People who talk about music but don't own a record player: C/D

I own a record player and records, but it's hardly "proof" that I really like music---or deserve to talk about it (the thread's suggestion)?

Sure, it'd be a shame to always have to wait (sometimes forever) for good music to get reissued on CD--but I'd say the kind work of record-owning folk to "rip" the O.O.P. vinyl and proliferate it via file sharing is a very good thing. With O.O.P. stuff, undercutting the silly fetishisation/eBay price gouging is a good thing.

I love the artefactural quality of records, and I'm pretty sure (unless someone can provide a really convincing environmental argument) that I hope "records" (CDs, whatever) always exist. But the idea that dusty old records, played (frequently) on "hip" thrift shop crappy record players with absurd motor noise and current buzz, sound "better" than CDs (on the average CD mini-hi-fi) is just silly.

Records were the main medium for music for 70 years, during which time more music was released than anyone can get their head around. You have to be a direct part of that to really understand what recorded music means. Not everything worthwhile is on CD and mp3, not by a thousand miles.

Do you have any idea the kind of vinyl you can score on Ebay for basically nothing?

I must have missed the part of the thread where someone said that dusty records played on a crappy turntable sound better than CDs. and you might want to look for a loose wire or something if you've got "current buzz". and for heavens sake, get rid of that absurd motor. that's why i never play records on my speedboat. that outboard drowns out my jamz!

Paunchy, could you name five records that were never released on another format that are essential to "talking about music?" Could I listen to these at a friend's house and still get the right experience, or do I need to have a turntable at my place to really get the most out of it?

Do you have any idea the kind of vinyl you can score on Ebay for basically nothing?

If your point was that it's a shame that people sometimes intentionally avoid owning a record player and thereby limit themselves, perhaps your thread has been poorly entitled. Because it comes across that you're judging the innate capacities of those individuals to appreciate music; or, sillier still, their right to have opinions about music. Which is indeed snobbery of the most shallow kind. Despite what you may think, people can listen broadly and richly without owning a record player--though it's a useful tool to have available. What you posited sounds like yet another bizarre and unneccesary dichotomisation/comparison--that the record player is "the" key to musical appreciation.

I have problems with the CD (mainly its propensity to cause people to put out over-long albums). But ultimately, isn't it about the music, not the medium? And you'd be hard pressed at this point to convince anyone that, outside of certain neglected fields, 20 years of the CD hasn't covered a lot of territory, and 10 years of the mp3 isn't filling in a lot of the gaps. I know--I fill them myself; and I can't be arsed with people who say I'm doing listners a disservice by enabling them to hear things that they'd have to pay what I paid to hear, simply because of the medium.

Unfortunately, 95% of the young people I've met who "only buy vinyl" do so with a very self-conscious desire to be seen as hip (by whom?) and to "stand out," not because they actually prefer the crackly sound or cheaper prices of thrift shop records--many of them are buying new indie rock or digital electronic music (ha) or new 180-gram jazz repressings.

I like CDs primarily because I can fit the 2500 I own in my place, and wouldn't be able to fit 2500 LPs; and because I don't have to ritualistically dust them every time I want to hear music.

cds can sound pretty crappy on cheap systems, they can sound sterile and plasticky.

Any medium can sound crappy on cheap systems--records sound no better on cheap record players. "Warmth" is bullshit, when you're talking some sub $500 turntable run through a thrift shop solid-state amp, the sort most "I only buy vinyl" hipsters own. I'm a traditionalist in many ways--but because of actual function at the average person's level of experience.

Don't pretend to be obtuse.

Of COURSE you need your own record player. Listening to music at a friend's house never equals listening by your lonesome.

Five records? I could name a hundred. I don't want to type that much, though. Either you get my point or you're hostile to it, so I won't bother.

Yes, but you see, right now there's also more CDs, and certainly more mp3s about than anyone can get their head around. I don't really *need* the added agravation of ANOTHER medium where there's 10000000000000000 records that I totally should own.

You're right. All I'm sayin' is, dude, buy a record player.

Turns out that from the age of 13 to 16, when all I and my friends had were hundreds of taped-over fifth-generation cassettes, we didn't have the moral right to discuss them!

HANG ON THIS IS THE WORST THREAD EVER

x-post

You're right. All I'm sayin' is, dude, buy a record player.

Well, dude, if that was your point, you probably shouldn't've titled your thread in an obviously over-simplified, intentionally incendiary way. Because I doubt many ILMers would disagree with the more reasonable "buy a record player" concept--I'd bet most already have.

Yes! Finally someone understands.

Buy a record player. Best musical investment you'll ever make, money-back guarantee.

