People who only like old movies/music/art/etc, and automatically dismiss anything new.

Does every era have the same amount of good stuff in it? Don't you get crappy lulls when nothing much is going on?

i don't think i've met anyone like this.

What, *another* thread about Geir?

If they spend their time enthusing about what they do like and getting me into it - CLASSIC.

If they spend their time grumbling about the stuff they don't like - DUD.

(Same applies to people only into new stuff, obv)

xpost to Jed - I've never met anyone who is like this for EVERY artform, but I've encountered people who are for individual ones.

I don't mind people grumbling about stuff they don't like provided that they can back up their argument with coherent, informed reasoning and it's not just kneejerk allfieldsaroundhereism.

Where it goes wrong is where people get paid vast amounts of money, are offered top writing jobs, win awards, keys to the kingdom etc. for grumbling about stuff they don't like in order to appeal to the basest urges of tired but determined middle-aged demographic nostalgics.

To be honest that's the case when they're enthusing about what they do like: my sunny optimism is no match for the MOJO 100 Records That Changed The World.

They have a movie reviewer in a local paper who is exactly like this. He never gives any new movies five stars, but whenever they put a restored version of a classic film in the theatres, it's five stars automatically.

www.chambersharrap.co.uk:
classic (adj) 1 made of or belonging to the highest quality; established as the best.

so, good old films are good and new films might not be. sounds reasonable.

He never gives any new movies five stars, but whenever they put a restored version of a classic film in the theatres, it's five stars automatically.

TBH, I find the opposite of this far more irritating. Like critics who will automatically give the new Arctic Monkeys or whatever album five stars BECAUSE IT IS THE NEXT BIG THING rather than waiting to find out if it really is "a classic" (hah) or just the latest hype.

He never gives any new movies five stars, but whenever they put a restored version of a classic film in the theatres, it's five stars automatically

Well, that kind of makes sense doesn't it, in a way? What percentage of films in any era are classics? So he reviews 100 new films in a year and doesn't like most of them - what's wrong with that? Most of them won't be very good.

cant it just be that they have an aesthetic preference for films/music of a certain period?

"You know the type I'm talking about"

My parents?

that seems limiting, altho it's probably good to focus on certain periods for a...certain period (not too long).

the ones who feel that no good music has been made since the seventies, or that the golden age of film was the 1940s

*Puts hand up*

Lately all I've been renting is a ton of classic films noirs from the 40s. As for music, surely the 70s has it all covered. Is there really a better decade?

yes, the 90's. and the 80's. and the 00's.

1979 alone is better than those decades.

People who only like old culture = anathema to me. Such wilful refusal to acknowledge progression and improvement makes me sick.

You and Mao both

xpost
I think I can agree with that and still posit that films and our current brand of popular music (well, rock in any case) are probably past their prime.

Love of the past is an anti-revolutionary act.

I don't think I know anyone who ONLY likes old music/whatever. I mean, sure, my favourite time for music is unquestionably 76-84, but that doesn't mean I don't listen to a load of music from the 00s as well. This thread is made of straw.

Wilful refusal to acknowledge crap/average times for music (i.e. 2007) is slightly irksome.

> Such wilful refusal to acknowledge progression and improvement makes me sick.

is improvement guaranteed though? you talk as though it is.

How dare people be wilful!

How dare people be Will Fyffe!

Rock is going in directions unimaginable twenty years ago. I merely think that the truly exciting leap forwards, namely the dissolving of genre and the total confluence of modern sound onto a limitless palette, has been delayed somewhat from when I thought it would arise, as if music has collectively drawn a ten-year breath before taking the plunge. It's going to happen soon, though, and when it does, things will suddenly become a whole lot more intriguing than they ever were.

Roughly the same thing is happening with film, although more rapidly.

P.S. I have two good records from 1979, they are Secondhand Daylight and Drums And Wires. Very little else from that year strikes me as interesting given what's come afterwards. Drums And Wires itself struggles to be THAT interesting in the face of XTC's later, better, efforts. So ha!

And what about "154"?

OK I NEED TO GET THAT RECORD

WE'VE HAD THIS ONE BEFORE

People still listen to "rock"?

http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/images/cr01.jpg

Old fogies!

Any progressive person would've ditched rock by 80s.

The Fall and maybe Can probably released something in 1979 that everyone loves. They can be exempt too.

Bowie's The Lodger was 79.

Can were crap by 1979

Well, not crap, just past it

I tend to think that grand sweeping statements that only (this) made in (this) style in (this) time period is ok, or nobody should be listening to (this) after (this) date or nothing good of (this) has ever been made after (this date) are more of a problem that the fact that some people only like old stuff. The fact that such statements are routinely made by people in positions of cultural power is actually really bad!

Rock is going in directions unimaginable twenty years ago.

