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An industry commits suicide and blames us
- dsirijus 14y agoDuring the holiday season 2011/2012, the most sold record in the most popular record store in Croatia (4+ million people) sold 52 copies. And that was a land slide against the second most popular record - 16 copies sold. I was flabbergasted with that info, thought the numbers would be MUCH higher.
- benologist 14y agoThis has nothing to do with the recording industry. The reason the record is / has died is progress. The labels didn't shut down record stores in Costa Rica, people stopped caring about them. There barely even is a recording industry in Costa Rica and this is the most developed country of centroamerica. The reason latinos want MP3s and MP3 players is they're cheap as piss and they can jump on limewire in any internet cafe and download more songs. It's convenience and it's progress and it's why the MP3 won everywhere, not just in CR.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoInterestingly, the vinyl record is still making a comeback in the US, even while MP3s continue their inevitable spread.
- benologist 14y agoIt doesn't really matter in a country like CR though - it's got a tiny population and online shopping is a pain in the ass, it can barely even contribute to a revival let alone support one within its own borders.
- anigbrowl 14y agoI used to DJ and think something has been lost with the virtualization of media, which is why I'm in no hurry to get a Kindle. But when you say vinyl's making a comeback, I'm skeptical of whether this amounts to more than a niche market of hipsters, among whom the space and cost requirements of collecting vinyl can serve as a status marker. Could you expand on your comment?
- annon 14y agohttp://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120104vinyl/ http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120104vinyl/
- rrreese 14y agoIt would be nice if you mentioned what was in the link rather then posting it without context. In this case: "It's Official: Vinyl Sales Up 39 Percent In 2011..."
- donall 14y agoI thought the context was abundantly clear from the parent, although adding the title undeniably provided enough information to allow me to skim over the link altogether!
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- relix 14y agoThe bashing of MP3 in that article is unwarranted. I can't find any decent source, but I'm pretty sure a 192kbps MP3 is indistinguishable from a CD for 99.999% of the people. Especially with the crappy included headphones everyone is using. I would bet you my day salary I could find an article from 30 years ago, bashing CD's vs vinyl in exactly the same way.
- geon 14y ago> bashing CD's vs vinyl in exactly the same way And tubes vs. mosfets.
- raverbashing 14y agoI though it was tubes vs. bipolar junction transistors And mosfets behave much more like a tube than them. Oh well...
- antris 14y agoMany (most?) vinyls are pre Loudness War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war). But CDs are mostly post Loudness War, where all the sound has become wimpy due to bad mixing practices driven by marketers. This also affects digital music, no matter how it's compressed. So in general, many vinyls actually do sound more dynamic and clear. It's not because of the media, but because of how they were produced at different times in the industry.
- ZoFreX 14y agoWhich is hugely ironic as the major advantage of CDs over vinyl (at least, the one that was touted back then) is their wider dynamic range. Which we now use all of 5% of.
- dedward 14y agoYup - and to be fair, there were, especially earlier on, some CDs that were mastered beautifully, and sound just fantastic on a half decent setup (no crazy stuff... just decent speakes and a plain old amp). I recall hearing some Pink Floyd at a friends place and saying "Holy crap! What are you listening to? That's an amazing recording" and he pops out a CD, from a regular old CD player and his homebuilt heathkit amp, and a pair of speakers that looked like he picked them up back in the 70s.... point being, the dynamic range was there. You can generally tell it's there when you put the CD in your car and say "Hey that's too quiet"... that's a good candidate for some more serious listening.
- Altenuvian 14y agoblaming the decline of the industry on the sound quality of mp3 is plain bs. well encoded mp3 with bitrates higher than 169kbps have repeatedly been shown indistinguishable from the original. for an informed discussion and public listening test you may want to check the hydrogenaudio forums: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showforum=40 http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showforum=40 more background info in this article on audio codecs by christopher “monty” montgomery of ogg-vorbis fame: http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
- mechanical_fish 14y agoSee "Loudness War", above, and the comments below that one. Yeah, MP3s can be great if producers actually use them for greatness.
- smackay 14y agoThe author's argument is based on the emotional appeal of vinyl and the experience of purchasing from people who care about the music they sell. I'd tend to agree that in the world of music company profits and MP3s (notice there were no references to CDs in the article) that this has been lost and in some ways this is regrettable. A high value experience for people who care passionately about something is always going to be at odds with mass market appeal - the article could also be written for bookstores - and it is entirely possible that the value the author put in records and record stores was purely an accident of change, the same way that listening to early radio broadcasts on a valve-based, bakelite set was or people sitting around a piano to share songs. I like the imperfect translation from Spanish to English it greatly adds to the style and appeal of the article.
- ommunist 14y agoThis is why I bought some ethnic percussions and learned how to play. I enjoy it a lot more now than listening to flattened mp3 drums. Small live concerts is the place where the music lives now. Like one I visited in Prague during the last Xmas. You know, these guys don't even care for a "record". They earn their living by playing live. Like it was hundreds of years ago. And I personally think, it should be like this.
- brudgers 14y agoThe death of "record" stores is just part of a larger tragedy in retail sales where cashiers have become scripted popups during checkout rather than being able to interact like with customers as intelligent adults. When I buy some pens at the office supply store, the poor cashier has to give me the same pimp for copy paper and the online survey she just gave to the two customers in front of me. The bookstore is the worst. I remember when (Hey! You kids get off my lawn!) bookstore cashiers were expected to ask about or remark upon or share knowledge about books. No I don't want to buy the gold discount card, subscribe to People or go online for a chance to win. If I wanted to go online I'd already have ordered from Amazon. And get this, Amazon doesn't ask me to fill out a survey or pimp magazine subscriptions.
- dedward 14y agoOn the upside - now I know where to find an actual record store, even if it's across town...