Grace Jones' first studio album in two decades, "Hurricane," will arrive Oct. 27 in the U.K. through a deal with British electronic-leaning indie label Wall of Sound.
PIAS, the parent company of Wall Of Sound, will distribute "Hurricane" worldwide, excluding North America.
"It's an absolute honor and privilege to be working with Grace," comments Mark Jones, managing director of Wall of Sound, in a statement. "No one has inspired more people whatever race, sex, colour or creed to be who they want to be and so much more." He adds, "Her new album will not only re-establish her as one of the world's most important artists but also introduce her to a new generation of music lovers".
The Jamaican-born artist previewed four new tracks from the forthcoming release, including "Corporate Cannibal," during a well-received performance June 19 at the Meltdown festival on London's South Bank. Press headlines glowed the following day, included one in the Guardian Newspaper which simply read "Amazing Grace."
The new album, her first since "Bulletproof Heart" landed in 1989 via Capitol Records, was produced by Ivor Guest and Jones and includes performances from Sly and Robbie and Brian Eno.
Jones' only festival performance this year will be an exclusive headline set on the second-from-last evening of the Secret Garden Party Festival, to be held July 24-27 in Huntingdon, England.
[Billboard]
Here's a rare video classic of Grace Jones doing the Italian classic, Anema e core, from 1978 on an Italian TV show.
Monday, June 30, 2008
WOW - new Grace Jones album coming out in the UK - WE WANT THIS !!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Where vinyl records are born (this is the company I work for)
Nice article on CNET about URP today. This is the company that I work for. Whooooohah !!
Making vinyl records the old-fashioned way
by Daniel Terdiman 
At United Record Pressing in Nashville, Tenn., LPs are still made the old-fashioned way: with lots and lots of vinyl. This is a bin full of little vinyl pellets that will be melted into records.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)
NASHVILLE, Tenn.--When people think of the Beatles coming to America, they usually conjure up images of The Ed Sullivan Show and screaming teenage girls chasing the Fab Four on the streets of New York.
But here in Music City, there's something else to commemorate the earliest stages of the British Invasion: the fact that the first American Beatles 7-inch record was produced by United Record Pressing--then, as now, one of the largest makers of vinyl in the world.
On Monday, as I swung through Nashville on Road Trip 2008, I was lucky enough to get to visit the production facilities of United Record Pressing here and get a firsthand look at how LPs are made. Before you scoff at the notion of making records, consider that over the last few years, the format has made a big comeback, with sales skyrocketing and turntables moving off store shelves like they haven't in years.
Why? The reason is pure irony.
According to Jay Millar, the marketing and sales manager for United Record Pressing, it has everything to do with the emergence of Apple's oh-so-ubiquitous MP3 player.
"It really started picking up when iPods started coming onto the scene," Millar said. "Everything got so sterile with digital that people were not spending time" with the physical manifestation of their music. 
A record-pressing machine at United Record Pressing. The company is one of only three in the United States that still produces LPs in any meaningful amounts.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)
In other words, as iPods began to dominate the music world, people were leaving their CDs on the shelves, and iTunes downloads, as well as those via file-sharing services, took over.
But for audiophiles used to actually handling some sort of disc, this change has led to a reversal of fortune for the LP, a format long thought to have gone the way of the floppy disk.
For a company like United Record Pressing, that's been great news, as its sales have been going up steadily as more and more artists turn to records as a way to get their music into the hands of people who care about it.
So how is a record made?
First, a separate company with facilities nearby takes the original recording--which can come in the form of an audio tape, but (audiophiles, cover your eyes here) more often comes on CDs since many artists are using software like ProTools to cut their tracks--and uses it to cut the familiar circular grooves into an object called a lacquer.
The lacquer is then delivered to United Record Pressing, which begins the process of actually making the LPs.
First, the lacquer is sprayed with a layer of silver, which, after it sets, is then peeled off. The resulting sheet is known as the master, and it is the opposite of a record, because it has ridges rather than grooves.
The master is then used to make what is known as the mother, a metal version of the record that can, itself, actually be played. 
