Sunday, August 12, 2007

Today is Vinyl Record Day, Supposedly

Supposedly, one hundred and thirty years today, Edison made his first recording. Edison was however so closed-minded that he imagined recording as an office efficiency device and not a music carrier. Indeed, when recorded music did come into fashion -- just showing how pigheaded he was -- he personally surveyed every singer that came by his door dismissing them if they even deviated once from what he considered good singing out to be. Some of these recordings are now known to have survived. Fortunately, cooler (and less anti-semitic) heads prevailed and a music industry was born. While there are those that still play and collect vinyl -- for god knows what reason --the lowly CD is most probably on its way out too. I don't however think people should get too upset about the diminished sound quality of the MP3 -- they really can be that good and you need good equipment to hear the differences of recordings made below 160 kps -- memory and bandwidth will be so cheap that all will be delivered without loss. I'll be sure to spin an lp or two today.
Yours in PVC.