Name names.

it was Tucker, Sir

they never imagined it going back to the 70s, 20 years ago

People who only like old culture = anathema to me. Such wilful refusal to acknowledge progression and improvement makes me sick.

-- Just got offed, Thursday, 24 May 2007 12:24 (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

See, this viewpoint, taken to it's extreme, results in this:

filmography of actress Pauline Frederick, with preservation status listed

I merely think that the truly exciting leap forwards, namely the dissolving of genre and the total confluence of modern sound onto a limitless palette

This sounds like something someone would have said in the sixties, let alone the seventies.

Abba, Louis.

(also the melange of styles you're optimistically waiting for sounds like a vast amount of unlistenable crap with the occasional gem. A bit like music usually is, then)

Any progressive person would've ditched rock by 80s.

http://newmedia.leeds.ac.uk/acom/wakeman.jpg

namely the dissolving of genre and the total confluence of modern sound onto a limitless palette

causing blogospheric critics everywhere to panic as they try to describe and label said music.

"it's all jazz-funk now"

omg strongo was right

I label it "GLUB".

Blug House

I don't think too many musicians would say a "limitless palette" is necessarily a good thing

This is what I mean by the 'delay': for the past few years the cause hasn't been advanced as much as I'd hoped. During the 90's, SO much was done to blow away the complacent past. From post-rock to shoegaze, from fresh angles on progressivism (Mansun/Cardiacs) to the SFA/Blur/Boo Radleys psych-pop experiments, from early Mercury Rev, The Boredoms and other fresh takes on noise-rock, to the refining of metal, when we had such acts as Neurosis and Isis combining brute force with nuance and technology...it set the controls for infinity, and waved goodbye to a stagnant classicism that has sadly reared its head again in the 00's. And that's BEFORE I get onto electronic music!

Recently, the most forward-thinking records I've heard have been Oceansize's output, Foetus' latest, Ulver's 'Blood Inside', and the new double-whammy from 65DOS and Battles.

Ideally, the 'melange of styles' wouldn't resemble a melange at all, it would merely be thought of as music. Ach, curse this naive idealism!

best years for music=20s and 30s

best years for film, not sure prolly the 40s yea, some good stuff around 1971

best years for football 1924,1925,1926

why don't you just go and live there

girls werent as hot

actually, im not sure about that either

best years for girls = 20s and 30s

This is what I mean by the 'delay': for the past few years the cause hasn't been advanced as much as I'd hoped for

The "cause". LOL.

http://home.wmin.ac.uk/china_posters/16articlesLG.jpg

best years for girls = 20s and 30s

Argh, so tempted to turn this into a picture thread!

Every year is a good year for girls!

i like to think the 00s has been mostly about diffusion and refinement tho the latter is often hampered by TECHNOFLUX

if by "20's and 30's" blueski means their ages, he's probably right

i got time for the girls of all the postcodes,
i got time for the girls each year
i got time for the girls around the world
even those that never glanced at foucault

going down going down going down

i got time for the girls of all the postcodes,
i got time for the girls each year
i got time for the girls around the world
even those that never glanced at foucault

Excellent! Would have been 10/10 had it included "geezer's kiosk".

there was nothing in al capone's vault
but it wasn't foucault's fault

i let myself down in the box

best years for girls = 20s and 30s

Argh, so tempted to turn this into a picture thread!

Your wish is my command..

TS Clara Bow vs Angelina Jolie

http://venus.provocateuse.com/images/photos/clara_bow_01.jpg
http://www.worth1000.com/entries/159500/159847VBda_w.jpg

I blame Rachel Goswell's first solo outing.

I merely think that the truly exciting leap forwards, namely the dissolving of genre and the total confluence of modern sound onto a limitless palette

Since you aren't always going to be doing everything at one time, there will be choices, and there's a good chance that a set of choices with a certain family resemblance will get grouped together under the cover of some genre name.

(Also, lol at the 90s being this especially exciting time musically.)

Also LOL at most of the things LJ thinks were done in the 90s actually being rehashes of stuff done in the 80s, which I assume is this "complacent past" he's talking about.

The 90s were fairly musically exciting, but not at all for rock music.

Some people here are mixing up "limitless palette" with "Rolf Harris' palette."

actually i don't think it's necessarily odd to exclusively prefer stuff from a certain era if you're looking for a certain thing. if you like jazz, you're probably going to like stuff from the 40s through the 60s more than today's stuff. i don't have any interest at all in any literary 'scene' going on now (all those jonathans can fuck right off) but there's plenty of fiction i enjoy from other eras.

most mainstream american movies today can't even compare to the level of craft and subtlety that even a minor hollywood product from 1946 was likely to have. of course, it's quite another thing to decide that hollywood movies are the *only* kind of movies worth liking.

yeah these people blow, but no more than those who dismiss out of hand any pop culture antecedent in an attempt to be "with it"

nb I haven't really known anybody like this since early college.

