Record Collection Recollections #9: The Great Vinyl Debate

I read a very interesting post by Ian McNabb on the Book of Faces last week. You might have seen it yourself. If not, here's what he had to say in reference to the image above...

Let's kill this myth.

As a practitioner I have been into the minutiae of this well-debated subject a hundred times. I have lived with a song from its inception to its release into the world.

The original mix, either on tape or digital, gets mastered before we the public get to hear it. This is CRUCIAL to the process. In the eighties when CDs first appeared they were often mastered from poor sources - usually ancient production masters, frequently second or third generation. They sounded quiet, muddy and flat.

As we became a CD consuming global market things improved. CDs were mastered with greater care and consumers began demanding higher quality for their money, often starting at £14.99 (!).

Then the LOUDNESS WARS began in the mid-nineties. Mastering engineers began brick-walling mixes (making the CDs louder at the expense of definition and dynamic range). This meant compression and lots of it, making prolonged listening a slog and rather tiring after ten minutes.

Since then mastering has gotten pretty good. 

I've forensically analysed my own finished CDs and vinyl. To the point of madness. Vinyl is a great experience, largely due to size of the artwork and the ritual freeing the vinyl from its sleeve and placing it on a turntable. From that point on its a disappointment.

 Unless you've spent a lot of money on your hardware the vinyl is never going to sound as good as the CD - even on an entry-level system.

Vinyl is a LOSS format.

As for MP3s/streaming, well that's the way most people are going to hear the music. All streaming services have their own algorithms and the music sounds perfectly serviceable even to my professional ears.

I fell in love with music listening to vinyl and cassettes in the 70s - usually played through cheap systems and Walkman headphones. MP3s sound a lot better.

So there!

Should you be interested, my music is available in high-quality at ianmcnabb.bandcamp.com

You can chose your format.

IX

I don't own a turntable anymore, and sometimes that makes me sad. I love the warmth of vinyl, the crackles, dropping the stylus into the groove and waiting for the music to start. It reminds me of being a boy, of my first adventures in record collecting, of my early days in radio, cueing up 7" singles on pre-fade (and trying to remember to make sure I have the fader down... there's nothing more embarrassing that cueing up a song over the top of the one that's playing out live on air). 

Todd Snider - Vinyl Records

But I don't own a turntable any more, and I don't have any vinyl. I had to make a choice about ten, twelve years ago, and if I was still going to have a record collection (rather than just going all-digital, as many people have), CD was the only option that made sense. They take up less room, they're a lot cheaper than vinyl (both new and second hand), and the romantic notion of having the time (or the space) to sit down and listen to an LP in the old-fashioned way... well, it wasn't happening any more and the chances of it happening again in the foreseeable future were negligible. 

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - I Hate CDs

Most of my listening is done in the car on my way to and from work (that's at least two hours a day right there) or late at night as I'm drifting off to sleep. That music comes from memory stick, burned CD compilations and streaming. If I'm at home alone, I will occasionally still pull a CD off the shelf and give it a spin in the way god intended, but the majority of CDs on my shelves have not seen the inside of a CD player in ten, twenty, thirty years... you might ask why I bother to collect them then, and I'm not sure I really have an answer for that. You either get it or you don't.

Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage - LPs

Those of you who still have big vinyl collections... well, I am jealous, but I've made peace with my decision. Still, I found Ian McNabb's post heartening, that in his eyes at least, I'm not some musically-challenged second class citizen. Maybe in my retirement years, I'll but myself a cheap second hand turntable and dabble in the delights of vinyl again. I must be prepared to dream...

2019 Latecomers: Bad Wiring

Thanks go to Chris for pointing me in the direction of the new Jeffrey Lewis album, released late last year. It's been a while since Lewis has popped up on my radar, but there's a fine set of songs here that appeal to a grumpy old man who's rarely impressed by anything these days.

The song that caught Chris's ear was LPs, and I'm sure it's one which will strike a chord with many of you as Lewis relates his youthful addiction to vinyl (because it was cheap and nobody wanted it in the late 80s, early 90s)... but there's a sting in the tale. He doesn't buy LPs anymore. I wonder if you can guess what he buys instead...



But there's much more to be enjoyed on this album as Lewis embraces true Grumpy Old Man status and sinks his teeth into his very own Mid-Life Crisis (I'm reassured to see he's only three years younger than I am).

So he tells us...

I must be out of my mind

Because everything's fine

Except for the fact that it isn't

And he laments the fact that he takes it for granted...

And I’m glad when we are eating and discussing our plans

I know we’ll already be hanging out next weekend in advance

That’s what makes relax, that's what makes it a life

When you don’t have to worry about these things every night

It’s not a very good fire if it stays when you fanned it

What’s the point if we can’t just take each other for granted

There's loads more misery to go at, including the gloriously titled Depression! Despair!, but my favourite is definitely this...

My girlfriend doesn’t question the psychology of Charles Manson

What does it say about the human condition?

Why are people so receptive to listen?

And why is confidence alone such a magnet?

It’s unfair the way some people have it

And they seem to do the things that they want to

We all just get away with all that we can do

Because it’s only sexiness that has any value

And all society just falls by the wayside

Into the hierarchy of cult and apparent

And it’s genetics to be masters of victim

And does hedonism go with corruption?