At United Record Pressing, black is not the only color of vinyl that is used. There's also red, orange, blue, gray, and even a mixture made from the cuttings of the other colors.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)
The mother is then pressed into what is known as the stamper, and this, too, has ridges. The stamper actually is the basis of every record that comes out of this factory.
At this point, it's all about raw vinyl, millions of little chunks of the material that resemble Pop Rocks.
And it's not just black either. The company also makes records that are red, orange, blue, and gray. Sometimes, it takes all the discarded vinyl from several pressings and mixes them together into a kind of hodgepodge color.
First, the vinyl is melted down into what is called the biscuit. This is the center of the record, the round part with no grooves and the little hole. To this is added the label, which is pressed onto the biscuit, a step that doesn't require any adhesive. Rather, the biscuit is so hot from the vinyl being melted down that the label sticks right on.
The labels, which are printed here by the thousands, are actually baked in a special oven so that they retain no moisture, something that could cause bubbling on the actual record. 
To ensure that labels don't bubble up after being pressed onto a record, the labels are baked in an oven to remove any moisture.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)
Then, the biscuit is placed in the middle of a machine and then it is joined together with a fresh supply of vinyl, and together they are smashed between a plate and the stamper. A blade then shears off the excess vinyl, and voila! A brand new record slides out of the machine and onto a rack.
When all is said and done, it's actually a remarkably simply process. But there's still much more that must happen before an LP leaves the facility.
First, at least one of each new album run must be tested. So on one side of a room that long ago was used as a room for record release and signing parties--Hank Williams Jr. had a party thrown for him here when he was 16, Millar said--a woman is sitting and bobbing her head as she listens to songs on headphones, making sure the new record has no problems. If it does, United Record Pressing will have to tell the record company what the issue is.
There's also the small matter of putting the records in their sleeves--something I saw two people tucked away in a corner of one room doing. They had their process down pat: grab an LP, inspect it quickly for obvious defects, pick up a sleeve, slide in the record, repeat.
Millar showed me a room in the basement of the building that contained thousands and thousands of folders--really, they seemed like extra-thick album covers with no art--that contain the masters of every record the company has produced over the years. This is a treasure trove bar none, since United Record Pressing works with pretty much every major label you can imagine.
Inside each folder is the master, and a full set of all the associated materials: the master, a label, an album jacket, and anything else that might be included, such as liner notes. And these days, as with an Elvis Costello album Millar showed me, the folders may also hold an insert with information for a digital download of the album.
In fact, it is these digital downloads that may be heralding the re-emergence of the LP and the death of the CD. That's because many artists are now offering record buyers a one-time free download of all the tracks on the album as a bonus.
This is still a small enough phenomenon, of course, to barely register on Apple's radar. iTunes is safe, in other words.
Still, for audiophiles who used to buy CDs, this gives them a way to have a physical disc to listen to the music on, as well as a way to easily tote it with them.
"People don't need their discs to be compact anymore," said Millar, "because you can't get much more compact than MP3. So it's back to the big discs." 
Pictured is what is known as a stamper, the fourth step in the process of making an LP. The process begins with the original recording, which is used to make the master recording, which unlike a record, has ridges instead of grooves. Then, the master is used to make the "mother," a metal version of the record that can actually be played. The stamper is made from the mother, and it too has ridges. All vinyl records are made by pressing the stamper down onto hot vinyl. 
This display piece at United Record Pressing in Nashville demonstrates the steps to finishing a record. The process starts with the original recording--in this case a tape--and then proceeds through the master, which has ridges rather than grooves, and is lacquer-sprayed with silver. The master is used to make the mother, which is a playable metal version of the record. That in turn is used to make the stamper, which also has ridges and which is used to press all the LPs. 
This is a record-pressing machine, as seen from the front. Hot vinyl is fed into it and pressed between two plates and the stamper. Then, out comes a record. 
United Record Pressing makes 7-inch and 12-inch records in several colors. Here, a red 12-inch LP is being pressed. The excess hot vinyl will be cut off and will fall into a bin below. The record will slide out and fall onto a stack of others on a pin. 
