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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2019 7:52:14 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2019 15:19:20 GMT -5
This is interesting ... I'm going to talk my brother about this.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 4, 2019 17:18:30 GMT -5
Vinyl sales are "surging", but still only make up small part of overall music consumption. Vinyl sales in the UK broke the 4 million mark this year, but in that same year, 130 million other albums were consumed via CD, digital download or streaming. And over 50% of total music consumption in the UK was streamed. So, yeah...vinyl's had a remarkable researgence, but it's still fairly niche compared to other formats. As for whether it sounds better than streaming or mp3s, yes, of course it does because there's much, much more audio information on a piece of vinyl than there is in those other formats. Does it sound better than CD? That depends. Theoretically, as an analogue format, there's no upper limit to the audio quality that a superbly pressed piece of vinyl, played on a state of the art turntable, can achieve. In practice, CD will often give superior sound to vinyl, due to variable factors like surface noise, pops & clicks, tracking distortion etc. Ultimately, you have to take it on a case by case basis. I love both formats; I have a huge library of both vinyl and CD (for some of my all-time favourite albums I own both formats). Vinyl gives stunning warmth and nimble bass response, but CD delivers precise highs and noise free quiet passages. So they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Though, of course, the larger size of LPs means that the album artwork invariably looks much better than it does on CD. Plus, it's a lot easier rolling a joint on an LP sleeve than it is a tiny CD case.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2019 20:29:36 GMT -5
Nice write up ... Confessor and I agree with your understanding here.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2019 6:29:13 GMT -5
Erm, rolling up joints. Say no more, LOL. ;-)
Can we all agree that there's no nostalgia for cassettes?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2019 9:11:14 GMT -5
Can we all agree that there's no nostalgia for cassettes? I've certain fondness of cassettes and I played a Simon and Garfunkel cassette that contained ... Sounds of Silence and Bridge of Troubled Waters so many times until the cassette wore out on me. I had about 100 or so cassettes in the 70's through the 80's and by time the 90's rolled around my collections went down to a dozen or so and I missed them dearly and they were fun to play.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 5, 2019 13:54:08 GMT -5
Can we all agree that there's no nostalgia for cassettes? I'm not sure I have "nostalgia" for cassettes because, just like vinyl and CD, I never actually stopped using them. I still own a tape deck and a small collection of cassettes. These days I mostly use the format for listening to audio books or radio plays -- in particular, you'll have to prise my cassette box sets of the BBC's radio dramatisation of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings from my cold dead hands. But I do still have about 60 albums on cassette...oh, and probably a hundred cassettes of recordings of my old indie band in a plastic carrier bag too. I used to love making mix tapes back in the day, and made 'em damn good too! I used to take great care to get tracks from different sources to play back at the same volume to give a smoother listening experience. I also used to design my own printed or photocopied covers too. These days, I do the same thing on CD, even though CD is fast becoming an obsolete format itself. Actually, making compilations like this is something of a secret hobby of mine. It engages my creative side in the song selection, running order and cover design, and utilises my audio engineering skills in the editing and EQ'ing of different tracks. So, all in all, I find it a really engaging little hobby. Trust me, you've never been done a mix CD until I've done one for you! My latest project is a Bakersfield country compilation, heavily based on Slam_Bradley 's suggested playlist from a few pages back. I titled it Greetings from Bakersfield, California: An Introduction to the Bakersfield Sound, and, though it's not my best design work, here's what the front and back covers look like...
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 5, 2019 14:20:15 GMT -5
Can we all agree that there's no nostalgia for cassettes? My latest project is a Bakersfield country compilation, heavily based on Slam_Bradley 's suggested playlist from a few pages back. I titled it Greetings from Bakersfield, California: An Introduction to the Bakersfield Sound, and, though it's not my best design work, here's what the front and back covers look like... Neat! I was probably heavy on Merle and Buck...because I love me some Merle and Buck. And they were clearly the two biggest acts to come out of Bakersfield. I've been reading Peter Guralnick's "Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock 'n' Roll." So I've been listening to a fair bit of blues, including (thus far) Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines and Skip James.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2019 14:38:19 GMT -5
That's very cool, Confessor!
