Brands and trends
When the LP started, vinyl was real good. The best preserved in my collection are early 50s and 60s LPs. Later things went awry at production plants. Companies needed more copies, more profits - quality dropped till it became a nightmare. You'd never ever come across a "dished" LP during the 50s and 60s unless you really treated it so badly it could become it. But late 60s and 70s they came "factory-dished", all wrapped up in their "protective" celluloid panties, sealed and all. Protect against what? The damage was done in the factory.
The first signs of the big crisis came with the deletion catalogues. Records that didn't sell what the companies thought they should succumbed to the axe. Later some cheaper reissues started coming along. The public demanded certain numbers to be reinstated. Many did. More didn't. And then came the CD revolution. And with it a new lease of life for recordings once thought lost forever. People were crazed with dBs, with no noise, no clicks and pops - demanded highest fidelity and thought a mono recording an anathema. Who cared? And yet, it came that CD made almost the entire back catalogue surface again. Be it by the rights-owning companies themselves, be it by thirds that loaned the masters and published under license, be it bootlegs or private reissuers of forgotten LPs, it cannot be denied that digital brought back recordings that would have never appeared again on vinyl.
Purists complained of course. Vinyl was god, sacrosanct for the happy few who could afford the exorbitant prices prime vinyl issues are sold today and the high cost of quality playback components. But not only high-enders raved. Everyone did – it became a trend: Oh! the sweetness of vinyl, the naturalness of the sound, the pure harmonics. You never knew whether they couldn't hear all this on CD or if it was the surface noise, the tape hiss and the ubiquitous clicks that gave them their kicks. I still don't know which.
Then SACD and 20-bit processing tamed some of the purists. "Vinyl" quality sound they said. Maybe so. But companies took their ounce of flesh: prices are steep for these goodies and who can re-upgrade to SACD players or hybrids?
But assuming you pay the price, let's look at the CD today. The last 10 years there’s a surging wave of reissues of old recordings. And a huge market for them. So why? Why turning to the past, when all-new, brand-new recordings, in surround, in 20-bit, in realistic, amazing sound are available? Want a clue? I have one. Recording is nearing perfection. But recorded artists... far from it. Do you want a Beethoven cycle by sir Simon Rattle and the BPO? The Gramophone does. Do you? No, thanks. I'd be much much happier to have as my n-th Beethoven cycle the Naxos Weingartner. Really. Ever heard any of the series? Do. You are in for a life enhancing experience and a big surprise: how modern is classical.
I'll be back on the subject perhaps later.
The first signs of the big crisis came with the deletion catalogues. Records that didn't sell what the companies thought they should succumbed to the axe. Later some cheaper reissues started coming along. The public demanded certain numbers to be reinstated. Many did. More didn't. And then came the CD revolution. And with it a new lease of life for recordings once thought lost forever. People were crazed with dBs, with no noise, no clicks and pops - demanded highest fidelity and thought a mono recording an anathema. Who cared? And yet, it came that CD made almost the entire back catalogue surface again. Be it by the rights-owning companies themselves, be it by thirds that loaned the masters and published under license, be it bootlegs or private reissuers of forgotten LPs, it cannot be denied that digital brought back recordings that would have never appeared again on vinyl.
Purists complained of course. Vinyl was god, sacrosanct for the happy few who could afford the exorbitant prices prime vinyl issues are sold today and the high cost of quality playback components. But not only high-enders raved. Everyone did – it became a trend: Oh! the sweetness of vinyl, the naturalness of the sound, the pure harmonics. You never knew whether they couldn't hear all this on CD or if it was the surface noise, the tape hiss and the ubiquitous clicks that gave them their kicks. I still don't know which.
Then SACD and 20-bit processing tamed some of the purists. "Vinyl" quality sound they said. Maybe so. But companies took their ounce of flesh: prices are steep for these goodies and who can re-upgrade to SACD players or hybrids?
But assuming you pay the price, let's look at the CD today. The last 10 years there’s a surging wave of reissues of old recordings. And a huge market for them. So why? Why turning to the past, when all-new, brand-new recordings, in surround, in 20-bit, in realistic, amazing sound are available? Want a clue? I have one. Recording is nearing perfection. But recorded artists... far from it. Do you want a Beethoven cycle by sir Simon Rattle and the BPO? The Gramophone does. Do you? No, thanks. I'd be much much happier to have as my n-th Beethoven cycle the Naxos Weingartner. Really. Ever heard any of the series? Do. You are in for a life enhancing experience and a big surprise: how modern is classical.
I'll be back on the subject perhaps later.
posted by the_third_man at 8:40 PM
3 Comments:
As you concur on the Weingartner cycle, afc, so do I for the Zinman. I am not a reader of Gramophone any longer (perhaps I am losing a great change), but I had in mind an older generation of this publication's contributors that led me to drop my subscription after many decades. I'll talk about them in a later post. Thank you for your input.
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My dear Third MAN, it seems that you and I are very much alike... I would like to talk to you further. I also dropped my subscription to Gramophone and have since, subscribed only to ICRC now CRC, which is dedicated to historical recordings. I live very far away from you but we seem to have the same tastes and views on many things... Will be back here often to talk about what you discuss....
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