 400 vinyl albums up in our attic and we still have two turntables that could play them. But we've replaced most of our favorites with CD versions because records are just so labor-intensive. All that getting up and turning them over and stuff.

I know that some feel vinyl gives a rounder more full sound than CDs but honestly I'm not that much of an expert to tell the difference or care!

I do foresee that someday I'll have to get into the whole downloading thing because eventually there will be no more hard copy of anything. But for now I still buy CDs off of Amazon and other sites, or in person if I go see a performer who sells their CDs at the venue.

susan said...

I prefer the real stuff too but we've moved a few too many times and you know what happens when you do that. Two years ago we rented a new indoor storage area where the libraries of books, cd's, movies and items of interest still reside until we either leave Portland or decide to stay. Now there are more of all the above which serve to anchor us in this place.

Stella by Starlight said...

Vinyl... (~sigh~)

Randal Graves said...

mrmacrum, I say go for it. I don't think disinterment is a crime.

Maybe if more vinyl is worn, it's lack of class will, er, wear off.

betty, but living without them for so long? How did you cope, especially since some were of your beloved Kinks, I imagine.

sherry, shhhhh!

mauigirl, I've heard that too, but my hearing is so bad, I don't think it'd make a difference. ;-)

I hope SOME form of physical copy will still exist. No, record labels and futurists, I don't mean implants.

susan, now that's completely understandable. I've only moved once in the last 10 years and it was a giant pain in the ass.

stella, oh, you're one of those. ;-)

Betty Carlson said...

I know, I'm wondering that now. I guess for a number of years I was too wiped out from baby-land to listen to much music. I also have spent a lot of time listening to jazz and la chanson française the last ten years, and also did pick up the odd rock CD.

And yes, the almost komplete Kinks kollektion is sitting back in the USA...but now I'm buying the CDs, so life as I once knew it has resumed.