Haha this begs one of my materialist snobberies to assert itself. . . While I love making O.O.P./overpriced stuff available to people to undercut the scarcity/price gouging. . . I also admit that I have an irrational need to have "supported the artist" or whatever, for anything that is in print. Meaning, I don't have an "mp3 collection" that is exclusively mp3, other than maybe 40 LPs and 100+/- singles that are beyond my economic means. . .

But I tend to think of this as my particular hang-up, not a sign of my musico-moral superiority ; )

Conductor is a better benchmark than format.

I had and have no intention of talking about classical music. I would be in over my head immediately.

Paunchy, you knew your over-stated title would turn the whole thing into piss-taking, right? ; )

classical nutz tend to like both. audiophile nutz don't think twice about dropping a 1000 bucks for a choice record. Classical CDs never reach those heights. maybe in 50 years. if they don't disintegrate.

I grew up with a fucking record player, and I've only not had one for maybe 8 years of my life. As it so happens, I'm getting one again (my late grandfather's, along with his hi-fi system), and I'm happy that I am, but I don't see that I enjoyed music any less or was any less able to discuss it when I didn't.

Honestly, during that time I couldn't have afforded something that would have brought out any of the sonic advantages of a record anyhow, and the one time I did experiment with a cheap turntable and speaker set I was so disgusted by the sound that I never used it again. Unless you have fairly good equipment, CDs are going to sound considerably better than records.

As a side note, I hate it when this sort of arbitrary stupidity is called "snobbery" -- it implies that the person being targeted actually does have some kind of superior knowledge or values.

I'm hesiatant to call myself stupid, as I would be, but you're right otherwise. I have no superior anything.

Also, oh shit this record is good. Just bought it. Robert Fripp - Network. It's kind of a single. Four songs. One has Daryl Hall (don't laugh), one has Peter Gabriel (doing a version of "Here Comes The Flood" that I've never heard), and one has David Byrne ("I am am resplendent in divengence"). Never would have found these songs on CD, bra. Not even if they'd been released there.

Vinyl!

Is this ever wrong.

Is this ever wrong.

YES. YES IT IS EVER WRONG. Good vinyl sounds great, better than 192kbps MP3s every day of the week and twice on Tuesday.

-- Paunchy Stratego (fluxion2...), July 18th, 2005.

JESUS LAUGHS

We'd all like to get golder, I guess

I love my Kenan, he has a special place in my heart with his goofy but impossibly hip shirts.

I suggest a record playing slumber party (NO DIRTY MINDS!)

But we have to invite Rickey Wright, too.

Hooray for the vinyl-playing slumber party a la Doris Day!

no? o ok

at the same time, i like being able to buy albums for pennies. it's *almost* cheaper and easier than downloading shit off the web.

Some Minuses of owning a record player:
-Records take up more space and are harder to transport
-Having to flip the side (if you're having people over this can be annoying)
-Wider variance in sound quality (if you have a shit record player/stereo or a bad copy of something, sorry, it doesn't sound better than a CD)
-Difficulty in putting songs on mixes, or on your computer or iPod

I think one would be much worse off for not owning a CD player than not owning a record player.

Since the onset of the home recording technological revolution + the internet making access to duplication, distribution, etc. services easy, there have been more than 30,000 albums released every year since 2001 (these with Soundscan barcodes, who knows about all those without). During the past five years, nearly as many recorded works of music have been released as were recorded in the 70+ years. In the next ONE year there will be more music released that you can 'get your head around'.

...and there's a school of thought* amongst yr audiophilic types that says that if you have really fantastic equipment (i.e. phase-accurate, full-range speakers, top-class sources), CDs are going to sound miles better than records.

(* - obv, there are plenty of audiophiles who will never accept the CD or have grudgingly accepted its dominance while loathing its "sound", but the notion [not explicitly stated here, but perhaps silently assumed] that this is the de facto audiophile position isn't true in my experience).

Phoenix Garrett was getting ready to work his first summer job. The Alleged gunman, L'mani Delina.

The victim's mother is still trying to cope with the tragedy.

Jacqueline Birkett-Johnson, Mother: "Most parents would say my son was a good son, Phoenix was a good child, headed in the right direction."

Witnesses say Garrett was sitting on a bench, selling CD's from a duffel bag on a crowded corner in Hamilton Heights. Five teens approached him around 4:30 pm. and began arguing. Delina allegedly pulled out a 38 caliber revolver and pumped four bullets into Garrett, who was trying to walk away.

An NYPD lieutenant reportedly heard the commotion, ran over and grabbed Delina as he tried to run. He held him down until back up arrived, as Garrett laid in a pool of blood.

He was pronounced dead at saint luke's hospital.

Birkett-Johnson: "He had a wonderful sense of humor. I could have been angry as a pitbull, and he would have said something to make me laugh."