OK, so let me know how everything I liked from the 90's was an 80's re-hash, and notwithstanding the fact that I also rather adore the 80's, I will be able to demonstrate how the 90's music shows clear and undeniable advancement.

It even happens within artists. I have three albums by Foetus. One came out in 1985 and is the one most commonly cited as his masterpiece. The other two came out in the 00's. The latter two are so much better, more multi-layered, complex, and well-written, that it defies belief.

I will be able to demonstrate how the 90's music shows clear and undeniable advancement

way to think all the fun out of it, louisbot.

Area Finnish Man Questions The Straitjacketed Thinking Of Others In Threadstarting Shocker!

My problem is I like to pretend to be one of these people, sort of as a preemptive strike against people who might criticize me for those tendencies in my taste.

I really do much prefer Anglophone pop music from the late 60s through the early 80s, I just would never go so far as to say that nothing has been any good since then. Likewise, I prefer Egyptian popular music from the 1940s through the early 60s, and I don't have much use for most of what I've heard from there from the 80s forward. I also vastly prefer poetry from the generation that had already come of age by WWI, and earlier generations, to that of later generations. (My taste in poetry is probaby more conservative than my taste in any other art form, which is interesting (well, to me anyway) considering how much I was into it any one point, and considering how much I gravitated toward the avant-garde end of it at the time.)

(Love the new log-in twice to post when it's a x-post feature.)

I have an inner conflict about whether or not to make fun of Foetus.

I mean right now. In my daily life, no conflict at all, I'd just laugh out loud.

For music, I can find artists I love in every decade since the 30s.

For film, there's a big dead gap between the German silent era & Tarkovsky, but it's steady after that (thanks to Japan).

For graphic design however, I will automatically dismiss anything after the Italian Futurists.

It even happens within artists. I have three albums by Foetus. One came out in 1985 and is the one most commonly cited as his masterpiece. The other two came out in the 00's. The latter two are so much better, more multi-layered, complex, and well-written, that it defies belief.

-- Just got offed, Thursday, 24 May 2007 19:58 (2 hours ago) Link

Presuming you're talking about "Nail", you couldn't possibly be more wrongheaded.

re: the concept of "progress" in music

You know the type I'm talking about, the ones who feel that no good music has been made since the seve

hahahahaha The 70s? My friend dismisses anything that's made after 1850. That's music. IF it's literature, then it's anything that's written by a woman and/or American. She's hilarious. I once tried to explain the appeal of pop music to her. Her eyes just glazed over.

I'm pretty sure the current cassette revival thrives on this phenomenon... Because (at least in here) most people who buy music cassettes are people not old enough to remember the era when cassettes were mostly for people who weren't rich enough, or didn't care enough about sound quality, to buy vinyls or CDs. I can't imagine any reason beyond retro fetishism why hip music lover would get into this crappy format.

they are too young to remember when people didn't call records "vinyls" too.

Here in Finland they were called "LP records", to distinguish them from cassette versions of the same records. And the official term for music cassettes was "c-cassettes", for reasons that remain unclear to me. But I was from one of those poor families, so for me the only records I had until 1994 were cassettes.

Letting history be your curator/editor is not a bad thing.

Not necessarily, but it's incredibly boring.

cassettes suck. i have had too many amazing albums eaten by a tape player.

CDs suck. it is easy to have a book with hundreds of them stolen. it is easier to see them decay from CD rot. and of course the skipping, my God, the skipping. have a skip on track 2? hope you've heard enough of the album!

LPs are the best. i can find one that is 50 years old that still plays all the way through, and pay less than a dollar.

i am having a real hard time paying more than $15 for music. for this reason alone i don't buy new music. i would buy it on vinyl for the longevity but yeah i'm not paying $45 for a new album.

it is easier to see them decay from CD rot.

This is a myth that seems to live on among pro-vinyl/anti-CD people, so lets debunk it one more time... "CD rot" was caused by a manufacturing flaw in a specific CD pressing plant between 1988 and 1993. It's not something that happens to all CDs; I have some 30+ year old CDs that still play fine and show no signs of "rot". And the problem hasn't really existed since 1993, so 99,99% of all CDs are not affected by it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_bronzing

IDK, I find wading through mostly terrible new music boring and I don't have time for it. Most new music of every era is terrible, and most of it is forgotten. I'm not saying I don't listen to new music, I just don't spend a lot of time checking it out -- I go on what gets strongly recommended to me by multiple trusted sources, or occasionally I might happen on something I like via spotify or something. But most new music blows, just like most old music.

unfortunately i bought many CDs manufactured between 1988 and 1993. that includes a bunch of the used market.

At the end of the year, I actually thought 2015 was a pretty good year for new music, like looking at the top albums lists I thought there were an unusual number I liked compared to recent years. But I probably spent <10% of my 2015 listening time on stuff that came out in 2015.