Most records are black, but United Record Pressing uses several colors, including blue. This is a bin of the raw vinyl pellets used to make records.
(there's Jay Millar)
Around the United Record Pressing plant in Nashville, one finds bin after bin full of vinyl pellets. 
On a wall at United Record Pressing is a display showing all the albums being pressed that week. During reporter Daniel Terdiman's visit, the sign showed that the company--if the list was up to date--was working on albums by artists including Kid Rock, Bob Dylan, and R. Kelly. 
Before labels can be pressed onto a record, they must first be baked in an oven to remove any moisture. Moisture could cause the labels to bubble up after being pressed onto the record. Here, stacks of labels get baked. 
A stack of labels on the back of a record-pressing machine. The labels are being grabbed one by one by the machine and pressed onto new records. 
For each LP United Record Pressing works on, the facility keeps a folder with a sample of everything involved, including the stamper, liner notes, a label, a jacket and, in the case of this Elvis Costello album, the coupon for a digital download of all the tracks. 
The United Record Pressing library has thousands of folders holding all the materials for each album. These represent every record the company has ever worked on, including the Beatles' first American release. 
After a quick inspection, a United Record Pressing worker puts each record in a sleeve to make sure it looks ready to go. 
This machine shrink-wraps each record after it has been put into its sleeve and then placed inside its jacket. The complete package is then fed onto a conveyor belt that carries it through the shrink-wrapping machine. 
These finished records have gone through every step of the process, including being shrink-wrapped. 
United Record Pressing works on lots of records, such as singles, that require special labels. These are stacks of such labels that are ready in case they're needed. 
These are rolls of "parental advisory" labels that are applied to records containing explicit content.
Monday, June 23, 2008
God Gets Busted Dealing Cocaine near Church
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Police say a man named God was arrested near a Tampa church for selling cocaine. Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police say he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood. When officers searched his home, they reported finding another 22 grams of cocaine and a scale.
Jail records show Howard was charged with several counts drug possession and distribution, which include increased charges for being within 1,000 feet of a church, a school and public housing.
He was being held on a bond of $86,500.
[AP]
R.I.P. George Carlin, 71
One of my favorite comics passed away today of heart failure. He will be missed.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Irreverent US comedian George Carlin, who became known as a voice of the 1970s counterculture and was one of the country's best known funny men, died on Sunday aged 71, US media reported.
The Grammy award winner, whose career spanned five decades, died of heart failure, his publicist Jeff Abraham told the New York Times.
Carlin had a history of heart problems and passed away in Santa Monica, California after checking into the hospital with chest pains.
He won four Grammy Awards, including one for his 1972 comedy recording "FM & AM," in which he combined his older, more conventional material that entertained audiences in the 1950s and 60s, with his new, edgier and more controversial style.
Gray-bearded and often dressed in black casual attire, Carlin frequently admitted to drug use and shocked 1970s audiences with his hit "Seven Words That Can Never Be Said on Television."
When a radio station played the album on air, Carlin's use of numerous swear words sparked a legal case over obscenity regulations that made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The material was judged indecent, though not obscene, and a 1978 high court ruling upheld the government's right to penalize stations that broadcast such material during hours when young people may typically be tuned in.
Carlin, who also collected five Emmy Awards, was considered in the same class of influential comedians as Richard Pryor and his predecessor Lenny Bruce, the Times said.
The first host of the popular comedy show "Saturday Night Live" when it debuted in 1975, he went on to sell more than one million recordings of his stand up acts and also became a best-selling author.
"I think it is the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately," Carlin once said.
Earlier this year, Carlin was named the winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and was to accept the award at a ceremony in November.
He performed as recently as last weekend in Las Vegas.
"In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think," said Kennedy Center chair Stephen Schwarzman. "His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching."
He was an Air Force veteran and got his start in entertainment as a disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Carlin was born in New York and had a daughter, Kelly, with his first wife Brenda who died in 1997. He is survived by his second wife, Sally.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Guitar Prodigy
Only 11 years old and has been playing for the past 2 years, Sungha Jung, has got some SKILLS.
