Record Vinyl LPs Albums etc

[MiB81]

So, today l decided to organise my record collection, put them in order. If l can just maintain any slippery grip I may have on even a wee sliver of your no doubt already retreating and shriveling interest, l'll give you a bit of the back story. l've been buying records since l was a Tween, l suppose, back in the dying years of the 1970s. With hindsight, them weren't the best of years, to be a Tween, were they? I was clearing out my loft recently, and as well as uncovering a few old jokes from some lesser remembered comedians, l was surprised when l came across what appeared to be a copy of The Sex Offenders Registry. On closer inspection though it was just a copy of the Radio Times from 1974. 

The punk explosion hit me hard, although PTSD wasn't really bigged up so much in them days, and my first actual local record shop purchases (as opposed to the cassette tapes l'd made-up up until then; of good tunes from the charts, and radio shows, and friend's records) were My Perfect Cousin by The Undertones along with I'm An Upstart by The Angelic Upstarts (green vinyl), both from Tam Ferrie's Record Machine, Borrheid. I was buying records from that day on, getting rid of some along the way, hanging onto some, exchanging others. Back then when l used to flip through the racks of albums in well stocked record shops, my fingers would often flicker with an almost spiritual intensity, a kinda automatic-writing type phenomenon, except, mibee more accurately, it was more a flipping through racks of records like Superman in a record shop skill that l experienced, my eyes would laser-in like a T800 as the album covers flew by in a blur. I found that this forgotten muscle memory returned immediately, years later, when l started visiting record shops again. So, I suppose I'm like an X Men in that respect, mibee.

I did finally switch to CDs, but not immediately, l was a late adopter. By then I already had a no bad wee collection of records, and, early on, it just looked to me as if l would either just be buying albums l already had, or the new Dire Straits (I remember my first CD purchases were the Heaven And Hell single, an Alternate Tentacles compilation, then later the Old Testament box set, mostly for the book. I had yet to get anything to play them on, and had to bring them round to a mate's to hear them). l did love the amount of songs that fit on the shiny, no doubt CSI approved, fingerprint splattered discs, cos this meant that getting off my arse at least every 20 minutes to turn the album over was no longer the pain in the cock it previously had been. Although, of course, this would inevitably mean that the quality of the actual songs on the CDs would soon go skidding off downhill, like an unregulated eBike through cow turds (well, after all, it couldn’t all be Beethoven's Ninth, could it?) with the then current crop of musicians needing to fill all available 74mins with something, anything, and most inevitably just shite auld remixes and bad sub-b-sides. Of course, the storing of the more, er, compact CDs was also seen as an obvious bonus. Instead of rows of tatty old LPs scattered across your sitting-room floor, the CD's wee cracked plastic cases lent themselves perfectly to also getting scattered across the carpet, or piled up all along your flat's wall. Or, in teetering Jenga towers on every table top. 
But that was the problem too, wasn't it, the size, of CDs and their Covers (a lost Fall classic that). Nothing beat the intricate pouring-over of a good 12" album cover, as auld cunts like me are aye rattlin wur gums aboot. And don't you forget about the printed inners too, you could spend hours there, perusing them. Or at least the 20 odd minutes there was until you had to get back up off your arse again and turn the record over. Which wasn't actually a problem, back then, it only became a problem later, after the music company CD boffins gave us the technological and empowering advantage of an extra fifty minutes sat on our arses. First off, CD covers were tiny, minuscule, almost unworkable, certainly in comparison to the noble LP sleeve, so fuck trying to roll a 5 skinner on a digi-pack for starters. They were cute, I suppose, then annoying (so like most things in life). Horrifyingly though, the original album artwork that you knew and loved had been cramped down to less than postcard size. Then it became apparent, due to it's diminished point size, most text was pretty unreadable too, and it might require a magnifying glass just to see the song titles. So, then, what they did next was to forget all that text stuff and just give us a 6pp fold-out sheet for a cover. It was usually the now Action Man-sized album cover, plus four or five blurry abstract spludges- sometimes in colour, sometimes in B&W. I used to buy CDs of certain bands, and l would just know, even before l looked, that the rest of the booklet would just all be the same sub '80's Simple Minds arty blurry pics, and fuck all else yer honour. Every various one of these bands would be artistically represented by about four addition pictures that were all undistinguishable from, and interchangeable with, any other band's additional artwork. I dunno, maybe that was the point?
Right, so, anyhoo, it's 4 hours later, my prevarication and procrastination continues, no doubt fuelled by the recent realisation that the last time l shifted a crate of my records from one room to the next l cracked a rib.
And it all seemed a great idea, last night, drifting off in my scratcher.
A plan for tomorrow.
Still, I have just found a nice black faux leather note book that will do the list-y bits just fine.
Now all I need is to find a suitable pen...

