The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

[Kory]

Vinyl outsells cd for the first time since la décennie Heston:
https://pitchfork.com/news/vinyl-outsel ... n-decades/

It's a bit of a skewed stat. With so many reissues being released on vinyl. I wonder how the sales of vinyl compare with the download sales. I'm guessing a lot of downloaders were previous cd buyers.

Reckon streamers must be how most under 30s consume music.

Definitely. This is just physical media sales. By no means should we interpret it to mean that vinyl is the dominant form of music sales. In some respects, as Marky suggested, it's a meh kind of story, as he digital vs. analog divide remains heavily weighted to digital—just not in a physical format. Still, given how eager people were to bury vinyl in the 80s, it's amusing how vinyi has surpassed the cd.

The CD will be back.

[Dr. Medulla]

Vinyl outsells cd for the first time since la décennie Heston:
https://pitchfork.com/news/vinyl-outsel ... n-decades/

It's a bit of a skewed stat. With so many reissues being released on vinyl. I wonder how the sales of vinyl compare with the download sales. I'm guessing a lot of downloaders were previous cd buyers.

Reckon streamers must be how most under 30s consume music.

Definitely. This is just physical media sales. By no means should we interpret it to mean that vinyl is the dominant form of music sales. In some respects, as Marky suggested, it's a meh kind of story, as he digital vs. analog divide remains heavily weighted to digital—just not in a physical format. Still, given how eager people were to bury vinyl in the 80s, it's amusing how vinyi has surpassed the cd.

The CD will be back.

Elaborate? That is, you think it will return to a superior position over vinyl or streaming/downloading?

[Kory]

It's a bit of a skewed stat. With so many reissues being released on vinyl. I wonder how the sales of vinyl compare with the download sales. I'm guessing a lot of downloaders were previous cd buyers.

Reckon streamers must be how most under 30s consume music.

Definitely. This is just physical media sales. By no means should we interpret it to mean that vinyl is the dominant form of music sales. In some respects, as Marky suggested, it's a meh kind of story, as he digital vs. analog divide remains heavily weighted to digital—just not in a physical format. Still, given how eager people were to bury vinyl in the 80s, it's amusing how vinyi has surpassed the cd.

The CD will be back.

Elaborate? That is, you think it will return to a superior position over vinyl or streaming/downloading?

Not over streaming. But after enough people have to move house, those that like physical copies of things will realize that they had it good with the smaller, easier to store, more portable, less fragile, better-sounding CD. Either that or it will simply come back as a retro item the way that vinyl did since everything is cyclical.

[Dr. Medulla]

Reckon streamers must be how most under 30s consume music.

Definitely. This is just physical media sales. By no means should we interpret it to mean that vinyl is the dominant form of music sales. In some respects, as Marky suggested, it's a meh kind of story, as he digital vs. analog divide remains heavily weighted to digital—just not in a physical format. Still, given how eager people were to bury vinyl in the 80s, it's amusing how vinyi has surpassed the cd.

The CD will be back.

Elaborate? That is, you think it will return to a superior position over vinyl or streaming/downloading?

Not over streaming. But after enough people have to move house, those that like physical copies of things will realize that they had it good with the smaller, easier to store, more portable, less fragile, better-sounding CD. Either that or it will simply come back as a retro item the way that vinyl did since everything is cyclical.

There will be cyclical cd-retro thing in the future—that's guaranteed. Consumer culture always generates those silly peaks and valleys. I'm skeptical, tho, that it'll return to its status as the default physical version. Digital has an even more portable format now—the cloud and the player itself—so why choose something so much more inefficient and, in mass, physically clumsier and heavier? Storage capacity of players and hard drives are such that you can maintain lossless versions and have lots and lots and lots of albums in a physically small format. The cd is already a bit of a fetish object, desirable not for practical reasons than as a tactile object itself. I can't see that status changing.

[Dr. Medulla]

I'm revising a lecture on Motown/The Wrecking Crew, about the levels of work behind the scenes that belied the apparent authenticity of rock n roll (e.g., Beach Boys on the cover; Wrecking Crew on the vinyl). I start the lecture talking about Milli Vanilli and, in the Zoom age, where lecture pacing tends to go a bit faster, I'm padding things out with more videos. So I just downloaded "Blame It On the Rain." This is far worse than Beaneater signing me up for the Trump mailing list.

