Posted on 01/12/2015 7:24:14 PM PST by Squawk 8888
Albums are almost as old as recorded music. A hundred years ago when the most music a 78 RPM record could hold was four minutes, long pieces like operas or symphonies were broken up over multiple discs. Those discs were then sold in book-like packages that reminded many of photo albums. That’s how the record album got its name.
The multiple disc problem was solved by Columbia in 1948 when in June of that year, they unveiled the 33 1/3 long-playing album. When RCA countered with the 7-inch 45 RPM single a year later, the LP became the domain of “serious” music–classical, jazz, folk, Broadway show tunes–while the 7-inch ended up as the heart and soul of rock’n’roll. Adults bought albums; kids bought singles.
Oh, sure, there were rock albums, but usually only the form of a compilation of an artist’s singles. It wasn’t until the Beatles and Bob Dylan came along that the album starting becoming a thing for rock and pop. And it didn’t take long for the marketplace to adopt albums. By the end of the 60s, albums were king and stayed that way for the next thirty years.
Along the way, though, the music industry abused its customers, especially towards the end of the 90s. By phasing out singles, the industry forced people to buy an entire album for just one song. When the price of CDs didn’t come down fast enough to suit consumers, they got pissed. VERY pissed. When Napster came along and offer an opportunity to get just the songs you wanted without the filler–and for free!–there was no going back. The breakup of the album had begun.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajournalofmusicalthings.com ...
We had a bunch of Reel-to-Reel tapes when I was growing up. They sounded great.
I could have spent all day at Peaches Records when I was growing up.
A lot of young people treat music like wallpaper — they don’t actually listen to it, and the idea that people used to sit and pay attention to this stuff seems very alien to some of them.
I do that lately, use music as background, but my big kids listen and listen and go nuts to see their favorites live (they hate pop, they both have serious and differing indie tastes). They share music with me and teach me. One of them is learning two instruments from scratch.
The really good bands did concept albums. You listened to them to hear a story. That’s not done anymore because too few people have the sufficient attention span to listen to tehm and divas don’t hire songwriters with that depth of intellect.
None of you here have older teens / young 20s kids????? Vinyl is hot. Concept albums are still very much alive, Coheed and Cambria, anyone??
Those of you pining, please smile. The heart of rock and roll is still beating.
It wouldn’t surprise me (do you know an era?).
Even “78s” could have an optimal playing speed anywhere from 70 to 80 depending on the company and era (pitch bending can help make things better).
I could have spent all day at Peaches Records when I was growing up.
For us it was Tower Records, the one on Sunset, of course, with all the album art plaques in the front. You almost couldn’t go in there without seeing someone famous rifling the records back and forth. When I go with my kids to Amoeba, and rifle through a stack, that sensation is like Proust’s madeleines.
I believe the EP format was from the 1950s, but I wasn’t yet born and don’t know the release date of the one my dad had. I don’t remember him ever playing it, at least not when I was in the house.
Maybe give them to me?
Separating seeds.
Hopefully no one here does that anymore.
It’s having a resurgence. What’s old is new.
Rock is dead they say, Long Live Rock!
We lost our collection to a flood as well. It was heartbreaking. We thought we’d never go back and try to recover any of it.
Years later though, our kids started getting interested as they became young adults. We bought a turntable for our oldest, and found some vinyl of some new bands. Then we discovered that there are lots of old vinyl shops. A few here and a few there.
Now when my husband travels for work, he looks for a vinyl shop in the city or town he’s working in. He makes a special effort to get to them and peruse the selections. It’s been maybe 10 years in the process, but we have almost completely recovered his old collection, plus added ones that he always wanted. It’s been a lot of fun rebuilding it!
The artwork is amazing and we love how the vinyl sounds. Now that we have it all working again, I don’t think we’ll ever not have vinyl in the house. It’s such a nice reminder of our younger days!
So each of our three kids have their own turntables. They love helping look for albums that my husband is interested in. It’s a hobby that our whole family enjoys. I encourage you to try once more. I think you’ll find that eventually your heart heals, and that you get so much comfort from listening to tunes the way you used to.
In the middle of the 60s, the age of the "Standards" began to die. The earliest form of the "record industry" was sheet music. "Standards". It was the songwriter that was the star because there was no radio to attach the song to a specific person(s). Then Vaudville and other "traveling shows", (or the opera and orchestra) might have created singing/music stars, but until recorded music was created, and radio became a "Thing", we had songwriters and regional/local versions of the same song being sung and that is why there are so many versions of, say somewhere over the rainbow
The days of Big Songwriters writing songs that 50 people would cover to varying degrees of success were beginning to end. The "DIY" of rock and roll began (and the covering/ripping off of blues) The songs were simpler, but more personalized, and more diverse. So from the early 50s to the end of the 60s, we had a lot of singles artists making their own songs (for the kids) as the Singer/songwriter phase (for the adults) went away.
By the 70s, FM started to get momentum, and those stations began to play entire sides of albums, or whole albums. By listening to these sides on the radio we "discovered" songs we wouldn't have normally. The prog rock groups began to copy the original "concept album" that the Beach Boys and Beatles (and some say Sinatra with The Voice) pioneered.
But then again, maybe record companies pressured artists to make "an album's worth" of songs to sell the album. Maybe it's both.
Loved Peaches! I found an old crate with their logo at a vintage resale shop recently. Snapped it right up!
Well Frank Zappa explained what happened.
In the 60s, it was the old guys with the cigars who decided who would get signed, their attitude was “who knows, we’ll give it a shot, maybe it will sell.”
Then in the 70s, the young “hip” guys took over and since they were young and hip, they just “knew” what would sell. And thus enter “Corporate Rock.”
From your own account, it would seem that you valued the "albums" themselves exclusively, since the vinyl discs themselves, containing the music, must surely have been intact. I can understand that, but let's be real.
My charity maintains a Home for homeless and wayward records, keeping them warm and dry, well-scrubbed and cherished. If your records need a good home, you could box them up (don’t forget to punch a hole in the box so they can keep breathing!) and send them to me down here in Florida.
I remember very well the 45 rpm days, when nobody had anything to say, but they said it well. These records cost 75 cents or so. IIRC. I remember walking home from the A&P with my purchase of the Markeys’ Last Night, thinking about how great a thing it was that I should be doing this, in so many thoughts. I know I was looking at the record in my hands and feeling this!
Ah, Bartelby! Ah, humanity!
The albums were probably not the only things damaged, and when you lose so much with one fell swoop, you don’t think all that clearly. When we had a flood, my husband was so devastated with the loss that, in his grief, he forgot that the vinyl would still be good. It was such an emotional thing. We threw all of that, plus our other ruined things, in the nearest trash receptacle. When we started rebuilding his collection, we realized how foolish we had been, but at the time, it seemed like the right decision.
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