Mama's & Papa's "California Dreaming"
U2's "With or Without You"
http://www.myspace.com/jungsungha
http://www.youtube.com/jwcfree
Mr. Spock meets The Lord Of The Rings meets bad music producer
Leonard Nimoy's Ballad of Bilbo Baggins
This guy really knows how to play with his balls
performer : Okotanpe
Music : 300ml(milk) / Rei harakami
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Geoducks
They are large saltwater clams. Geoduck is pronounced "GOOEY duck." 
The shell of this clam is large, about 15 to over 20 cm in length (about 7 to 9 inches), but the long siphons make the clam itself much longer; the "neck" or siphons alone can be one meter in length.
Native to the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada (primarily Washington, British Columbia, and Southeast Alaska), it is the largest burrowing clam in the world, weighing in at an average of one to three pounds (0.5 - 1.5 kg) at maturity, but specimens weighing over 15 pounds (7.5 kg) and as much as 2 meters (6 ft) in length are not unheard of.
Geoducks are one of the longest-living organisms in the Animal Kingdom. They have a life expectancy of about 146 years, with the oldest recorded at over 160 years. Scientists speculate that the geoduck's longevity is the result of low wear and tear. A geoduck sucks plankton down through its long siphon, filters them for food and ejects its refuse out through a separate hole in the siphon. Adult geoducks have few natural predators, which may also contribute to their longevity. In Alaska, sea otters and dogfish have proved capable of dislodging geoducks; starfish also attack and feed on the exposed geoduck siphon.
Today, they sell in Asia for up to US$30/lb (US$65/kg). Geoduck, like shark fin soup and black bear gall bladders, is highly regarded for its psychological attributes. In the case of geoducks it is the "enhancement of male performance." Its large, meaty siphon is also prized by some for its savory flavor and crunchy texture. It is extremely popular in China, where it is considered a delicacy. Geoduck is mostly eaten cooked in a fondue-style Chinese hot pot or raw sashimi style, dipped in soy sauce and wasabi.
The geoduck is the official mascot of The Evergreen State College, located at the southernmost tip of Puget Sound in Olympia, Washington. The school's Latin motto, Omnia Extares (or, "let it all hang out") is at least partially intended as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the creature's phallic appearance.
[Dark Roasted Blend] and [Wikipedia]
Friday, June 20, 2008
Vinyl LP sales stage comeback against CDs
For every 500 people who buy their music on a compact disc, there's one holdout who still prefers getting it on vinyl.
But that's enough to create a brisk sideline business for vinyl records at two area music stores -- Atlantic Sounds in Daytona Beach and Steve's Downtown Music in DeLand.
"At least 30 percent of our sales are vinyl, and for a music store today, that's a lot," said Michael Toole, owner of Atlantic Sounds, 137 W. International Speedway Blvd. "And most of those sales are to kids in the 16 to 25 bracket. They've learned about vinyl from their parents and they want to see what it's all about."
At Steve's, 108 S. Woodland Blvd., owner Steve Chmielewski said his vinyl sales are smaller -- about 5 percent to 10 percent of his gross -- but some of his regulars are disc jockeys who want nothing else.
"My inventory includes techno music, and some of these DJs will come in and buy 10 albums of it at a time," he said.
Beth Lernke wandered into Atlantic Sounds on Tuesday with her son Kendrick, 13, and they headed toward bins with scores of new vinyl releases.
"He's all into the retro thing," she said. "He says the sound on vinyl is a lot better than a CD."
Toole wholeheartedly agreed.
"CDs are great, but records are better. It's the warmth of the sound that's the difference," he said.
But trying to find a particular new album on vinyl can test a music lover's patience. Toole said major record labels began outsourcing their manufacturing years ago, so now vinyl records are produced at just a few U.S. plants, such as United Record Pressing in Nashville, Tenn. That has led to logjams and waits of six months or longer to get the vinyl version of a recording that's already out in CD format.
New vinyl records also can be pricey, sometimes $5 or $10 more than the equivalent CD. Atlantic's best-selling vinyl, a reissue of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," goes for $30.