Sure, I agree that sucks if you have a bunch of those CDs. But in general it's not something that makes CDs an inferior medium. A lot of vinyls have manufacturing flaws too. And the same goes with your complain about CDs skipping. If you treat your CDs badly, sure, they will get scratches, which cause skipping. If you treat your vinyls badly, they will get cracks and pops and the sound quality (particularly the high sounds) will diminish. But if you treat them properly, both media work just fine. So it's not a problem with the medium but with the user.

(xpost)

yeah but treating CDs badly means, like, leaving them unprotected on a table for 10 minutes. you can take a vinyl record that is warped and melt/flatten it out in an oven. or you can clean it with wood glue. once a CD is ruined, that is it. you can even play a vinyl record that has been cracked. they are a far more durable medium.

i've never had a problem with a tape or a cd. and i like both formats fine. i still make mix-tapes. i love how vinyl sounds on tape. perfect for taping a bunch of 45s. the only problem i've ever had with anything is with CDr. getting them to play properly.

i really don't think the tape thing is much of a thing. people have always put out music on tape. if the youngsters think they are cool/fun its just a passing thing. but noise and tape label people will always be making tapes.

i still make mix-tapes. i love how vinyl sounds on tape.

Yeah vinyl sounds amazing on tape.

all formats are perfectly fine and acceptable ways to listen to music

of course if i were serious i would be making reel-to-reel mix-tapes. reel-to-reel sounds amazing. i have a friend who makes CD copies of pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes for me and they are some of the best CDs i've ever heard in my life. he doesn't do much to them. a little noise reduction mostly. outstanding sound.

"all formats are perfectly fine and acceptable ways to listen to music"

8-tracks kinda suck.

i'll take a regular cassette tape over an 8-track any day.

it is fun to finish an album, hit reverse, and end up in the middle of the 2nd song on side 1

treating CDs badly means, like, leaving them unprotected on a table for 10 minutes

Please to explain how CDs melt on contact with air, because I am unfamiliar with this phenomenon.

It feels to me like cassettes rn are more about signaling than medium, like being on a "cassette label" just means you are a certain kind of cutting edge musician with a select but dedicated audience.

i love cds but it is really really important to put them back in the case immediately, they definitely scratch easily

cd-rs are terrible but i kind of treat them as disposable and replaceable anyways, they are only a medium for playing mp3s in my car really

And the official term for music cassettes was "c-cassettes", for reasons that remain unclear to me.

Probably from the original term compact cassette.

i would guess that 80.9% of all people do not take good care of their records/CDs/tapes. whenever i hear about tapes being eaten or CDs skipping i always blame the messenger. i have been listening to tapes for over 40 years and this has never happened to me. i take really good care of stuff though. plus, you should clean your tape player every once in a while. even a little alcohol on a q-tip can work wonders...

also, don't buy old stuff that is in rough shape.

To me it seems rather obvious that every era has had it's share of crap, but as time goes by it tends to be only the good stuff that people remember, which is why bygone eras seem better than the one we're living now.

So not true - people go on about the 70s being awful all the time. 80s had Thatcher.

Are you referring to etc as opposed to movies/music/art?

i totally miss the 70's for completely selfish and nostalgic reasons that have nothing to do with the lack of legal gay marriages or black presidents. or politics or whatever.

I'm pretty sure the current cassette revival thrives on this phenomenon... Because (at least in here) most people who buy music cassettes are people not old enough to remember the era when cassettes were mostly for people who weren't rich enough, or didn't care enough about sound quality, to buy vinyls or CDs. I can't imagine any reason beyond retro fetishism why hip music lover would get into this crappy format.

― Tuomas, Thursday, January 7, 2016 3:02 PM (1 hour ago)

A lot of it is to do with tiny independent labels being priced out of the resurgent vinyl market. Plus excessively long waits for pressing plants for months around Record Store Day. CDs are pretty much seen as flimsy and disposable and not special, so what do you do if you want to put out a physical release as well as online? Go for tapes, they're still cheap and quick to make. There's definitely a bit of novelty value in there as well, but noize people have been consistently using tapes for a decade or so, so it's not even that novel.

I know I mentioned etc. but lots of rubbish gets recalled readily. 70s = prog (seen as awful), lots of highly successful pop in most eras get a beating now.

The reason we need 'revivals' is partly to remind ourselves of the good things. People mostly think of the bad which supports a 'things are getting better' narrative. In a lot of ways things have been but equally you are also aware of how much better certain things should be. xxp

"but noize people have been consistently using tapes for a decade or so"

decadeS

since there has been tape they have been using it. but consistently since the 70's anyway.

