Death of the iPod (Everyone's buying vinyl)

[BillF]

2 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

I share the irritation with mobile phone conversations as conspicuous display (at least we iPod/earbud types don't inflict our 'sounds' on others). The other day I was waiting in a cinema foyer and a middle-aged couple had their mobile on speaker phone so they could both hear the person on the other end and talk back. The entire foyer could have joined in the decision making about what needed to be bought for the party. 

Mobiles are a case of technology having advanced so rapidly that an appropriate set of manners to deal with them has been unable to keep up. Back in the olden days of tethered phones it was normal to take a call in the hallway where others weren't distracted. Today people will take (or even make) calls in a restaurant or pub regardless of the people they are eating or socialising with. It's striking the speed with which this all changed.

I own up to a fogeyism commensurate with my age on this one.      

Yes, age is relevant here, also in that the middle-aged and elderly (as for example your cinema foyer couple) are less familiar with the conventions of device use in public than the young, who have grown up with it. On public transport, which I ride every day, the only intrusive conversations I ever hear are from the no-longer-young.Of course, the shyness of adolescence also plays a part in this, but also the near universal switch among the young to silent programs like WhatsApp for communicating.

[Scott Dolan]

4 hours ago, fasstrack said:

Nah. Can't afford it on musician bread...

 

If you think living in NYC is cheaper than living in the country, you've been listening to all the wrong real estate agents. I'd bet your cost of living is at least twice what ours is. And we're not even truly in the country (even though we have nothing but farmland behind us). 

[fasstrack]

6 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

If you think living in NYC is cheaper than living in the country, you've been listening to all the wrong real estate agents. I'd bet your cost of living is at least twice what ours is. And we're not even truly in the country (even though we have nothing but farmland behind us). 

I don't wanna live in the country. Like Danny Rose I got carbon monoxide in my bloodstream.

Just want the city to return to the days of old. Sort of like a Jewish Miniver Cheevy...

 

8 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

I share the irritation with mobile phone conversations as conspicuous display (at least we iPod/earbud types don't inflict our 'sounds' on others). The other day I was waiting in a cinema foyer and a middle-aged couple had their mobile on speaker phone so they could both hear the person on the other end and talk back. The entire foyer could have joined in the decision making about what needed to be bought for the party. 

Mobiles are a case of technology having advanced so rapidly that an appropriate set of manners to deal with them has been unable to keep up. Back in the olden days of tethered phones it was normal to take a call in the hallway where others weren't distracted. Today people will take (or even make) calls in a restaurant or pub regardless of the people they are eating or socialising with. It's striking the speed with which this all changed.

I own up to a fogeyism commensurate with my age on this one.      

...And their conversations are so mundane. 'I'm in the supermarket', or 'I just got on the bus'. Who f$%^ing cares?

And loud. Total atomized, boorish and selfish self-absorption...

[paul secor]

6 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

I share the irritation with mobile phone conversations as conspicuous display (at least we iPod/earbud types don't inflict our 'sounds' on others). The other day I was waiting in a cinema foyer and a middle-aged couple had their mobile on speaker phone so they could both hear the person on the other end and talk back. The entire foyer could have joined in the decision making about what needed to be bought for the party. 

Mobiles are a case of technology having advanced so rapidly that an appropriate set of manners to deal with them has been unable to keep up. Back in the olden days of tethered phones it was normal to take a call in the hallway where others weren't distracted. Today people will take (or even make) calls in a restaurant or pub regardless of the people they are eating or socialising with. It's striking the speed with which this all changed.

I own up to a fogeyism commensurate with my age on this one.      

My wife and I were having lunch in a restaurant recently and two young women (student age - the restaurant was across the street from a college) were sitting across from us, eating and talking. In the midst of their conversation, one of the women took out her phone and texted for about ten minutes, leaving the other woman sitting there doing nothing. If someone did that to me, I would have considered it rude, picked up my food and moved to another table, but it seems as if this sort of thing is ok with young people. Just another old guy complaint, I guess.

[Scott Dolan]

Yes! Right there with you on that one, Paul. It's just as bad as trying to have a conversation and the other person is more intent on watching tv. That's always been a huge pet peeve of mine. 

[jazzbo]

I do live in the country now, with hundreds of acres of a sate nature preserve in front of me, if I look out one window just right I can see a neighbor, and there's a lake half a mile away. I don't do music on phone, iPod, iPad, etc. and don't run into many who do, haven't been annoyed.  I'm lucky and I know it.

[JSngry]

9 hours ago, fasstrack said:

Nice thought, though...

? Who he, and where he?

He's got a show, Wednesday nights at 10 on USA Network. Him and his sister and a few of their pals show different ways to deal with boorish behavior like that which you describe.

[Scott Dolan]

2 hours ago, jazzbo said:

I do live in the country now, with hundreds of acres of a sate nature preserve in front of me, if I look out one window just right I can see a neighbor, and there's a lake half a mile away. I don't do music on phone, iPod, iPad, etc. and don't run into many who do, haven't been annoyed.  I'm lucky and I know it.