However, if buyers can content themselves with used vinyl, there are a lot of bargains to be had. Atlantic, which boasts having thousands of titles in stock, sells most of its secondhand records in the $2 to $4 range. Collectors willing to sift carefully through bins at flea markets and yard sales for LPs still in good shape often can buy them for a buck or less.
Although vinyl is still just a speck of the overall music market, manufacturers' shipments of LPs jumped 36 percent from 2006 to 2007, topping 1.3 million. Nielsen SoundScan estimates sales this year will top 1.6 million. In comparison, CD shipments totaled 511 million, but they were trending downward, dropping 17 percent last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
A few large retailers are starting to pay attention to vinyl again but their supplies remain skimpy.
Best Buy says it is testing the market for vinyl in some of its stores, but spokesman Brian Lucas declined to say where. The chain's Web site lists dozens of different vinyl titles but nearly all of them are labeled
"back-ordered," meaning not immediately available for shipment.
A call to the Daytona Beach Best Buy to inquire about its vinyl inventory drew a puzzled response from a customer service representative.
"What's a vinyl record?" she asked. "Is that something environmental?"
A more knowledgeable co-worker said the store doesn't sell vinyl except for an occasional promotional item, such as a recent anthology of hits by The Who.
But the LP isn't going to muscle out CDs or iPod soon.
Nearly 450 million CDs were sold last year, versus just under 1 million LPs, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Based on the first three months of this year, Nielsen says vinyl album sales could reach 1.6 million in 2008.
Many major artists -- Elvis Costello, the Raconteurs and others -- are issuing LPs and encouraging fans to check out their albums on vinyl. On Amazon.com, one of the best-selling LPs is Madonna's latest album, "Hard Candy".
Some artists package vinyl and digital versions of their music together, including offers for free digital downloads along with the record.
[NewsJournal-Online]
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
After 38 Years, ‘Soul Train’ Gets New Owner
People who think of “Soul Train” as an artifact from 1970s television may be surprised to learn that the 38-year-old song-and-dance show was never canceled. Although no new episodes are produced, it lives on in reruns that showcase the taste-making music, hairstyles and fashions of decades past.
Now a production company, MadVision Entertainment, has bought the “Soul Train” franchise from its founder, Don Cornelius, and plans to breathe new life into it. The plan is to open up the show’s archives for older consumers as well as to create a new version of the program for younger ones.
“The series has never been shown on DVD, and it’s not been utilized on video-on-demand or mobile or Internet platforms,” Peter Griffith, a co-founder of MadVision, said. “There are many opportunities that we are exploring.”
MadVision, which was founded in 2006 by three urban media veterans, is best known for the Showtime stand-up comedy series “White Boyz in the Hood.” One of the founders of MadVision, Kenard Gibbs, is the group publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines. Another founder, Anthony Maddox, worked as a producer at NBC and ran Sean Combs’s Bad Boy Films. Mr. Griffith, the third partner, founded a hip-hop Web portal and worked with Vibe to extend the magazine’s brand.
The deal for “Soul Train,” reached in mid-May, is the first acquisition for MadVision, which is based in Los Angeles. Neither the company nor Mr. Cornelius would comment on the sale price.
Mr. Cornelius, a former disc jockey, was not just the creator of “Soul Train,” but also the writer, producer and host. He produced the pilot for “Soul Train” in 1970.
Three years later, calling the show an “almost instant success,” a reviewer for The New York Times said that “Soul Train” was to “American Bandstand” as “Champagne is to seltzer water.” Later, the director Spike Lee called it an “urban music time capsule.”
“We had a show that kids gravitated to,” Mr. Cornelius said.
In the 1970s and 1980s, “Soul Train” helped glamorize black music, featuring performances by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson and other hit makers. But the real stars were the young dancers who would strut their stuff, laying the groundwork for countless dance programs , including current ones like Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance?” and MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew.”
But the “Soul Train” brand has not entered the Internet age. Its Web site has barely been updated since 2006, when Mr. Cornelius stopped producing new episodes. “The Best of Soul Train” is now shown on weekends in syndication.