[Palais23]

So, today l decided to organise my record collection, put them in order. If l can just maintain any slippery grip I may have on even a wee sliver of your no doubt already retreating and shriveling interest, l'll give you a bit of the back story. l've been buying records since l was a Tween, l suppose, back in the dying years of the 1970s. With hindsight, them weren't the best of years, to be a Tween, were they? I was clearing out my loft recently, and as well as uncovering a few old jokes from some lesser remembered comedians, l was surprised when l came across what appeared to be a copy of The Sex Offenders Registry. On closer inspection though it was just a copy of the Radio Times from 1974. 

The punk explosion hit me hard, although PTSD wasn't really bigged up so much in them days, and my first actual local record shop purchases (as opposed to the cassette tapes l'd made-up up until then; of good tunes from the charts, and radio shows, and friend's records) were My Perfect Cousin by The Undertones along with I'm An Upstart by The Angelic Upstarts (green vinyl), both from Tam Ferrie's Record Machine, Borrheid. I was buying records from that day on, getting rid of some along the way, hanging onto some, exchanging others. Back then when l used to flip through the racks of albums in well stocked record shops, my fingers would often flicker with an almost spiritual intensity, a kinda automatic-writing type phenomenon, except, mibee more accurately, it was more a flipping through racks of records like Superman in a record shop skill that l experienced, my eyes would laser-in like a T800 as the album covers flew by in a blur. I found that this forgotten muscle memory returned immediately, years later, when l started visiting record shops again. So, I suppose I'm like an X Men in that respect, mibee.

I did finally switch to CDs, but not immediately, l was a late adopter. By then I already had a no bad wee collection of records, and, early on, it just looked to me as if l would either just be buying albums l already had, or the new Dire Straits (I remember my first CD purchases were the Heaven And Hell single, an Alternate Tentacles compilation, then later the Old Testament box set, mostly for the book. I had yet to get anything to play them on, and had to bring them round to a mate's to hear them). l did love the amount of songs that fit on the shiny, no doubt CSI approved, fingerprint splattered discs, cos this meant that getting off my arse at least every 20 minutes to turn the album over was no longer the pain in the cock it previously had been. Although, of course, this would inevitably mean that the quality of the actual songs on the CDs would soon go skidding off downhill, like an unregulated eBike through cow turds (well, after all, it couldn’t all be Beethoven's Ninth, could it?) with the then current crop of musicians needing to fill all available 74mins with something, anything, and most inevitably just shite auld remixes and bad sub-b-sides. Of course, the storing of the more, er, compact CDs was also seen as an obvious bonus. Instead of rows of tatty old LPs scattered across your sitting-room floor, the CD's wee cracked plastic cases lent themselves perfectly to also getting scattered across the carpet, or piled up all along your flat's wall. Or, in teetering Jenga towers on every table top. 
But that was the problem too, wasn't it, the size, of CDs and their Covers (a lost Fall classic that). Nothing beat the intricate pouring-over of a good 12" album cover, as auld cunts like me are aye rattlin wur gums aboot. And don't you forget about the printed inners too, you could spend hours there, perusing them. Or at least the 20 odd minutes there was until you had to get back up off your arse again and turn the record over. Which wasn't actually a problem, back then, it only became a problem later, after the music company CD boffins gave us the technological and empowering advantage of an extra fifty minutes sat on our arses. First off, CD covers were tiny, minuscule, almost unworkable, certainly in comparison to the noble LP sleeve, so fuck trying to roll a 5 skinner on a digi-pack for starters. They were cute, I suppose, then annoying (so like most things in life). Horrifyingly though, the original album artwork that you knew and loved had been cramped down to less than postcard size. Then it became apparent, due to it's diminished point size, most text was pretty unreadable too, and it might require a magnifying glass just to see the song titles. So, then, what they did next was to forget all that text stuff and just give us a 6pp fold-out sheet for a cover. It was usually the now Action Man-sized album cover, plus four or five blurry abstract spludges- sometimes in colour, sometimes in B&W. I used to buy CDs of certain bands, and l would just know, even before l looked, that the rest of the booklet would just all be the same sub '80's Simple Minds arty blurry pics, and fuck all else yer honour. Every various one of these bands would be artistically represented by about four addition pictures that were all undistinguishable from, and interchangeable with, any other band's additional artwork. I dunno, maybe that was the point?
Right, so, anyhoo, it's 4 hours later, my prevarication and procrastination continues, no doubt fuelled by the recent realisation that the last time l shifted a crate of my records from one room to the next l cracked a rib.
And it all seemed a great idea, last night, drifting off in my scratcher.
A plan for tomorrow.
Still, I have just found a nice black faux leather note book that will do the list-y bits just fine.
Now all I need is to find a suitable pen...

