Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Peter:

Totally agree, it's a depressing trend. But it is the trend. "Progress" grinds forward, no matter 
what we think of it.

I look at it this way. "Jack the Ripper" is a decent sort. He's definitely not in the same 
socio-economic strata as his clients, so he's a beneficiary of redistributed wealth! And I guess I 
am, too, when I buy used CD's from him at a fraction of what his clients paid new. Plus we're both 
contributing to the planet by keeping plastic out of the landfill. Unfortunately for me, rich folks 
don't share most of my musical tastes. But I have been able to pick up a few out-of-print jazz and 
classical CD's.

Your complaints about lack of context/sequencing and lack of artwork/liner notes are 100% shared by 
me. I'm what you'd call some sort of fossil in the iPod world. All my playlists are simply albums in 
sequence. I don't listen to "shuffles" or "smashes" or the other out-of-context things "those crazy 
kids" seem to like. So for me, the iPod is just a portable album collection -- and no way I'm ever 
dumping my CD's or LPs. My brother, only 3 years younger, is the complete opposite in how he uses 
his iPod. His favorite iPod MO is put it in shuffle and just skips ahead if he doesn't feel like 
hearing the random selection.  So it's like a personal FM station with a playlist only as big as his 
personal music universe,  with him as station manager, able to yank what he doesn't want to hear 
right off the air. And my nieces, I'm not sure they've ever listened to a CD all the way through. 
They don't even bother buying whole albums from iTunes, just songs they like. So for them, their 
iPod is like a personal jukebox of hits.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Hirsch" <punto@xxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."


> Does the fact that I find this just a wee bit depressing mean that I'm just a fetishist regarding 
> CDs and vinyl?
>
> The main issue I have with iTunes, iPods and other manifestations digital music delivery is the 
> complete de-contextualization of what I am listening to. No notes, questionable and mostly useless 
> "artist" info, no art, no package whatsoever. I guess there are some exceptions where the stuff is 
> made available as a pdf or displayed on your computer or TV screen, but it doesn't sound like that 
> would be of any interest to the clients of "Jack the Ripper" that you refer to. I guess that the 
> idea of liner notes didn't fully catch on until the LP era (yes, I've seen them on 78 albums and I 
> love the spoken intros on cylinders and early discs, but they don't illustrate kind of thing I am 
> talking about) and maybe the decline of the format has inevitably lead to the decline of the 
> accompanying content. Even the albums, mostly, but not exclusively, pop, that had only art and 
> minimal track listings but no useful text beyond that are something that I could connect to in 
> some way on a level that is not replicated by downloading from a file server.
>
> Again, I am depressed by the desensitized level of hearing that we have been brought to by 
> listening to mp3 level and worse streamed sound coming from our computers , routine amplification 
> of music at concerts and shows, Dolbyized ear assaulting soundtracks at the movies (what else have 
> I left out while I am kvetching- TV and radio sound; why even bother?). I have been playing an 
> acoustic instrument, sometimes professionally in public, for nearly 50 years now and have been 
> going to concerts for about as long and know what it sounds like and it ain't mp3 or what I hear 
> in any of the forums I've just mentioned. Strangely enough, the recent comments about 78s being or 
> not being High Fidelity reminded me of an experience that I had about 10 years ago when someone at 
> the Institute of Jazz Studies (OK, it was Vinny Pelote) played me one of the Armstrong Hot 5s or 
> 7s on a windup 78 console. I listened to it up close, literally with my ears inches from the horn, 
> and I have to say that it was one of the most immediate sounding things I have ever heard. Now, I 
> have no idea how much of that was coming directly from Satch's playing, but I really think that 
> the lack of too many steps and types of processing between the recording session and my ears 
> somehow overcame the sold facts of frequency range and surface grunge. Maybe I was just having a 
> religious experience <very big grin here to all who actually know me> but it was transcendental in 
> many sonic respects.
>
> Well, there you have it,
>
> Peter Hirsch
>
> Tom Fine wrote:
> > I love the little bit at the end about people who buy LPs "to use like a poster ... especially if 
> > they don't have a record player." Vinyl posers!!
> >
> > ---Snip--
> >
> > BTW, the trend away from physical libraries of music is also big in the upper crust. I know a guy 
> > who gets $5 per CD to rip it into iTunes and turn over a loaded hard drive to his clients. They 
> > send him their whole CD library. He loads up a hard drive with MP3 or AAC or ALF or WAV or 
> > whatever they ask for (to his credit, he advocates ALF or WAV but you'd be surprised how many 
> > clients get all tight-wallet about a 400gig drive vs. a 200gig drive). He then installs the hard 
> > drive in their system and reads it all into their iTunes. Sometimes they pay him another $150 to 
> > load up their iPod so they can be the coolest player in business class on their next flight 
> > without having to actually know or do anything "technical." This guy has all the business he can 
> > do, just from advertising in a few Upper East Side society-type publications. In fact last I 
> > heard, he had farmed out the ripping jobs to his kid brother and the brother's college buddies. 
> > Oh, and some of his clients don't want the CD's back, so he does a booming trade in used CD's 
> > (that's how I got to know him).
> >
> > -- Tom Fine
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Milan P. Milovanovic" <mijel@xxxxxxxx>
> > To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 5:23 AM
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."
> >
> >
> > > Well,
> > >
> > > our subject is even at Yahoo, today:
> > >
> > > http://www.yahoo.com/s/397244