For MadVision, the rights issues will be complicated. The company will have to compensate artists, producers and labels for rebroadcasts of the songs played on the show.
As for 2008 version of “Soul Train,” Mr. Griffith said the company is in talks with potential producers about what the show might look like.
Mr. Cornelius, now 71, didn’t mince words about his decision to sell.
“Thirty-five years is a long time,” he said.
[NYTimes]
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
new Led Zeppelin DVD based on their influences coming soon
A revealing new programme will examine the artists and music which shaped one of the world’s greatest rock’n’roll bands, Led Zeppelin.
Down The Tracks: The Music That Influenced Led Zeppelin contains rare and previously unseen footage of Howlin’ Wolf, Charley Patton, Son House, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and Bukka White.
The DVD will also look at some the lesser known artist and movements, such as skiffle, folk and even an exploration of their interest in the occult, which are clearly identifiable on Led Zeppelin’s albums.
Renowned producers Joe Boyd and Larry Cohn, and musicians like John Renbourn, Chas McDevitt and Davey Graham give revealing interviews alongside blues historians and music authors.
The DVD is due for release on 15 September 2008.
[Uncut]
Sunday, June 15, 2008
H2O Car - Water Powered Car
Here's something we should ALL consider for many reasons. Sign me up when these come here in the US. Hopefully they will look a little nicer and possibly a little bigger with maybe a backseat for my dog and a trunk to load groceries.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Retailers giving vinyl records another spin
Basically the same post I made the other day, but now it references the company I work for, United Record Pressing in Nashville and quotes my colleague, Jay Millar.
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- It was a fortuitous typo for the Fred Meyer retail chain.
This spring, an employee intending to order a special CD-DVD edition of R.E.M.'s latest release "Accelerate" inadvertently entered the "LP" code instead. Soon boxes of the big, vinyl discs showed up at several stores.
Some sent them back. But a handful put them on the shelves, and 20 LPs sold the first day.
The Portland-based company, owned by The Kroger Co., realized the error might not be so bad after all. Fred Meyer is now testing vinyl sales at 60 of its stores in Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The company says, based on the response so far, it plans to roll out vinyl in July in all its stores that sell music.
Other mainstream retailers are giving vinyl a spin too. Best Buy is testing sales at some stores. And online music giant Amazon.com, which has sold vinyl for most of the 13 years it has been in business online, created a special vinyl-only section last fall.
The best-seller so far at Fred Meyer is The Beatles album "Abbey Road." But musicians from the White Stripes and the Foo Fighters to Metallica and Pink Floyd are selling well, the company says.
"It's not just a nostalgia thing," said Melinda Merrill, spokeswoman for Fred Meyer. "The response from customers has just been that they like it, they feel like it has a better sound."
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, manufacturers' shipments of LPs jumped more than 36 percent from 2006 to 2007 to more than 1.3 million. Shipments of CDs dropped more than 17 percent during the same period to 511 million, as they lost some ground to digital formats.
The resurgence of vinyl centers on a long-standing debate over analog versus digital sound. Digital recordings capture samples of sound and place them very close together as a complete package that sounds nearly identical to continuous sound to many people.
Analog recordings on most LPs are continuous, which produces a truer sound -- though, paradoxically, some new LP releases are being recorded and mixed digitally but delivered analog.
Some purists also argue that the compression required to allow loudness in some digital formats weakens the quality as well.
But it's not just about the sound. Audiophiles say they also want the format's overall experience -- the sensory experience of putting the needle on the record, the feeling of side A and side B and the joy of lingering over the liner notes.
"I think music products should be more than just music," said Isaac Hudson, a 28-year-old vinyl fan standing outside one of Portland's larger independent music stores.
The interest seems to be catching on. Turntable sales are picking up, and the few remaining record pressers say business is booming.
But the LP isn't going to muscle out CDs or iPod soon.
Nearly 450 million CDs were sold last year, versus just under 1 million LPs, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Based on the first three months of this year, Nielsen says vinyl album sales could reach 1.6 million in 2008.
"I don't think vinyl is for everyone; it's for the die-hard music consumer," said Jay Millar, director of marketing at United Record Pressing, a Nashville based company that is the nation's largest record pressing plant.
