Record sales plunge further...

I drive a manual. Just listening.

 

Well they do, but they call them MP3 downloads these days.

Vinyl is a niche market, and most buyers are middle-aged men. Teenagers don't even own record players, as a rule.

 

The main reason for that is not the format though. It's mostly that in those days there was one monolithic youth culture, and whoever made it big in there sold to everyone. These days popular music is split in so many genres and sub-genres that even someone who gets to the top in one of those markets still gets ignored by the others. Ed Sheeran might be a counter example, but I think he's an exception that proves the rule.

 

And thank Mike Nesmith (Papa Nez) for conceiving what was later "ripped off" by Warner Cable: MTV....Nez won the first Grammy for Long-form Music Video in 1982 for "Elephant Parts".

Nez invented the music video when he made Rio in 1977. He then went on to invent MTV and win the first ever Grammy Award for a music video for Elephant Parts. -- Video Ranch

Michael Nesmith's Video Ranch
Michael Nesmith's Videoranch

...Two related TV series were PopClips for Nickelodeon (released in 1980), and Television Parts for NBC in 1985. Nickelodeon's parent company, Warner Cable, wanted to buy outright the PopClips copyright to be expanded into an all-music video channel, but after Nesmith declined the offer, Warner Cable started work on what would become MTV.[4]
The title Elephant Parts refers to the parable of the blind men and an elephant where each man comes to a different conclusion about what an elephant is due to them touching only one part.[5]

 

Great record for sure.

 

The air we breathe is almost 80% nitrogen. Where's the love for that?

 

EQUALITY FOR NITROGEN, that's what I say. Why does it always get a bum steer ?

 

I find nitrogen very useful when it comes to preserving wine in a bottle to drink on another day. Sometimes I want to open a white before red as an aperitif/while cooking but won't drink a lot of it. It could happen to the red as well. So displacing the oxygen in the air space of the bottle slows down the oxidation hence keeping the wine fresher until you open it again a few days later. The more delicate the wine the more it helps. Red wines are less sensitive most of the time but they still taste fresher to me than merely putting a cork back in it. You can buy it in a can. They call it Private Preserve and the can weighs next to nothing so it can raise eyebrows with the clerk ringing up your purchases if they don't know about it. There are much bigger systems sold to restaurants and wine bars when they do a lot of wines by the glass. It saves a lot of inventory that might end up being poured down the drain.

 

It has to be the right mix.

 

That is the trap of gearing your career toward stardom and relevance (youth appeal) rather than: lasting music quality; a reputation for change and experimentation; and going wherever the muse takes you, commercial considerations be damned. Like quite a few groups (REM also comes to mind), they tried to have it both ways, and had a fairly long run, but sales and relevance had to give way at some point. Artists like Bowie seemed to accept that reality and concentrated more on the music later in his career, ultimately. Paradoxically that seems to work in favor of his continued relevance and his legend. U2 are probably trying to do that as Bono has recently said they want to concentrate now on better songwriting. I'm not sure they have the collective talent and imagination to keep up the needed creative momentum without help from someone like Eno involved anymore.

 

I think a certain poster of Farrah Fawcett in a red swimsuit from 1976 was universally loved.

 

The cultural music memory now also extends back several decades. New acts have to compete with the best music of the past fifty years to a degree no prior generation has dealt with. A teenager today can type in "Beatles" or "David Bowie" into a search engine and basically hear their entire catalogs at once without much effort. That was unimaginable when I was growing up.

It means that new musicians without established followings are consigned to fewer and fewer fans unless a miracle occurs.

 

Sara Lee?

 

99/100 is more like it... maybe 999/1000.

 

I find it a bit depressing when my daughter doesn't know or care if a song is brand new, 20-years old, or 50-years old. Didn't my passion rub-off on her at all? But I explored the past as a teenager too. Reissues started to appear; compilations of recordings by Fats Domino, Eddie Cochran, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf. I bought a Willie Dixon album and couple of Chuck Berry LP's when I was in high school. I started listening to jazz a few years after John Coltrane died. The first Dylan album that I bought was John Wesley Harding... everything that came before felt like an archaeological dig.

I'm surprised that CD's are still available. Happily surprised... I still buy them. Sales may continue to plummet, but indie labels have been pressing small quantities for decades. Young artists need new "product" to build a buzz, maintain momentum, get their audience familiar with new material that they're going to perform. It's hard for young, working bands to break the "new album" paradigm, even if they don't make any money from it.

 

Of course, people can do both. But in my mind, music of the past and contemporary music have always occupied separate compartments. Following an active band in their prime, looking forward to what they'll do next, having the opportunity to see them live... that's a lot more fun than viewing a museum piece, no matter how good.

 

There is a lot of jazz I would have missed out on if I couldn't demo the different masterings. In terms of affordable listening, the old (cheap) OJC CDs allowed me to develop my tastes and collect terrific recordings. A lot of the newer versions you would buy or download these days sound terrible.

 

i think because of you tube,cd ripping,Spotify,iTunes,illegal downloading music is dead in my book.im old school so I buy a physical copy of new albums but I’m a dying breed.i love quality and always make sure I’m getting the artist my money.

when it’s just coming from a digital master anyway.

 

And the following year, the Soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever!

 

I buy a physical format still just for quality.im not listening to a mp3 on my system.

 

I'm sure it get mentioned in 28 pages, but seeing "records" in a thread titles gets vinyl guys blood boilin'

"Albums!" ""Albums!"

 

I’m a “records” guy, myself. “Albums” is acceptable, but honestly the now common usage of the word “vinyl” kind of makes me cringe. It sounds too pretentious.

 

Ok. I don’t understand the fuss. Yes they are albums played on what used to be known as vinyl records also known as LPs. It’s 1970. Nothing to see here. Different media arrive and albums can be played on cassettes, 8 tracks and CDs. Still nothing to see IMHO. Downloads and streaming and albums can be played in various file forms. What’s new?
Oh - all of a sudden hipsters start calling anything on vinyl “vinyls”. It could be an album ... or a single .... or an EP etc. As I read the OP I had no idea what the article referenced was talking about. Was it total
Album sales? Vinyl sales? Physical media sales or physical and downloads. What does it all mean because consumers are steaming (renting) not buying ? Why is records wrong and what does it mean anyway? I read records as albums? Am I wrong ? They are all “records” of the performance (albums and singles). I really fail to see the point of getting hung up about it but I do see the point of complaining about a real lack of precision in language. The article referred to CD sales and paid downloads of albums. It did not refer to sales of any type of vinyl product. I see nothing wrong with referring to the grouped album product as a record because that is what it is. It’s a record of the work of the artist called (whatever) released in (whatever) year.
Records have not been released exclusively in vinyl form for about 45 years.

 

The article is poorly written and very confusing because like you he gets the terms “records” and “recordings” garbled. The first paragraph references records (vinyl) and streaming being on an uptrend, but then the rest of the story talks about how sales as a whole are down. The title is totally misleading. It is as if he overheard people saying, “records are making a comeback!” but didn’t understand what they were actually talking about, and so decided to write an article based around his misconception. Roger Friedman is the long lost son of Emily Litella.