[Flex]

I'm revising a lecture on Motown/The Wrecking Crew, about the levels of work behind the scenes that belied the apparent authenticity of rock n roll (e.g., Beach Boys on the cover; Wrecking Crew on the vinyl). I start the lecture talking about Milli Vanilli and, in the Zoom age, where lecture pacing tends to go a bit faster, I'm padding things out with more videos. So I just downloaded "Blame It On the Rain." This is far worse than Beaneater signing me up for the Trump mailing list.

this is why i never try to learn anything

[Dr. Medulla]

I'm revising a lecture on Motown/The Wrecking Crew, about the levels of work behind the scenes that belied the apparent authenticity of rock n roll (e.g., Beach Boys on the cover; Wrecking Crew on the vinyl). I start the lecture talking about Milli Vanilli and, in the Zoom age, where lecture pacing tends to go a bit faster, I'm padding things out with more videos. So I just downloaded "Blame It On the Rain." This is far worse than Beaneater signing me up for the Trump mailing list.

this is why i never try to learn anything

Ha! I know you—back row, come to class only for the midterm, only answer a couple questions but stick around the full 80 minutes. How ya doin'?

[Kory]

Definitely. This is just physical media sales. By no means should we interpret it to mean that vinyl is the dominant form of music sales. In some respects, as Marky suggested, it's a meh kind of story, as he digital vs. analog divide remains heavily weighted to digital—just not in a physical format. Still, given how eager people were to bury vinyl in the 80s, it's amusing how vinyi has surpassed the cd.

The CD will be back.

Elaborate? That is, you think it will return to a superior position over vinyl or streaming/downloading?

Not over streaming. But after enough people have to move house, those that like physical copies of things will realize that they had it good with the smaller, easier to store, more portable, less fragile, better-sounding CD. Either that or it will simply come back as a retro item the way that vinyl did since everything is cyclical.

so why choose something so much more inefficient and, in mass, physically clumsier and heavier? Storage capacity of players and hard drives are such that you can maintain lossless versions and have lots and lots and lots of albums in a physically small format.

Well this is mostly my point—why would you choose vinyl, which is inefficient and physically clumsier and heavier? I know that people that like physical formats like having a) liner notes, and b) the ability to see their entire collection, or most of it, at a glance by looking at the spines. Having just a list of albums on a hard drive is super inefficient for choosing what you're in the mood for, and also leads to forgetting what you have, if you're a visual person. So if you are this kind of practical, physical-format loving person, you'll get fed up with storing vinyl sooner or later and remember how much easier it was to house CDs. CDs at home, digital files on the go.

[Marky Dread]

The CD will be back.

Elaborate? That is, you think it will return to a superior position over vinyl or streaming/downloading?

Not over streaming. But after enough people have to move house, those that like physical copies of things will realize that they had it good with the smaller, easier to store, more portable, less fragile, better-sounding CD. Either that or it will simply come back as a retro item the way that vinyl did since everything is cyclical.

so why choose something so much more inefficient and, in mass, physically clumsier and heavier? Storage capacity of players and hard drives are such that you can maintain lossless versions and have lots and lots and lots of albums in a physically small format.

Well this is mostly my point—why would you choose vinyl, which is inefficient and physically clumsier and heavier? I know that people that like physical formats like having a) liner notes, and b) the ability to see their entire collection, or most of it, at a glance by looking at the spines. Having just a list of albums on a hard drive is super inefficient for choosing what you're in the mood for, and also leads to forgetting what you have, if you're a visual person. So if you are this kind of practical, physical-format loving person, you'll get fed up with storing vinyl sooner or later and remember how much easier it was to house CDs. CDs at home, digital files on the go.

Hard drives fail. If you don't back it all up you can lose a whole lot of stuff. Vinyl is nice but can scratch and wear out and you are at the mercy of the quality of the pressing. CDs are pretty durable and as Kory states easier to store. As long as you don't have as many as I have to my shame.

[Dr. Medulla]

Well this is mostly my point—why would you choose vinyl, which is inefficient and physically clumsier and heavier? I know that people that like physical formats like having a) liner notes, and b) the ability to see their entire collection, or most of it, at a glance by looking at the spines.

As I understand it from the audio nerds, analog is a warmer sound. I can't tell the difference, but that's what they say. But if you want digital, you can have digital without the physical space at all—which is super convenient for storage and moving! The lp will always have a greater claim to being artful where the cd is just utilitarian. And if you're going utilitarian, why bother with any kind of physicality at all. It just seems like feeling nostalgic for floppy discs.