Many major artists -- Elvis Costello, the Raconteurs and others -- are issuing LPs and encouraging fans to check out their albums on vinyl. On Amazon.com, one of the best-selling LPs is Madonna's latest album, "Hard Candy".
Some artists package vinyl and digital versions of their music together, including offers for free digital downloads along with the record.
"We've definitely had some talks with the major retailers about exclusives on the manufacturing end," Millar said of United Record Pressing, which focuses primarily on independent recordings.
An avid music fan himself, Millar says he has moved to vinyl in recent years.
"Once I got my first iPod ... I'm looking at my wall of CDs and trying to justify it," Millar said. "The things I like -- the artwork, the liner notes, the sound quality -- it dawns on me, those are things I like better on vinyl." He welcomed back the pops and clicks, even some of the scratches.
"I like that fact that it's imperfect in a lot of ways, live music is imperfect too," Millar said.
Independent music stores, which have been the primary source of LPs in recent years, say many fans never left the medium.
"People have been buying vinyl all along," said Cathy Hagen, manager at 2nd Avenue Records in Portland. "There was a fairly good supply from independent labels on vinyl all these years. As far as a resurgence, the major labels are just pressing more now."
In this game, big retailers aren't necessarily competing head to head with independent sellers' regular clientele of nostalgic baby boomers, independent label fans and turntable DJs.
"I cannot see that Best Buy or Fred Meyer would order the same things we would," Hagen said. "They aren't going to be ordering the reggae, funk, punk or industrial music."
[CNN]
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Fred Meyer discovers Vinyl by accident
Vinyl records and turntables make unlikely return to retail stores
Fred Meyer is the latest chain to stock the retro platters 
What can you say about the latest product featured in the electronics departments of 60 Fred Meyer stores? Well, here's something: Spin the black circle!
The newest piece of merchandise getting display space isn't from the MP3 age but from music's 331/3 rpm past.
In a sign that vinyl just might be "staging a comeback," as this week's issue of Rolling Stone reports, Fred Meyer has started to stock new LPs and turntables.
Sure, plenty of Northwest indie shops have stayed true to what many hi-fi enthusiasts insist is the one true way to listen to music, selling used vinyl and systems in the shadows.
"We're living in a world where few commodities have a spiritual quality," said Eric Isaacson, owner of North Portland's Mississippi Records. "A lot of people see vinyl as more of an art piece than just simply background noise."
Deep. But now that a big-dog corporate supermarket-retail chain like Fred Meyer is stocking the left-for-dead LP, it appears that a resurrection might indeed be under way.
"There's a funny little story behind this," said Melinda Merrill, a company spokeswoman. "We got back into vinyl by accident."
Earlier this spring, someone in charge of ordering CDs for Fred Meyer intended to order a special edition compact disc and DVD set of R.E.M.'s new album "Accelerate." But the employee mistakenly clicked the "LP" option on the electronic order form.
Stacks of the R.E.M. vinyl showed up at the warehouse and were sent out to several stores without question.
"We didn't catch the mistake until the records started showing up in the stores," Merrill said.
Puzzled by the boxes of vinyl, most managers sent them back. But a nostalgic few decided to give the retro-product a whirl. A handful of stores figured out ways to display the album, with its skinny, shrink-wrapped 12-inch-by-12 inch packaging. Twenty copies sold on the first day. After a week, 55 had sold.
Now Fred Meyer is "doing a test" in 60 stores, stocking 20 albums, ranging from a reissue of The Beatles' "Abbey Road" to the new Raconteurs album on premium 180-gram vinyl.
"They're selling really, really well," Merrill said. "The biggest seller is 'Abbey Road.' "
She added that Fred Meyer stores will likely offer more vinyl releases and different models of high-end turntables that plug into stereo systems, including one with a computer port that allows vinyl-to-MP3 transfer.
Sensing the changing mood about the format, Amazon and Best Buy also have started stocking new vinyl titles. But that was a calculated move, unlike Fred Meyer's.
"I really don't know what to make of it," Merrill said.