70s are amazing, i've felt many times that i could happily restrict myself to music from the 70s for the rest of my life

cassette tape that is. not tape music. which is as old as tape.

x-post

i didn't know about AIDS or crack or ronald reagan in the 70's. or bernie goetz. so, it's partially political notalgia. everyone was gonna go green in the 70's. it was all a dream.

i try not live back there though. it is also tempting for me to listen to nothing but 70's music. but i listen to 21st century stuff a lot. i haven't seen the new star wars yet.

since there has been tape they have been using it. but consistently since the 70's anyway.

― scott seward, Thursday, January 7, 2016 4:46 PM (2 minutes ago)

I guess that's true, scott. I was thinking about certain groups of noize people who I know, who didn't start getting into tape until probably ten years ago, so that was when I noticed it coming back. But I think that's more me not knowing/noticing that it was still in use in those pockets until then.

i like noise people using scratched CDs to do noise. saw some of that recently and it was really cool.

i didn't know about AIDS or crack or ronald reagan in the 70's. or bernie goetz. so, it's partially political notalgia. everyone was gonna go green in the 70's. it was all a dream.

― scott seward,

I learned about this stuff from Billy Joel

A good way to learn.

i miss afro sports. sports were cool in the 70's! hard to believe now.

I can't imagine any reason beyond retro fetishism why hip music lover would get into this crappy format.

cheapest non-digital format to produce, so it makes sense as a go-to option for physical merch. vinyl is too expensive, and paying $ for mp3s or cds (even as a gesture of support) is unappealing to some people.

you can get a 4-tape dupe machine for less than $50

burning CDrs one at a time takes forever even at max speed. you can dupe 3 full-length tapes off a master 2 mins.

"The Nineties" = 1992 - 2002.
"The Eighties" = 1982 - 1992.
"The Seventies" = 1973 - 1982.
"The Sixties" = 1964 - 1973.
"The Fifties" = 1950(?) - 1963.
"The Forties" = 1939 - 1950(?).

I know everybody will have their own dates and their own markers, based on their lived experience. But for me, the simplest way for me to classify the difference between the seventies and eighties is to think of two posters owned by my neighbor Stephanie N. (older sister of my friend Jeff).

Circa 1981, Stephanie had a Journey poster on her bedroom wall. In it, Steve Perry is singing a note that appears to emanate from his lower intestine. His eyes are tightly closed; sweat is pouring down his face. His hair looks a bit like Joan Baez's; his jeans scrupulously follow the contours of his testicles.

This poster would not have made sense in 1964. By 1983, it would have seemed simply ridiculous.

Circa 1983, Steve was gone from Stephanie's bedroom wall, which now held the icy-cool stares of Duran Duran, in white Members Only-style jackets against a backdrop of horizontal paneling with alternating stripes of lavender and aqua. Simon Lebon's lipstick matches the color of his immaculately pleated pants.

I submit to you that THIS poster would have made no sense in 1978. By 1993, it would have seemed like a joke.

For me, the eighties begin with the appearance of "Tainted Love" and "Don't You Want Me" on the top 40. My eighties are lit by a neon zigzag on a wall, probably the wall of Demi Moore's apartment in "St. Elmo's Fire." On girls, the big v-necked cotton Forenza sweaters in day-glo colors; lots of bracelets. Those Miami Vice colors - teal, salmon, white linen - all went fine with Reagan, synthpop, Max Headroom, Iran/Contra, the Challenger.

In contrast, my seventies are the earth-toned orange and brown of D.C. Metro seats, R. Crumb drawings, and the preternaturally dense lasagna from The Vegetarian Epicure. Denim vests and feathered hair on men; Diana Ross over an octave bassline in 2/4 time; a mirrored ball shining through a 'fro in the disco. Abba in sequined capes; non-ironic Selleckian mustaches in fern bars. Dustin Hoffman's neckties in the movie of "All the President's Men." It all went fine with Jimmy Carter, the energy crisis, a band called Bread, the hostages.

I'm pretty sure the current cassette revival thrives on this phenomenon... Because (at least in here) most people who buy music cassettes are people not old enough to remember the era when cassettes were mostly for people who weren't rich enough, or didn't care enough about sound quality, to buy vinyls or CDs. I can't imagine any reason beyond retro fetishism why hip music lover would get into this crappy format.

― Tuomas

you don't have to be that old to remember cassettes, and them being a budget option for people who were insufficiently rich. im 31. when I was a young kid we had precious few records on vinyl and no cd player. all of the early albums that i owned were tapes.

obv a lot of bands releasing tapes are like a decade younger than me, but economic considerations are often cited. is there some fetishism? sure. i think diy tapes are a more becoming object than a cd-r. but price is definitely a driver.

I don't go out of my way to check out very much new music at all anymore. Not that there's anything wrong with it. There's just so much of it and I'm so relatively out of the loop that I can't keep up. But I'm constantly sifting through older stuff and turning up amazing gems so I don't feel too bereft. And today's new music will be old someday and it'll get its shot then.

