No Sugarcoating & No Bullshit: August
Written by Jo Hayes
Sunday, 25 August 2013 03:40
Hello again Uber Rockers. It’s time for your monthly dose of rock ‘n’ roll blogging nonsense.
In one of my usual organised brain storming sessions for this blog (maybe not that organised, just thinking of something music related, then what stems off that), I was listening to Mike Monroe ‘Dead, Jail or Rock ‘n’ Roll’. I thought that his new album might be released early on MP3, as a huge fan of Mike and Hanoi Rocks, I’m practically chomping at the bit to hear his new album, but of course, I’ll have to wait until Monday as the release date is the same as it is for CD and Vinyl, damn it.
All of this got me thinking about music formats, and what the best format is, whether it’s for sound, practicality, feel or just pure nostalgia. Now I did have a record player as a kid, but I didn’t really have any records to play on it (nothing I can remember anyway). I also had no idea what a 7”, EP or an LP was, and this I have only learnt in the past five years – once after incorrectly labelling a Loyalties & Radio Dead Ones split single as an LP on the merch table, then getting laughed at. You live and learn, eh?!
The first format I used and owned was the Cassette Tape, and I’d often record anything decent off the radio (I think I had various recordings of Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’), and play it back again at my leisure. Copying from one tape to another to make a mix-tape was quite fun, although I remember it taking ages, I remember feeling quite acomplished afterwards. The one big downside was when your tape player decided to chew the tape, or if there was a song you didn’t like, there was lots of fast forwarding and rewinding, and the dreaded squealing noise that went with it. The sound of the tape wasn’t amazing, especially after you’ve played something a few times, and I have a habit of playing things to death if I like them.
Moving on to CDs, I remember thinking how amazing they were, the fact that it would take one second to skip a track, and that you could put an album on repeat, whereas tapes you had to actually get up and turn it over (such a chore). The sound of a CD beat the Cassette Tape in my opinion, unless of course I’d forgotten to put it in its case, then the smudges and scratches would cause the CD to have an impromtu remix sound, much like a shitty dance ‘song’, and skip.
My CD collection used to be huge, after having to move so much and getting sick with the amount of boxes I had, I decided a few years ago to back it all on to an external hard drive, and sell it on Amazon, along with all of my DVDs. So now I mainly listen to MP3s & MP4s, although I don’t notice them being as tinny as I used to. I remember MP3s used to sound bloody awful, which put me off joining the 21st century and getting an MP3 player, as I much preferred my CD walkman!
Despite being dragged round various record shops over the years by my Dad, where he used to seemingly go through every single item in the shop, (even those he didn’t like), which bored me to tears, I actually got a liking for record shops in my teens. Although by my teens it was CDs I was buying rather than records. I used to listen to bands on the radio or hear them on P-Rock TV or similar, and order the CD, then be excited when I got a phone call the following week saying it was ready.
After working for a record mail-order company and packing records every day, I started to get quite fond of vinyl. The one thing you don’t get with MP3s and MP4s is a physical product, no sleeve, no lyrics, just the songs and the tracklisting on your computer. Obviously CDs have the booklet, etc, but I like the size of an 7” or LP, the sleeve is much more striking, and the vinyl sound is so much better than any of the aforementioned formats. I maybe own five LPs (which of course I know by now are albums), and a few 7” singles, and if I had the money and space to replace my music collection with vinyl then I would.
I think it’s sad nowadays kids have only known the digital format, and also actively steal albums online all the time, just because they can, but I guess they don’t realise what them downloading an album for free means, the loss the record shop and jobs along the chain (distributors, etc).
Ah well, what can we do about it? Not much, although I’m sure there enough die-hard vinyl collectors to keep some record shops going. I have a bit of nostalgia of hanging out in record shops (the days where I went of my own accord), mainly because you could listen to music before you bought it, even if you didn’t buy anything – which I’m sure pissed off the staff in the shops no end.
Anyway, I’m going to try and get my Glunk fix before Monday some other way. Will I go out and buy Mike Monroe’s album? Or will I just download it? It depends how impatient I am!
Until next time…
Jo