A Rip In Time
Sunday, 9. March 2008, 23:11:38
For a year and a half I have been ripping my vinyl and tape to modernize my musical library. Today music is digital, consisting of a download in mp3 format or a WAV in CD format. So I am converting to both. I know that the MP3 is more modern, but I like a physical representation of my music. (Plus I haven't succumbed to buying a converter for my car so that I can listen to MP3 tracks on my car's sound system. I tend to think that the standard MP3 doesn't have the sound quality of a CD.)
It struck me today for not the first time, that I am listening to a slice of time when I rip my older musical library. It was vinyl, vinyl, vinyl for me and many others from the time we came of musical age until cassette tapes became ubiquitous. Those darn 8-tracks were an evolutionary dead-end, similar to the Neanderthal. I recall that cassettes became a viable medium sometime in the late 1970's. I bought a high-end cassette deck in 1978 I think. (1979?) But I continued to buy vinyl as my "music delivery system" until well into the 1980's. It wasn't until about 1985-1986 or so that I started to record every vinyl record onto tape when I listened to it. Even then, I still bought vinyl for several reasons: (1)used vinyl was one of my music sources and who ever bought used tape? (2)from 1986 through the mid 90's vinyl was discounted because consumers abandoned vinyl quicker than did the manufacturers of it. (3)Some of the music vendors were slow to adopt tape as a medium.
Last weekend I ripped four pieces of vinyl: The Who's Who's Next, Sugarloaf's debut album, Wendy Waldman's Strange Company,
and a greatest hits compilation for Blood, Sweat & Tears. The middle two were purchased "as it happened" and represent the fact that vinyl was ubiquitous in the 70's. I bought the other two as vinyl was being consigned to the remainder bins because no one wanted it anymore.
But mostly, in my collection when I look at the vinyl I'm looking at 1966 to 1980 or 1982. From that point on, if it isn't from some minor label, it's on cassette tape. And from 1991 to present, if it isn't on CD, than it represents a really good buy from some discounter or used music store.
Today I ripped David Bowie's retro band Tin Machine's first cassette tape, self-title (check it out if you liked Ziggy Stardust). And now I'm ripping The The's album Infected, again on cassette tape. They're both from the mid to late 80's.
It's weird how physical things can indicate time. Not so much like an old rocker indicates a long ago time, but how the medium on which your music resides indicates when it was purchased. I don't know--this is probably something of interest only to older persons such as myself.
It struck me today for not the first time, that I am listening to a slice of time when I rip my older musical library. It was vinyl, vinyl, vinyl for me and many others from the time we came of musical age until cassette tapes became ubiquitous. Those darn 8-tracks were an evolutionary dead-end, similar to the Neanderthal. I recall that cassettes became a viable medium sometime in the late 1970's. I bought a high-end cassette deck in 1978 I think. (1979?) But I continued to buy vinyl as my "music delivery system" until well into the 1980's. It wasn't until about 1985-1986 or so that I started to record every vinyl record onto tape when I listened to it. Even then, I still bought vinyl for several reasons: (1)used vinyl was one of my music sources and who ever bought used tape? (2)from 1986 through the mid 90's vinyl was discounted because consumers abandoned vinyl quicker than did the manufacturers of it. (3)Some of the music vendors were slow to adopt tape as a medium.
Last weekend I ripped four pieces of vinyl: The Who's Who's Next, Sugarloaf's debut album, Wendy Waldman's Strange Company,
and a greatest hits compilation for Blood, Sweat & Tears. The middle two were purchased "as it happened" and represent the fact that vinyl was ubiquitous in the 70's. I bought the other two as vinyl was being consigned to the remainder bins because no one wanted it anymore.But mostly, in my collection when I look at the vinyl I'm looking at 1966 to 1980 or 1982. From that point on, if it isn't from some minor label, it's on cassette tape. And from 1991 to present, if it isn't on CD, than it represents a really good buy from some discounter or used music store.
Today I ripped David Bowie's retro band Tin Machine's first cassette tape, self-title (check it out if you liked Ziggy Stardust). And now I'm ripping The The's album Infected, again on cassette tape. They're both from the mid to late 80's.
It's weird how physical things can indicate time. Not so much like an old rocker indicates a long ago time, but how the medium on which your music resides indicates when it was purchased. I don't know--this is probably something of interest only to older persons such as myself.
WIDGETIZE