Why are we drawn to dramas of domination?

These are massive, giant, troubling, consuming thoughts that I’m thinking

But I think she’ll just think it’s annoying so I don’t bring it up

She says, “why are you thinking of him? 

You should think about your family and friends and about our relationship”

I bet it's a laugh a minute being Jeffrey Lewis' girlfriend.

Find more Jeffrey Lewis on Bandcamp.

My Top Ten Songs About Songwriting

In a much-requested sequel to last week's post on Songwriters, here's ten songs about "the process"...


10. Jeffrey Lewis - Songs About Songwriting Suck

Let's start with a tune that rules this whole Top Ten insignficant.

There's nothing wrong with singing songs about being low and blue
Just don't feed me crap about how you know you're saying nothing new
Either have the confidence to tell me something real or something fun
Or put down the guitar until the muse returns to turn you on

I agree with him in principal, but if we followed Jeffrey's Law, the world would never have heard the nine gems below...

9. Barry Manilow - I Write The Songs

Deano suggested this last week, although he went for a cooler cover. But I'm not ashamed to say there are Barry Manilow records in my collection, or that I enjoy getting them out from time to time. On first listen, the idea that "I write the songs that make the whole world sing" seems a little arrogant. Until you realise that old Manly Barrimore (copyright Terry Wogan, 1981) isn't staking this claim for himself. Oh, no: this record is written from the perspective of Music itself.

I've been alive forever
And I wrote the very first song
I put the words and the melodies together
I am music and I write the songs

Beat that, Sting!

8. Eels - I Write The B-Sides

Which brings us to E's gloriously self-deprecating riposte to the Bazzer Boogie...

I write the b-sides
That make a small portion of the world cry
I like the seaside
And singing songs that make you not wanna die

Wonderful stuff.

7. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Wrote A Song For Everyone

A common theme in John Fogerty's songwriting was protesting against the Vietnam War draft, and this one starts in similar vein. The twist in the chorus is rather sweet though, taking us from protest anthem to ballad, as Fogerty admits he can write a song for everyone... but he can't write one for you.

6. Justin Currie - Every Song's The Same

Ah, heartbreaking cynicism, thy name is Currie. Here's your basic songwriting lesson from JC... the second line should rhyme with something in your baby's heart.

5. The Blazing Zoos - I Didn't Have The Material (Before Now)

Phew. For a second I thought the internet was going to let me down. Youtube hadn't heard of it, but fortunately I was able to locate Andrew Mueller's twanging comic-country genius on Soundcloud. If you've never heard The Blazing Zoos before - and I'd be surprised if you had - give this one a spin, please, and hear Mueller tear strips off the woman who gave him everything he needed to pen this tune...

Always wanted to write a country song
But  never had a girl who did me wrong
I didn't have the material... before now!

4. Art Brut - Formed A Band

This one will surely make its way into my inevitable Top Ten Songs About Being In A Band, when I get round to that, and you might think it'd be more appropriate there. Except for the wonderment of verse 2...

I want to be the boy -
The man -
Who writes the song
That makes Israel and Palestine
Get along
I'm gonna write a song
As universal as Happy Birthday
That's gonna make sure
That everybody knows
That everything's gonna be OK
I'm gonna take that song
And we're gonna play it
Eight weeks in a row on Top of the Pops

Eddie Argos hasn't been the same since they cancelled TOTP.

(And, yes, that is his singing voice. It's not irony. It's not rock 'n' roll. He's just talking to the kids.)

3. Harry Chapin - There Was Only One Choice

At almost 14 minutes in length, this is a masterclass in songwriting from one of the best in the business. An autobiographical rage against the machine-cum-sage lesson in life, it's epic in every way.

Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did

2. Bruce Springsteen - Dancing In The Dark

The story has become legend. Bruce had written the majority of the songs for the album that would become Born In The USA, but (to quote Tom Petty), "The A&R man says he don't hear a single." And so he was tasked with writing a radio hit... and the ensuing struggle with writers' block is chronicled metaphorically in the lyrics to Dancing In The Dark.

I get up in the evening
And I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired
Man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help
You can't start a fire
You can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark

The irony, of course, is that he almost did his job too well, creating his biggest ever radio hit... and launching Courtney Cox's career in the video to boot. But the album had plenty more singles to come...

1. The Beautiful South - Song For Whoever 

Songwriter Paul Heaton had me from that inspired opening...

I love you from the bottom of my pencil case

...but by the time Dave Hemingway hits the line about loving you because of the "PRS cheques that you bring", it became clear that nobody had ever written a love song about the fringe benefits of writing a love song before... even if they couldn't remember exactly which girl they wrote this one for.

Deep, so deep
The Number One I hope to reap
Depends upon the tears you weep
So cry, lover, cry

Oh Cathy, oh Alison
Oh Philippa, oh Sue
You made me so much money
I wrote this song for you...

See also Throw His Song Away, Prettiest Eyes, One Last Love Song, My Book... and many more. In fact, Heato's probably written more songs about songwriting than any other lyricist (since, credit where it's due, the music was mostly written by Dave Rotheray). And, no, Jeffrey Lewis, none of them suck.


So... those were my favourite songs about songwriting. Which one do you love from the bottom of your pencil case?