Comments on: Dw. Dunphy On…Vinyl

By: MichaelFortes

MichaelFortes — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:16:20 +0000

I'll never give up my records (I'm sorry, “vinyl” is just bleh, it's what's on your car seat cover) and they DO sound better, when the quality of the pressing is high and the equipment their played on is of decent quality, stylus not too worn, tonearm at the proper height and weight… yeah, sounds like a lot of work, but it's worth it. When you listen to records, CDs and mp3s equally over time, you can start to hear differences in dynamic range, and especially in mp3s you can hear when high frequencies are being clipped — it gives off a kind of distortion that only comes with digital media, and to my ears it sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Then again, you get sibilance on some records too, which can be just as bad. It's all relative. But in the end, I want my colorful labels and gatefold covers, dammit! But if the record company is giving a free mp3 download away with the purchase of the record (like Touch and Go and Sub Pop sometimes do), then I won't complain — saves me the trouble of digitizing my own records…

Oh, and check this article from Time Magazine: “Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917…

By: MichaelFortes

MichaelFortes — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:16:20 +0000

Oh, and check this article from Time Magazine: “Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917…

By: MichaelFortes

MichaelFortes — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:16:20 +0000

Oh, and check this article from Time Magazine: “Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917…

By: riverman

riverman — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:33:30 +0000

You do not need to adapt.

There's nothing about a CD or mp3 playlist that precludes taking an hour to "turn the lights down and stare into space with a glass of Amaretto on the rocks" while listening to that CD or playlist from beginning to end.

Nor is there anything about a CD or mp3 playlist that demands that you only listen to it in drips and drabs while not fully engaged.

It's about decision.

And with an iPod you can mix a "Walking" playlist to listen to on your earbuds while you hike to the top of your favourite hill. Once at the top you can pull your blanket, bottle of wine, and high-end headphones out of your knapsack and lay down and listen to whatever album you want, from beginning to end.

Watch out for bears though.

The changes in technology don't matter 'cause people are still the same. The same people will be listening attentively to ASTRAL WEEKS on their holographic-stereo brain implants, while other people will devote those brain implants to flitting among the hit parade.

By: Beau

Beau — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:27:46 +0000

I agree that the notion of "music as art" has been on the decline. I'd argue it started with CDs. Bands suddenly had another 20 minutes to fill, and they tossed on a few experiments that would otherwise have been B-sides of singles.

To give but one example -- "Snakes and Arrows" has five good songs and a bunch of mildly interesting experiments. And Rush is one of my favorite bands.

The solution might lie in skipping ahead to DVDs. Rush has had a lot of success with in that medium. Perhaps artists could switch to animation or video to create that 40-minute immersion that we "music as art" people crave.

Or perhaps we could just have better music.

By: ken

ken — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:11:59 +0000

This phenomenon is less likely to happen now that 95% of my listening is done with CD's or mp3's but there are certain vinyl-era records I still remember which songs had skips and I still hear the phantom skips whenever I hear a given song.

By: Lyle

Lyle — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 05:27:16 +0000

Yes. Mick Jagger said he spent quite a bit of time sequencing the songs in his recent compilation of his solo songs. Then he added, “but I don't know too many people who listen to a whole album all the way through any more.”

By: Lyle

Lyle — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 05:18:51 +0000

!Thanks .post this liked really I

By: Bastard No. 1

Bastard No. 1 — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:34:38 +0000

Dw…actually I'm more of a 90's kid – born in '76 – so that didn't leave me with much to work with for the 80s. I remember starting as a teen somewhere around '89 or '90 with 45s. Every Saturday my dad would give me $20 and I'd go to this little record store run out of the owner's house…and each week I'd buy 20 45's. (Nice old man, refused to charge a kid tax…where's that these days?). But I actually didn't start my 80's collection until '98. My goal was to get every top 40 hit from the 80's on CD on Vinyl – and at this point I'm 1 song short of getting every top 100 hit from that decade. I'm never ever going to find the last one, so I'm satisfied it's complete. I moved to vinyl really out of necessity to collect the music – and just really started loving it.

Cheap Trick – Dream Police, Prince – Purple Rain, Bruce Hornsby – The Way It is, J. Geils Band – Showtime. Man, those are some records that I will swear up and down sound 100x better on vinyl.

With me and the car thing – it's background until I really like it. Then I pay attention and learn it. I'm the type that will spin a record 10 times in a row the week it comes out – and then either never listen to it again or know all the lyrics by the next week. I only way I can get that much time with it, it to play it on the way to and from work. I have this feeling that if I bought a new record and I really liked it – I'd go out and get the CD or download it – so in the end I think I'd just rather save the money and get it on a better format to begin with.

The record I actually listen to when I just need to chill out is Genesis – Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Unfortunately I have to get up three times to hear it straight through!

And finally, the other limitation, that you didn't see that often in the 80's, but probably do now more than ever – is space. The one that sticks out in the 80's is Peter Gabriel's – So. Awesome album but on LP it lacks the two strange tracks prog-ish tracks that to me are kind of the glue to the album. I love the sound of that better on vinyl but seems like Peter wanted better sound so he had to sacrifice the two least accessible songs on the disc.

By: JonCummings

JonCummings — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 03:07:38 +0000

Three comments:
1. I bet that Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album sounds great on vinyl. T Bone Burnette gave it a great, otherworldly sound, like those old acoustic blues 78s. If I had it on vinyl, I'd probably put a couple little nicks in it just for authenticity.

2. My favorite scratch-the-bejeezus-out-of-a-record moment was this time we brought a portable record player outside and were playing my single of "Theme from S*W*A*T" over and over, and one of those boomerang-shaped seed-pod thingies fell out of a tree and landed right on the 45 and the needle ran right through it, embedding seed-pod schmutz in the single.

3. Doesn't that scene in "Almost Famous," where the young William goes through his sister's records, make you want to do nothing but sit and listen to records for five days like you used to (if you're over 35)? And doesn't just mentioning that scene make you want to go watch "Almost Famous" for, like, the 70th time?