Jazzmoose Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 The only thing that kept the music industry big enough for us to have this discussion was suckers like me converting to CDs from LPs. Stupidly, I'll admit now. The music industry has been dying for decades. Unfortunately for the industry, the latest format shift doesn't necessarily include them. As for the quality, I'll confess I wasn't listening to jazz that much at the time CDs came out; I was just getting started. But there were some seriously shit releases on CD at the beginning. The one that stands out in my memory was Blonde on Blonde which they cut to fit both LPs on one CD. Quote
Niko Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 There are more mp3 players out there than ever before [i don't have the numbers, but it seems obvious], yet the profits from the digital downloads are in a free fall. To me this means that the music is being pilfered, and not purchased. from my experience, few people fill their mp3-players with illegal downloads... what seems quite common though, is that people share their mp3s with friends - the good old tape idea, but of course more comfortable... and then i do know a sizeable proportion of people who listen to youtube 98% of the time... personally, i still buy cds and occasionally lps because i like to go to record stores (and i mostly buy used, not only because it's cheaper but also because the selection is less predictable), but most of my listening is from the streaming sites, even stuff that i own on cd i tend to hear there because i am too lazy to carry cds to my office every day... Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 I also suspect that more people are downloading singles instead of albums. Do the math on that one. Quote
doneth Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Two points to be made: because of the collapse of the record biz, there is a new emphasis on playing music for a living, with selling a few recordings as a side benefit. That's why a lot of pop and rock bands give away a new single on their websites; we may be getting back to the music business as it was before the baby boomers started buying albums by the millions. And the other thing is the single itself: fans are able to buy the track they want for 99 cents instead of an overpriced, over-produced album, just as I used to buy 78s for 89 cents when I was a kid. These are changes, as someone said, not the end of the world, and they may be changes we should welcome. Donald Clarke Quote
TedR Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 I'm always surprised at the remembrances of LPs as vastly superior to CDs. I started buying cds in the late 80's. Up until that time I collected LPs. Since the vast majority of LPs I purchased were not 180 gram virgin vinyl, I recall being frustrated many times with mediocre sounding LP pressings. Yes I had a number of LPs that I loved but that's the same with cds too. Quote
A Lark Ascending Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Since the vast majority of LPs I purchased were not 180 gram virgin vinyl, I recall being frustrated many times with mediocre sounding LP pressings. My memory too. Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 True enough, but...the quality of the pressing and the quality of the recorded playback sound are two different things altogether, although on the casual consumer end it doesn't seem that way. Too many times I'd buy a CD that, sure, was popless & clickless and all that, but still didn't have the presence and depth of the old LP. Clean, but lifeless. I know I'm not the only one who remembers that... Quote
Noj Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 I find the audio quality is all over the place, no matter what format I have it in. I have an old Doors 2cd set which sounds bad compared to mp3s... Quote
paul secor Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 (edited) Check out What are you listening to right now? and look at how many new recordings are listed. "We" are not the general music buying public, but we are folks who care about music. And if we're not listening to what's new, is the general public listening to what's new? I do believe that part of that is the fault of the record companies not recording new music that's of interest to the general public. They started not making as much money and got scared/conservative, only putting out music by big names that they hope will make a lot of bucks fast, and putting out more and more reissues. Anything in between was dead. I agree with a lot of what else has been said, but if good music isn't out there nothing else matters. And I do think that much of the good music put out by independent companies gets lost in the shuffle. I think that there's a much smaller percentage of the population - especially young population - today that truly cares about music compared to the percentage that cared say 40 years ago. Whatever the reasons, I believe that's true. Chuck Nessa, on 24 February 2011 - 08:25 PM, said: We all be stuck in the '50s-'70s. That goes for the record companies too - maybe they make it to 1990. Edited February 25, 2011 by paul secor Quote
Neal Pomea Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Music will certainly survive and people will continue to do new things with it. I am only kidding a little when I say I preferred it when a "single" was really two songs, side A and side B. They didn't have to put anything out on side B, but they did. You maybe bought the record for one song, then got a surprise on the flip side that sometimes you liked even better! Could it be that the music industry today has only half the good will it used to have? :blush2: A downloaded single could easily come with a surprising bonus second song, but I never see it happening. Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 I like the idea of a two-sided download..one that you'd have to flip your iPod over to get it to play....you talk about messing with people's heads... Quote
Neal Pomea Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 (edited) One when you hold the iPod vertically, the other when you hold it horizontally! Edited February 25, 2011 by Neal Pomea Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Yes! That's what's needed to revive the industry - interactive hardware! Quote
Neal Pomea Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Interactive hardware, and twice the good will! Quote