Currently, the 1970s are currently my 2010s. I'm perpetually astounded by how much fantastic '70s stuff I still haven't heard.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/1917267_10153466084278802_3885994459233011597_n.jpg?oh=44325ec32e6853d0293ad923c1a0165c&oe=5713B0F6

^ unless that was written before 1970, it is not worth reading. plz inform me of its date of composition so I can decide whether to read it.

the album came out in 1970. might have been written in 1969 or earlier though.

http://cdn.yourepeat.com/media/gif/000/001/555/ca07ad64420e3d1230725dbc842baff0.gif

paying $ for mp3s or cds (even as a gesture of support) is unappealing to some people.

Yeah, but it's exactly because these people find CDs unappealing (and they do, I know, because I've talked to them about it) that it feels like retro fetishism to me. I fully understand wanting to own a physical product, I still buy most music like that, but there's absolutely nothing that makes a cassette a better product than CD. CDs are not any flimsier than cassettes (cassettes can and do get damaged by the machines playing them, which never happens with CDs), CDRs are even easier and cheaper to produce than tapes, cassettes have an inherently worse sound quality due to the limitations if the format, there's even less room for cover art, liner notes, lyrics, etc. So I can't really think of any reason for preferring tapes over CDs than retroism.

A lot of it is to do with tiny independent labels being priced out of the resurgent vinyl market. Plus excessively long waits for pressing plants for months around Record Store Day. CDs are pretty much seen as flimsy and disposable and not special, so what do you do if you want to put out a physical release as well as online? Go for tapes, they're still cheap and quick to make. There's definitely a bit of novelty value in there as well, but noize people have been consistently using tapes for a decade or so, so it's not even that novel.

― emil.y, Thursday, January 7, 2016 8:42 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with this. I bought two or three new cassettes by indie bands last year (more than I bought on vinyl or (shudder) CD) and don't think it's got anything to do with retro fetishism. It's an aesthetic thing - local bands who want to design and create a physical object but vinyl is not so accessible or not marketable for one reason or another. I always liked cassettes and think they have a great sound. Plus my car has a cassette deck, as does my home system. Better than a digital download or bandcamp imo. Don't worry about it, it's fine.

Cassettes are certainly a nice car media because you can just pop them in/out and don't have to immediately shove them in a case.

So I can't really think of any reason for preferring tapes over CDs than retroism.

― Tuomas, Thursday, January 7, 2016 2:20 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not a fan of cassettes at all, i don't own any anymore and i don't desire to. but i taped shit off the radio in the early- to mid-90s all the time and the limitations of them especially w/r/t skipping tracks actually made them somewhat appealing in terms of just putting something on and letting it go, we'd often have a shoebox of tapes in the car and you'd just shove it in and play it where it left off the last time, there was something appealing about just putting something on and ceding control and just listening. i had a rental car last month with an aux input and therefore access to 200 albums on my phone and it was a little chaotic finding something to listen to and stick with

but there's absolutely nothing that makes a cassette a better product than CD. CDs are not any flimsier than cassettes (cassettes can and do get damaged by the machines playing them, which never happens with CDs), CDRs are even easier and cheaper to produce than tapes, cassettes have an inherently worse sound quality due to the limitations if the format, there's even less room for cover art, liner notes, lyrics, etc. So I can't really think of any reason for preferring tapes over CDs than retroism.

they're not for listening to though. seems like a lot of younger people stream the record when they want to listen to it and buy the tape to show support.

i listen to the new tapes that come my way because we have a boombox in the bathroom, and a tape deck in my gf's car. if those broke, not sure if i would go to the trouble of buying a new tape-playing-device or not.

CDs are a hell of a lot less robust than CDs. Cassettes can lie out of their cases on the floor of the car for years and play fine. CDs scratch easily.

Don't want to open a can of worms but in some cases cassettes have much better sound quality than CDs. And I can cite examples.

Sorry, I mean CDs are less robust than *cassettes*.

Why not just buy a digital release then if you want show support? What's the point of owning a physical release that you don't do anything with? I don't get it.

(xpost)

You do do something with it. You play it. You look at it. You own it. If that's hard to comprehend then why own anything that is not completely practical?

I dunno about you, but when I buy an album of music that I like, I don't leave them lying for years on the floor, so I don't really get this flimsiness argument. It's not like you have to treat CDs with some special care, just put them back to their cases when you get them out of the player, or at least leave them lying with the data side up. It's not that hard.

And cassettes have a much narrower dynamic range than vinyl or CDs, so their worse sound quality is a scientific fact.