Having just a list of albums on a hard drive is super inefficient for choosing what you're in the mood for, and also leads to forgetting what you have, if you're a visual person. So if you are this kind of practical, physical-format loving person, you'll get fed up with storing vinyl sooner or later and remember how much easier it was to house CDs. CDs at home, digital files on the go.

Got a shit ton of albums on my music hard drive, all backed up on dvd-r in boxes. The stuff I playing regularly, I can remember. Otherwise, it's easy to just scroll, stop, and grab something. I'll grant that there might be something to the physicality of flipping thru a physical collection to find what you want, but the trade off is a much more limited amount to choose from. That is, it's a lot easier to store 2000 albums on one hard drive than 2000 cd's in one room. At a certain point, the numerical amount works in favour of virtual rather than physical.

[Flex]

I think the assertion that vinyl is inferior sounding is odd: even from digitally sourced files vinyl mastering still has to be mastered for vinyl which necessarily will involve some superiority in dynamic range (comparing the stones blue and loneseom digital vs vinyl tracks is a pretty good taste test on this front). Now, for a host of reasons, I've mostly migrated back to CDs for physical purposes, including the ones Kory mentions here, but I save my vinyl powder (so to speak) for AAA releases or digtally-sourced vinyl that was lacquer cut by well-regarded audio engineers (or some occasional stray releases for other reasons). I dunno, I think each format has its place. And I'll admit, on the CD front I largely (although not exclusively) focus on stuff that's not readily available streaming and/or has special masterings other than what you find on streaming services. I also have a cd player than can decode SACD, HDCD and DVD/blu ray audio so I pick those types of discs up sometimes (I have a few Bob Dylan SACDs that include unique 5.1 mixes and they're fun as hell).

I get most of the above could be ILLEGALLY DOWNLOADED (and I certainly do my share of that) but I agree with Kory that just scrolling through a listed out media library has never been conducive to the alchemical process of being struck by inspiration on what I want to hear next. I used to enjoy making playlists, but I'll admit for digital I usually just put my collection on shuffle or pull up a third party's streaming playlist so I can hear some new stuff.

[Kory]

I think the assertion that vinyl is inferior sounding is odd: even from digitally sourced files vinyl mastering still has to be mastered for vinyl which necessarily will involve some superiority in dynamic range (comparing the stones blue and loneseom digital vs vinyl tracks is a pretty good taste test on this front).

I don't like the warmth of vinyl that Doc mentions above. I prefer absolute clarity where I can get it, which I think is obscured by that warmth, and also by pops, hisses, and crackle that you'll get with vinyl too. Plus CDs have more dynamic range by a wide margin, which is great for classical and jazz (and reggae if you like big bass). Not so much for older stuff obviously, but newer releases can make use of it.

[Dr. Medulla]

scrolling through a listed out media library has never been conducive to the alchemical process of being struck by inspiration on what I want to hear next.

Whether it's paper books or actual dvd's or lp's/cd's, I've never understood the romance of a tactile relationship with media. Clearly there's something to it given how many people are ardent about it, but I really don't get it. My pleasure comes in the listening/reading/watching, not handling it.

[Kory]

Got a shit ton of albums on my music hard drive, all backed up on dvd-r in boxes. The stuff I playing regularly, I can remember. Otherwise, it's easy to just scroll, stop, and grab something. I'll grant that there might be something to the physicality of flipping thru a physical collection to find what you want, but the trade off is a much more limited amount to choose from. That is, it's a lot easier to store 2000 albums on one hard drive than 2000 cd's in one room. At a certain point, the numerical amount works in favour of virtual rather than physical.

This gets into another issue that I personally struggle with, which is choice paralysis, or whatever they call it. Not only do I have a list of names to scroll through, but if there's too much of it, and my time is limited, I spend too much time trying to figure out what I even want. I have about 2,000 CDs at any given time and that seems to suit me pretty well. I get rid of old stuff to make room for new. I back it up on my drives before I ditch it, but I find that I rarely go back and listen to it again as I usually got rid of it for a reason.

[Kory]

scrolling through a listed out media library has never been conducive to the alchemical process of being struck by inspiration on what I want to hear next.

Whether it's paper books or actual dvd's or lp's/cd's, I've never understood the romance of a tactile relationship with media. Clearly there's something to it given how many people are ardent about it, but I really don't get it. My pleasure comes in the listening/reading/watching, not handling it.

[Insert italicized IMCT catchphrase here]

I mean, I could tell you what it is for me, but I'm sure you've heard it all before from other tactile people.