It's kind of funny but you know they say everything goes around in circles? Well, it's true! Back in the early 1900's it was considered to be a major technological achievement to be able to sit down and listen to a recording of the human voice and / or music lasting no longer than 3-4 minutes per side of 78rpm shellac disc. As recorded repertoire expanded gradually and very slowly we reached a point when the "record buying public" had grown to such an extent that demand outstripped supply, it became economic for large orchestras and ensembles to record extensive classical pieces. It was possible to go out and purchase an "album" of single shellac records carefuly bound together with an index at the front. An entire piece of classical music could be recorded over 24 sides of 12" diameter shellac record. Into the 1930's and with the advent of electrical operation and amplification it was even possible to stack records so that they would play through on an auto-changing mechanism. The art of refinement, convenience and luxury. Sigh.
Then in the late '40's Columbia developed the Long Playing Record with microgroove imprinted surface so an entire side would last up to 30 minutes in length. These new records were made from vinyl. By the turn of the '60's, the "album" was destined to become a popular culture art form due to bands like The Beatles and solo artists like Bob Dylan carefully writing songs with thematic content and programming each "side" carefully with a lot of attention on production, the packaging artwork etc. As listeners' demands and expectations grew, in part preceded by the requirement to get a full length classical recording on a single disc without compromise in sound quality, there was the advent of the Compact Disc and digital recording. For 3 decades this format has been very successful, however no one can deny that the outright lie perpetrated on the listening public that CD offered "Perfect Sound Forever" further hid the obvious truth that vinyl records were still superior to digital discs in terms of sound quality. Now decades later, the public has caught up again and in many cases listeners have reverted back to vinyl. The humble LP offers, in addition to bigger and more exciting artwork, a physical medium that utilises analogue playback, thus avoiding (in most instances) the need for digital decoding and potential errors. Analogue is infinite in resolution. The upshot of all this "development" is that the CD has somewhat fallen through the middle of the net. Those listeners who have grown up accustomed to digital technology now demand higher resolution than the Redbook 16 bit / 44.1khz discs can offer. This is available now with Hi-Res downloads and streaming. On the other hand vinyl purists are celebrating the resurgence of interest in vinyl, promoted mainly in my opinion by the deterioration of sound quality of CD over the past 20 years - it's not the CD medium at fault so much as the heavy handed engineers and re-mastering decisions that have been taken progressively over this time - why have CD's become so LOUD and compressed? Where have all the dynamics gone? Even a Cajun style folk album by Linda Ronstadt has been wrecked by loud mastering. What is the point of this nonsense? Whose ears are being punished and why?
Anyway vinyl is back and will co-exist for many years to come alongside the ever increasing resolution of the download / streaming devices. CD is dead in the water as it offers little of the tactile pleasures of the vinyl album with its big black shiny disc and large format artwork, let alone the superior sonics of analogue. CD also is tied to its origins in video formatting set by Philips / Sony in the late 1970's. Redbook resolution was deemed sufficient to carry a video signal; it was not designed for music originally. The resolution is low by todays standards so there is no future for it beyond the current generation of 35-55 year olds who grew up with it. When we (I count myself in that group!) stop buying CD's, production will cease altogether. To a younger generation the CD is about as much use to them as the shellac record.
So where does that leave us today? The vinyl hoarders will continue to champion the classic rock "album" and people like me will, for many years to come, sit religiously listening to an entire album all the way through whether we like all the songs or not. Elsewhere, the digital music listeners will probably be more likely to flick through tracks on their i-pads/phones/beds(!) and select individual songs to play, simply because their listening habits have evolved in a different way over time and they have instant track access at their finger-tips. In other words people will be buying / stealing / downloading / swapping individual songs again and the album will disappear as Thom Yorke predicted it would some years ago.
In other words, things do go around in circles. The only thing different between 1914 and 2014 will be the device and the song. Everything else remains the same.
PS - I like "When I'm 64" and "Within You Without You". Sgt. Pepper is great all the way through! :dance:
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