The 16-bit compact disc has a theoretical dynamic range of about 96 dB[12] for a triangle wave or 98 dB for sinusoidal signals[11] (see Quantization noise model). The perceived dynamic range of 16-bit audio can be as high as 120 dB with noise-shaped dither, taking advantage of the frequency response of the human ear.[13] Digital audio with undithered 20-bit digitization is also theoretically capable of 120 dB dynamic range. Similarly, 24-bit digital audio calculates to 144 dB dynamic range.[8] All digital audio recording and playback chains include input and output converters and associated analog circuitry, significantly limiting practical dynamic range. Observed 16-bit digital audio dynamic range is about 90 dB.[12]

Dynamic range in analog audio is the difference between low-level thermal noise in the electronic circuitry and high-level signal saturation resulting in increased distortion and, if pushed higher, clipping.[14] Multiple noise processes determine the noise floor of a system. Noise can be picked up from microphone self-noise, preamp noise, wiring and interconnection noise, media noise, etc.

Early 78 rpm phonograph discs had a dynamic range of up to 40 dB,[15] soon reduced to 30 dB and worse due to wear from repeated play. Vinyl microgroove phonograph records typically yield 55-65 dB, though the first play of the higher-fidelity outer rings can achieve a dynamic range of 70 dB.[16]

German magnetic tape in 1941 was reported to have had a dynamic range of 60 dB,[17] though modern day restoration experts of such tapes note 45-50 dB as the observed dynamic range.[18] Ampex tape recorders in the 1950s achieved 60 dB in practical usage,[17] though tape formulations such as Scotch 111 boasted 68 dB dynamic range.[19] In the 1960s, improvements in tape formulation processes resulted in 7 dB greater range,[19] and Ray Dolby developed the Dolby A-Type noise reduction system that increased low- and mid-frequency dynamic range on magnetic tape by 10 dB, and high-frequency by 15 dB, using companding (compression and expansion) of four frequency bands.[20] The peak of professional analog magnetic recording tape technology reached 90 dB dynamic range in the midband frequencies at 3% distortion, or about 80 dB in practical broadband applications.

slightly below CD, better than LP

LP - 70
cassette - 80
CD - 90

informal poll: how many of you just keep CDs on a spindle?

You do do something with it. You play it. You look at it. You own it. If that's hard to comprehend then why own anything that is not completely practical?

I totally get wanting to own something physical, my point was just that I don't see any point beyond retro fetishism why it has to be a tape and not a CD. And I can understand retro fetishism too, even tho it's not my thing, but for some reason many of these cassette people don't want to admit that's what it's about, instead citing reasons why cassettes are supposedly superior, even tho those same reasons apply to other formats as well.

what part of "cheap and fast and easy for a band to make" do you not understand?

cf. Adam's point above about duplication speed

give us more scientific facts plz tuomas

bands were using CDr's for a while but they were rotting so now smaller label's, noise bands, metal bands doing selling demo tapes will use them as they still last longer than most CD'rs.
There is hipster's buying them as I know a few record shops that sell old 80s tapes that were in warehouses for 25 years are now being sold for a fiver. (still cheaper than reissue lps) and 2nd hand vinyl prices have gone up too.

CD-R's turn into frisbees pretty quickly

Usually a noise act will trade sound quality for immediacy and portability. Easy to do field recordings on tape, you have an instant master.

I dunno, I still have 10 to 15 year old CD-Rs that play fine. I admit that tapes more likely last longer, that's probably the only aspect where they're not inferior.

what part of "cheap and fast and easy for a band to make" do you not understand?

― sleeve, Thursday, January 7, 2016 9:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cf. Adam's point above about duplication speed

― sleeve, Thursday, January 7, 2016 9:56 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As I already said, it's even easier and cheaper to burn CDs. As for the speed, maybe it's different with the sort of tape music you buy, but at least in here most tape releases are for small underground acts that typically press somewhere between 30 to 200 copies of the album. I doubt the copying speed is really a big factor in their choice of format, because at the maximum it would take them one afternoon and evening to burn the music on CDs.

(xpost)

if you are recording/releasing a band on tape, all you have to do is set up a boombox, pop in a tape, hit record. you now have a tape to sell. duplicating it is quick, you can make 3 copies every 2 minutes. it takes about 2 minutes to eject a CD tray, carefully insert your CDr, close the tray, click "burn", then wait for it to write, then wait for the lead-in, then maybe if you are verifying wait for that. not to mention recording in the first place, you will need either a laptop w a mic or an external digital recorder. then you need to connect that to your cdr-burning computer and transfer the file. then you need to master it, EQ it, save it as a WAV, etc.

nobody wants to sit around all afternoon burning CDs. you can pay tape/CD/media places to do that. but on a small scale, for one-of-a-kind releases, tape is by far and away the most convenient and durable way to go.

tapes look better on shelves too

how's the sound quality on tapes these days compared to LPs? there are several newish albums i'd like to purchase that are available on cassette as well as vinyl..