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 5, 2019 15:13:35 GMT -5
Neat! I was probably heavy on Merle and Buck...because I love me some Merle and Buck. And they were clearly the two biggest acts to come out of Bakersfield. No, I think it's fine. From what I've read online about the Bakersfield Sound they were by far the two most successful acts to come out of that movement. It'd be like if I was doing a British Invasion playlist, I'd probably load it with plenty of Beatles and Stones because, you know, they were the two leading lights of the movement (well, and the Dave Clark Five, but they were s**t). I've been reading Peter Guralnick's "Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock 'n' Roll." So I've been listening to a fair bit of blues, including (thus far) Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines and Skip James. I have Guralnick's Searching for Robert Johnson, which is a great -- although quite slender -- book. Muddy Waters is absolutely great, of course. True story...when I was a smart arsed school kid I once answered "Muddy Waters" when asked who discovered electricity. I think the teacher was wanting "Michael Faraday" or something as an answer, and I actually stole that line from the pretty terrible 1986 film, Crossroads, but it's still a good answer. Johnny Shines I know because he was Robert Johnson's traveling partner for a time and was deeply influenced by Johnson. In terms of the music of his that I own, I have some of the sides he cut in the late '60s for Testament and Blue Horizon Records. As for Skip James, he's the one of those three that I know the least, though his "Hard Time Killing Floor" is a Mississippi Delta Blues classic, of course.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 5, 2019 15:48:25 GMT -5
Neat! I was probably heavy on Merle and Buck...because I love me some Merle and Buck. And they were clearly the two biggest acts to come out of Bakersfield. No, I think it's fine. From what I've read online about the Bakersfield Sound they were by far the two most successful acts to come out of that movement. It'd be like if I was doing a British Invasion playlist, I'd probably load it with plenty of Beatles and Stones because, you know, they were the two leading lights of the movement (well, and the Dave Clark Five, but they were s**t). I've been reading Peter Guralnick's "Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock 'n' Roll." So I've been listening to a fair bit of blues, including (thus far) Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines and Skip James. I have Guralnick's Searching for Robert Johnson, which is a great -- although quite slender -- book. Muddy Waters is absolutely great, of course. True story...when I was a smart arsed school kid I once answered "Muddy Waters" when asked who discovered electricity. I think the teacher was wanting "Michael Faraday" or something as an answer, and I actually stole that line from the pretty terrible 1986 film, Crossroads, but it's still a good answer. Johnny Shines I know because he was Robert Johnson's traveling partner for a time and was deeply influenced by Johnson. In terms of the music of his that I own, I have some of the sides he cut in the late '60s for Testament and Blue Horizon Records. As for Skip James, he's the one of those three that I know the least, though his "Hard Time Killing Floor" is a Mississippi Delta Blues classic, of course. I've got that Robert Johnson book as well. It seems more like a long essay than an actual book. I'm likely going to take a break from a very long book I'm currently reading at work and fit that one in. Muddy is definitely one of the greats. Shines I wasn't super familiar with until I read Guralnick's essay about him. I'm still digesting his music. I would definitely encourage a deeper look at Skip James. His music is almost uniquely his own. He generally played in an open D-Minor and he really didn't wear any of this influences on his sleeve. He was active in the 20s and 30s, but he didn't record much and what little he recorded either wasn't released or was released just as the depression was was hitting its peak and didn't sell. He basically stopped playing from the early 30s until he was rediscovered in 1964. Besides "Hard Time Killing Floor" I'd recommend "Devil Got My Woman," "All Night Long" and "22-20 Blues" (which was the basis for Robert Johnson's "32-20 Blues"). Love the "Muddy Waters invented electricity" line...but, yeah, it's not a good movie at all.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 5, 2019 16:30:46 GMT -5
I would definitely encourage a deeper look at Skip James. His music is almost uniquely his own. He generally played in an open D-Minor... Really? I didn't know that. A lot of blues artists played in open tuning, of course, but D minor is not an open tuning that I've ever encountered before. Most blues players, if they weren't using standard tuning, would use open G, open A, or open E. Tuning to a minor key is not something that I would necessarily think of when approaching blues. Interesting.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 5, 2019 17:00:49 GMT -5
I would definitely encourage a deeper look at Skip James. His music is almost uniquely his own. He generally played in an open D-Minor... Really? I didn't know that. A lot of blues artists played in open tuning, of course, but D minor is not an open tuning that I've ever encountered before. Most blues players, if they weren't using standard tuning, would use open G, open A, or open E. Tuning to a minor key is not something that I would necessarily think of when approaching blues. Interesting. This is my understanding. And that's what both Guralnick and a couple other sources indicate. I know that it's at least very unusual. I personally have ZERO musical training...so everything I know about music I learned on my own. So really it's long on musical history and short on musical theory.
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 5, 2019 17:57:11 GMT -5
... if I was doing a British Invasion playlist, I'd probably load it with plenty of Beatles and Stones because, you know, they were the two leading lights of the movement (well, and the Dave Clark Five, but they were s**t). Some prominent music writer - I forget which one - wrote that in the first wave of the British Invasion there were five bands that had real musical merit: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Zombies and the Animals. Does that seem about right?
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Post by berkley on Mar 5, 2019 18:31:13 GMT -5
I'm not clear enough on who was in that first wave to know if I'd go along with that. I presume that The Who, for example, were considered 2nd wave? Because otherwise I'd say they'd have to be included in with the acts with musical merit.
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