Dmitry Posted February 25, 2011 Author Report Posted February 25, 2011 I'm always surprised at the remembrances of LPs as vastly superior to CDs. I started buying cds in the late 80's. Up until that time I collected LPs. Since the vast majority of LPs I purchased were not 180 gram virgin vinyl, I recall being frustrated many times with mediocre sounding LP pressings. Yes I had a number of LPs that I loved but that's the same with cds too. It is indeed a bull-shit sentiment. LPs don't automatically sound better than corresponding CDs, especially the 1970s-early 1980s pressings on wobbly, noisy, paper-thin vinyl. At the time of vinyl-cd transition most people had inexpensive direct drive turntables, which they switched to inexpensive major brand cd players. The very positive side of cd was its convenience. CD playback required no set-up skills, no expensive cartridges, produced a very decent sound, etc etc. Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 (edited) Hey, I was lucky enough to have been born in a time and a place where I could regularly buy decent BN, Prestige, Impulse, etc. vinyl for enough years before CDs were introduced to tell you that if you think that that stuff sounded better on CD than it did on the LPs, well, there's your "bullshit sentiment" right there! I'm not talking the rare first pressing either. I'm talking regular, store-grade LPs available all through the 70s. Pop albums, maybe not so much, especially as the decade wore on, but evn then, if you got a bad copy, you just kept exchanging until you got a good one. You could do that then... There are no absolutes here, but I've held on to my LPs, all of 'em, and have no qualms about doing so. None whatsoever. Of course, once digital recording came to the fore, all bets were off, because a whole lot of the early digital recordings sound like total crap. Nothing sounds real, especially pianos and drums (I've heard early digitally recorded piano and drum sounds that would be impossible to replicate in the natural world!). That's done a complete 180 now, but we're not talking about now. The very first CD I had in my house was an Aretha Franklin Atlantic side of which I also had the LP. I did an A-B and the CD sounded so weak compared to the LP that I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, that's how jacked-up the CD mastering was. But it was clean! And easy! Edited February 27, 2011 by Jim Alfredson Fixed bad html code Quote
six string Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Yep, I agree 100%. If they had tackled this problem head on (a decade ago) and come up with another alternative that captured the public's attention, they could be making profits instead of bemoaning a decade of inactivity. Now...the ship sailed a long time ago. I can't see a physical item all of a sudden capturing the imagination of the current teenage generation..and that's the only age group the industry cares about anyway. Agreed. I think free digital downloads only sped up the decline in music sales. Of course it has had an influence and if the labels had reacted in a positive way when the technology arrived they could have positioned themselves a little better. I don't think they could have reversed this trend but once people started finding out they could get music free on the internet, all they had to do was maybe update their computers a little to take advantage. Quote
papsrus Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Gaming. It is a much bigger slice of the entertainment pie today than it was even 10 years ago. And it has probably replaced music as the primary form of entertainment for youth. Quote
David Ayers Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Hey, I was lucky enough to have been born in a time and a place where I could regularly buy decent BN, Prestige, Impulse, etc. vinyl for enough years before CDs were introduced to tell you that if you think that that stuff sounded better on CD than it did on the LPs, well, <b>there's</b> your "bullshit sentiment" right there! I'm not talking the rare first pressing either. I'm talking regular, store-grade LPs available all through the 70s. Pop albums, maybe not so much, especially as the decade wore on, but evn then, if you got a bad copy, you just kept exchanging until you got a good one. You could do that then...<br><br>There are no absolutes here, but I've held on to my LPs, all of 'em, and have no qualms about doing so. None whatsoever.<br><br>Of course, once digital <b>recording</b> came to the fore, all bets were off, because a whole lot of the early digital recordings sound like total crap. Nothing sounds real, especially pianos and drums (I've heard early digitally recorded piano and drum sounds that would be <b>impossible</b> to replicate in the natural world!). That's done a complete 180 now, but we're not talking about now.<br><br>The very first CD I had in my house was an Aretha Franklin Atlantic side of which I also had the LP. I did an A-B and the CD sounded so weak compared to the LP that I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, that's how jacked-up the CD mastering was.<br><br>But it was clean! And easy!<br> Word. But what's all this <br><br> uh, shall we say, scheiss? Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 I don't know. It just came out that way after I edited the post. Sucks, don't it... Quote
David Ayers Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Well, I just got back from <brr>Moscow</brr>, so I get it. Quote
Dmitry Posted February 25, 2011 Author Report Posted February 25, 2011 Hey, I was lucky enough to have been born in a time and a place where I could regularly buy decent BN, Prestige, Impulse, etc. vinyl for enough years before CDs were introduced to tell you that if you think that that stuff sounded better on CD than it did on the LPs, well, <b>there's</b> your "bullshit sentiment" right there! I'm not talking the rare first pressing either. I'm talking regular, store-grade LPs available all through the 70s. Pop albums, maybe not so much, especially as the decade wore on, but evn then, if you got a bad copy, you just kept exchanging until you got a good one. You could do that then...<br><br>There are no absolutes here, but I've held on to my LPs, all of 'em, and have no qualms about doing so. None whatsoever.<br><br>Of course, once digital <b>recording</b> came to the fore, all bets were off, because a whole lot of the early digital recordings sound like total crap. Nothing sounds real, especially pianos and drums (I've heard early digitally recorded piano and drum sounds that would be <b>impossible</b> to replicate in the natural world!). That's done a complete 180 now, but we're not talking about now.<br><br>The very first CD I had in my house was an Aretha Franklin Atlantic side of which I also had the LP. I did an A-B and the CD sounded so weak compared to the LP that I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, that's how jacked-up the CD mastering was.<br><br>But it was clean! And easy!<br> I'm sorry to disappoint, Jim, but this discussion isn't centered around you and the history of your record buying. Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Awwww.......dammit. I thought everything was centered around me and the history of my record buying. So,,,maybe you want all my old LPs to do A-Bs with? Quote
Noj Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 I do, Jim. Just box them up and have them shipped to my house. Quote
JSngry Posted February 25, 2011 Report Posted February 25, 2011 Why would you want them? The CDs ALL sound better!Wouldn't you rather take my cassettes & 8-tracks instead? Quote
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