Best post award 2023 for you.

I remember Tomorrow's World introducing CD's and making out that they were indestructible (implying that scratches, dust, sticky food fingers wouldn't make a difference).
And then when they were released, we went and bought machines to play them on at silly prices.

And what twerp designed that terrible plastic cd box which broke soon afterwards and was designed that you could not get the booklet back in again?

With my Luddite hat on and a pitch fork by my side, methinks that electric cars are the latest similar fad.

PS I too was a LP warrior as well flicking through 100's of used albums at record stores within minutes. It was the only way really, with s bored girlfriend by my side and usually something awful being played by the staff!

[MiB81]

So..a suitable pen...

Best post award 2023 for you.

I remember Tomorrow's World introducing CD's and making out that they were indestructible (implying that scratches, dust, sticky food fingers wouldn't make a difference).
And then when they were released, we went and bought machines to play them on at silly prices.

And what twerp designed that terrible plastic cd box which broke soon afterwards and was designed that you could not get the booklet back in again?

With my Luddite hat on and a pitch fork by my side, methinks that electric cars are the latest similar fad.

PS I too was a LP warrior as well flicking through 100's of used albums at record stores within minutes. It was the only way really, with s bored girlfriend by my side and usually something awful being played by the staff!

All true, I believe, except for the electric cars bit, mibee. We were fucked by the price of CDs back then too, remember? A fortune
they cost, and for a long time. I still pick up old CDs every now and then from charity shops, and it's unbelievable sometimes when there's
an original price sticker on it, from HMV or whatever; it's the equivalent of a weeks shop at Lidl.

[StanInBlack]

Although, of course, this would inevitably mean that the quality of the actual songs on the CDs would soon go skidding off downhill, like an unregulated eBike through cow turds (well, after all, it couldn’t all be Beethoven's Ninth, could it?) with the then current crop of musicians needing to fill all available 74mins with something, anything, and most inevitably just shite auld remixes and bad sub-b-sides.

This actually very, very rarely ever happened. Sure, there were one or two artists that made a point of attempting to max out the CD's total runtime, but nowhere near as many as you'd think. I can think of a lot of big selling albums of the CD era that were in the 40-55 minute range, and there were a fair amount of albums that were actually of reasonable length without taking into account things like 20 minute silences after the last track followed by a hidden track.

[MiB81]

Although, of course, this would inevitably mean that the quality of the actual songs on the CDs would soon go skidding off downhill, like an unregulated eBike through cow turds (well, after all, it couldn’t all be Beethoven's Ninth, could it?) with the then current crop of musicians needing to fill all available 74mins with something, anything, and most inevitably just shite auld remixes and bad sub-b-sides.