My phone mostly plays podcasts, about 98% of the time. The only time I use it for music is when I'm cleaning the house and plan to be moving around enough to where any one shelf system isn't going to get it done. 

Oh! And I use it for music in my truck since I'm not keen on carrying CDs around anymore. 

[fasstrack]

4 hours ago, JSngry said:

He's got a show, Wednesday nights at 10 on USA Network. Him and his sister and a few of their pals show different ways to deal with boorish behavior like that which you describe.

Rarely do I watch TV, but I'll look into it. Thanks...

[A Lark Ascending]

Not about iPhones or streaming but I had to smile at this story of advances in modern technology:

English man spends 11 hours trying to make cup of tea with Wi-Fi kettle

He'd have got his tea more quickly if he'd put a kettle on top of his Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

[rostasi]

"Death of the iPot"

[A Lark Ascending]

Another flurry of Guardian vinyl stories:

Poor old music shops:

Independent thinking: can music shops survive on today's high street?

It's a new dawn!:

Tables turned as vinyl sales overtake digital sales for first time in UK

Hold on a minute: 

Vinyl indignity: record sales are up, but small labels don't see the benefit

"Little wonder, then, that records have ended up on supermarket shelves alongside the Horlicks and the Werther’s Originals."

This happens in my local Sainsbury's - a few dozen 'classic' pop/rock albums next to the exotic pastes and marinades. They know their market! 

Edited December 10, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

It's just the Guardian pandering to their hipster constituency. Set to 'ignore'. 

Give it 5 years and these berks will be discovering CDs.

Edited December 10, 2016 by sidewinder

[Scott Dolan]

Next year: 8-tracks, baby! 

[A Lark Ascending]

Gosh! I'm a hipster! Cool! Awesome, even! 

[JSngry]

They sold records in grocery stores when I was, like, 3. Not "name brand" records, mind you, but still, records in the grocery store.

[sidewinder]

4 hours ago, JSngry said:

They sold records in grocery stores when I was, like, 3. Not "name brand" records, mind you, but still, records in the grocery store.

Yep, some of the grocery stores ove here had budget labels in rotary racks such as MFP, Embassy,  Marble Arch. Woolies, for sure.

[JSngry]

Yep, records used to be everywhere (I repeat myself, here, sorry). Same with 8-tracks for a little while, and then, for a lot longer, cassettes.

Hell, I began building my gospel collection at gas stations and their bigger/louder brother, truck stops.

People have shit to sell, they're gonna be well-advised to put it where the people who want to buy it are gonna be.

[sidewinder]

Don't think 8-track ever really took off in a big way over here - although used to see them on those humongous wood-veneer quadraphonic music centres.

[JSngry]

[Scott Dolan]

7 hours ago, JSngry said:

They sold records in grocery stores when I was, like, 3. Not "name brand" records, mind you, but still, records in the grocery store.

K-tel? 

 

[JSngry]

Not that I know of, that was TV marketing, iirc. What I'm talking about isa whole sub-genre of labels, records of songs you already know by people you never heard of, or songs you ddon't know made by people you never heard in the style of whatever style was big at the time, or sometimes, a record by somebody you kinda knew who was in sore need of any kind of a break and here it was.

As the rock era moved in, more and more it would be cover of the hits of the day , "soundalike" covers that really did not sound alike, but hey, it's a grocery store and you're buying a record and hamburger and Tang all at once, what do you expect?

You can probably Google something like "supermarket record labels or something and get a better idea The catch is that sometimes, every once in a while, there would be really good players on there and you get a treat. Sometimes, not often.

[A Lark Ascending]

10 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Don't think 8-track ever really took off in a big way over here - although used to see them on those humongous wood-veneer quadraphonic music centres.

They used to sell them (and cassettes) in petrol garages. My dad had a car that came with an 8 track - we had two or three of those cheepie ones which he bought on impulse on long journeys. I had an uncle and cousin who went for them in a big way but they were spivs - went for all the nouveaux bling as it appeared. Probably had a fondue set. Definitely had a set of knives in the kitchen sink plughole designed to shred your vegetables (and your fingers) and send them into the public waste system. Ah, the 70s!   

There were quite a few musicians who went on to fame who started out doing those cheapo cover LPs they used to sell in Woolworths. Elton John is probably the best known. Amazingly, his contributions have been catalogued....somewhat extensively!:

 http://www.eltonography.com/albums/sessions/index.html

I suspect we'd find a few jazzers making ends meet on those sessions. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[Scott Dolan]

K-Tel records started out on TV, but as with everything "As Seen On TV", you could buy them in stores a month later. Our local Kmart had an end cap in their music section that was nothing but K-Tel records. 

[rostasi]

Record sales: vinyl hits 25-year high