They will be from the same source so probably not that much different

i have a couple of torche cassettes and they are fine

I actually bought two copies of the same album this year on both cassette and vinyl and I have to say, the cassette version sounds better. Seriously.

informal poll: how many of you just keep CDs on a spindle?

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 7 January 2016 19:49 (1 hour ago)

not me, i have never kept them in those travelcases (when I did do that if i was going somewhere i put them back in the cases when i got home) note i dont drive though and that is why most did that I think? Better than those who chucked the cds onto the backseat

Do tapes really copy that fast on boomboxes? All I remember is the option of either regular speed or high speed dubbing, and high speed was already lower quality I think.

In a lot of cities with a thriving scene there's usually some dude with a machine that copies multiple cassettes at the same time and he just does it for everyone.

They will be from the same source so probably not that much different

― Ted Nü-Djent (Cosmic Slop), Thursday, January 7, 2016 1:18 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, no duh, i'm talking about the medium.

Do tapes really copy that fast on boomboxes? All I remember is the option of either regular speed or high speed dubbing, and high speed was already lower quality I think.

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Thursday, January 7, 2016 4:22 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2BjXB4LprL._SY355_.jpg

the 4 tape duplicator models go for under $200 on Amazon but there are some 1-to-1 models for under $50 on ebay.

xpost. Cassettes are good quality these days imo. And I'm not sure about the "same source" thing. The one I mentioned that I bought in both formats this year were on different labels from different countries - one label is a cassette-only label and the other is vinyl-only. Could quite easily have been mastered differently and I think they were.

These days I only record on gramaphone

I tried that, even got a record lathe last year, but it takes some seriously knowledge to cut records into any material.

anybody who can't tell the difference between loud 320 mp3s and loud CDs has shitty hearing.

tell it to the 'hoff

if you are recording/releasing a band on tape, all you have to do is set up a boombox, pop in a tape, hit record. you now have a tape to sell. duplicating it is quick, you can make 3 copies every 2 minutes.

Do people really want to buy albums that were recorded with a bloody boombox mic?! Because I can remember me and my friends recording our homemade audio plays on those when were kids, and the sound quality was, er, not that good.

it takes about 2 minutes to eject a CD tray, carefully insert your CDr, close the tray, click "burn", then wait for it to write, then wait for the lead-in, then maybe if you are verifying wait for that. not to mention recording in the first place, you will need either a laptop w a mic or an external digital recorder. then you need to connect that to your cdr-burning computer and transfer the file. then you need to master it, EQ it, save it as a WAV, etc.

Maybe this a question of aesthetics, but I would prefer to buy albums by artists who put some effort into mixing and mastering their music, so the album I buy actually sounds good. I mean, if the artist can't even be arsed to properly mix their tunes and spend one evening burning them on CDs, it kinda makes me question how much they really care about their music.

So yeah, if getting the music into a salable physical format as quickly as possible is the reason cassettes have made a comeback, I'll concede that's it not about retro fetishism but laziness, and I'm happy that I've stayed away from the tape scene.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo-fi_music

i would rather buy an album that sounds the way the artist wants it to sound. could care less if they "put some effort into mixing and mastering their music". the world is already filled with wonderfully produced crap.

German magnetic tape in 1941 was reported to have had a dynamic range of 60 dB,[17] though modern day restoration experts of such tapes note 45-50 dB as the observed dynamic range.[18] Ampex tape recorders in the 1950s achieved 60 dB in practical usage,[17] though tape formulations such as Scotch 111 boasted 68 dB dynamic range.[19] In the 1960s, improvements in tape formulation processes resulted in 7 dB greater range,[19] and Ray Dolby developed the Dolby A-Type noise reduction system that increased low- and mid-frequency dynamic range on magnetic tape by 10 dB, and high-frequency by 15 dB, using companding (compression and expansion) of four frequency bands.[20] The peak of professional analog magnetic recording tape technology reached 90 dB dynamic range in the midband frequencies at 3% distortion, or about 80 dB in practical broadband applications

The data above refers to 1/4" reel-to-reel tape. Cassettes are 0.15" wide and have less range.

Compact Cassette tape performance ranges from 50 to 56 dB depending on tape formulation, with Metal Type IV tapes giving the greatest dynamic range, and systems such as XDR, dbx and Dolby noise reduction system increasing it further. Specialized bias and record head improvements by Nakamichi and Tandberg combined with Dolby C noise reduction yielded 72 dB dynamic range for the cassette

ah, thanks. still 2 dB better than vinyl...

Refocusing this back to the actual art, versus the medium, I'm not *exactly* a person who only likes the old and dismisses the new, but I'm in the ballpark. Trying to think of a new record I've enjoyed as much as the Greatest Hits of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich I've been listening to recently. Probably Shannon and the Clams, but they're pretty retro...

And next up in my Netflix queue: Three Against the House (1955)