This actually very, very rarely ever happened. Sure, there were one or two artists that made a point of attempting to max out the CD's total runtime, but nowhere near as many as you'd think. I can think of a lot of big selling albums of the CD era that were in the 40-55 minute range, and there were a fair amount of albums that were actually of reasonable length without taking into account things like 20 minute silences after the last track followed by a hidden track.

Man, what a load of shit that waiting around for the Hidden Track malarkey was, well remembered.
I dunno, I still think, surely, albums, in general, got longer once we were into the age of CD, and the space that became available
with that medium?
We, bands, and their listeners, were, up to that point, used to working within a time frame with regard to what could
reasonably fit on each side of an LP. Due to these limitations, most single LPs had a run time of about 20 odd minutes per side,
anything much longer usually ended up sounding a bit crap (Think cheapo 20 Smash Hits from The '70s type comps- T Rex
have never sounded so filtered and heartless and lame, Tony Visconti must weep). And, speaking of the great man,Tony
himself recommended no more than 18 minutes of music per side of vinyl. So, this usually translated to about 5 or 6 songs, per
side, an album having, what, 10 to 12 songs on it (don't mention prog, please). The CD, on the other hand, and as previously
mentioned, enhanced this listening time to about 74 minutes, meaning about 30 minutes of dead air where the band are silent.
Well, that won't do, will it?
I know that there are some albums recorded and released in the CD age that are now regarded classic, where the band did
actually fill this newly available time with more songs and more tunes worth hearing, but I still think this was the exception.
Most bands did not fill this space as constructively, but fill it they damn well did. They kinda had to, to compete, the market
perception being that someone was being ripped if there was only 28 minutes of tunes, on a CD. "Fuck that", the man in
the street might think, "I'll just buy Starsailor instead, their album has 70 minutes of that same kinda stuff on it, if you like that
sort of stuff", don't you?
So, loads of added Bonus guff, then, or someone is feeling cheated.
I remember reading rock mag criticisms of classic albums when they were first re-released onto CD, and they seemed to lament how
punters would not be happy having to fork out a wad for only 30 minutes of music. Hence the need for filler, sorry, Bonus Tracks, of
indeterminable quality, The "rare" tracks, the remixes, and, yes, the Hidden (but usually not worth the fucken effort) Tracks.

[StanInBlack]

I do think albums have got longer over time. In the early to mid '60s albums were roughly in the 28 to 36 minute range, although The Rolling Stones always had long albums. Their Aftermath album from 1966 is 53 minutes long! By the end of the '60s, you had The Beatles making records that were 47 minutes long.

And sure, there were some bands/artists that took advantage of CD's longer runtime and increased sound quality, not having to worry about the limitations of the vinyl format. I can only really think of a handful of albums which really max out the format, though... Metallica's Load is a notable one as they really strove to fill the CD up to maximum capacity by their own admission.

Prince's Emancipation is a 3 hour epic, and the Smashing Pumpkins released a 2 hour long album, but they both kept the CD's to roughly an hour each.

A lot of the Britpop bands released relatively short albums. Most of them would actually fit on one slab on vinyl without any trouble.

Also, in the CD era release cycles were further apart than in the days of vinyl. In the early days, The Beatles were doing 2 albums a year at 30 minutes each. By the mid '90s you had bands releasing a 55 minute album every 2 years or so. I think what really bled bands creativity dry in the '90s was multi-formatting on CD singles. The idea of releasing 2 CD's with 6 new b-sides over the two is just insane to me now. When you consider that bands were releasing 3 to 4 singles from albums at the time, that's a lot of extra material needed!

[theraven1979]

In the 90s bands released singles with 3 tracks on the b-sides so you'd pretty much have another EP or album if they released a few singles from the initial album


Jim

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

[jetblacksdad]

There was a lot of filler though wasn't there?

[theraven1979]

From the bands I was listening to I'd say about 1 in every 6 tracks would be throwaway. Usually the quality was pretty good. Sometimes better than some of the album tracks!

Jim

There was a lot of filler though wasn't there?