Isaacson, however, has a pretty good idea about what's happening. He's not persuaded by the argument that everything sounds superior on vinyl. CD technology, he said, has caught up.
No, the re-emergence, he said, has more to do with a consumer revolt.
"It's the usual backlash when the market becomes unresponsive to what people want," Isaacson said. "People were forced to buy CDs that have become worthless now that you can download music. The industry chose CDs, the people didn't choose CDs."
This much is clear: It's once again safe to lug those old Who and Bob Marley records out of the basement without looking like a dinosaur to your kids. People get ready. Play 'em if you've got 'em.
[Oregonian]
Monday, June 2, 2008
Vinyl Returns in the Age of MP3
LP and turntable sales grow as fans find warmer sound in classic format 
For his 19th birthday, Simon Hamburg wanted only one present: a turntable for his dorm room at the University of Southern Mississippi. His father bought him a portable $69 model, and Hamburg's older brother chipped in LPs by Simon and Garfunkel and the Who. "Listening to 'Baba O'Riley' on vinyl is always better than listening to 'Baba O'Riley' on anything else," Hamburg says. "You can hear every instrument. It sounds stupid, but it's like you're feeling the music. You're part of it."
As CD sales continue to decline and MP3s are traded without thought, the left-for-dead LP is staging a comeback. In 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan, nearly 1 million LPs were bought, up from 858,000 in 2006. Based on to-date sales for 2008, that figure could jump to 1.6 million by year's end. (According to the Recording Industry Association of America, CD shipments dropped 17.5 percent during the same 2006-07 period.) Sales of turntables — which tumbled from 1.8 million in 1989 to a paltry 275,000 in 2006, according to the Consumer Electronics Association — rebounded sharply last year, when nearly half a million were sold.
From Bruce Springsteen's Magic and the Raconteurs' Consolers of the Lonely to Cat Power's Jukebox and Portishead's Third, it's now possible to buy vinyl versions of many major new releases at retailers like Best Buy, Amazon and indie record stores. And artists are making their preferences for vinyl known. Before releasing Consolers, the Raconteurs announced that they "recommend hearing it on vinyl." In April, Elvis Costello and the Imposters' Momofuku arrived first on LP, though it included a coupon for a free digital download (the CD version arrived weeks later). "Is it a revolution?" says Luke Lewis, president of Costello's label, Lost Highway. "Fuck, no. But our beliefs have been validated a little bit — not to mention we're making a couple more bucks. It's hard to do that now in the record business, you know."
"Everybody feels last year was a watershed year," says Cris Ashworth, owner of United Record Pressing, the Nashville plant that's one of the country's largest and few remaining. (Around a dozen exist now, down from more than twice that in the Eighties.) When he took over the business in 1989, Ashworth made only a little over $1 million in profit and barely had 10 employees. Today, he employs over 50 100 and profits have more than quadrupled, thanks to a surge in jobs that included Costello's LP along with pressings of Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero, Ryan Adams' Easy Tiger and independent-label products. "My son was very worried for 10 years," Ashworth says. "He kind of looked at me and shook his head and said, 'Dad, you just ain't livin'.' Now he says, 'Well, maybe Dad's a little bit smarter than I thought he was.'"
Despite the uptick, vinyl remains a niche market. Most new releases, indie or major, sell between 2,000 and 10,000 copies; recent bestsellers include Radiohead's In Rainbows (13,000) and Bob Dylan's 2004 Blonde on Blonde reissue (25,000). The possibilities of future growth are limited: As Matador general manager Patrick Amory says, "There's definitely a ceiling." And thanks to higher fuel prices (oil is used to manufacture plastic vinyl, and LPs are shipped by truck) and the scarcity of pressing plants, an LP can cost as much as $4.50 per unit to manufacture, compared to roughly a dollar for a CD. "There are still reasons not to do vinyl," says Mac McCaughan of Merge Records, which has seen an increase in sales of vinyl releases by Arcade Fire and Spoon. "It's more expensive, it's more complicated, it takes longer. We try not to lose money, but we probably are."
Although technological advances (like the CD) seriously wounded the LP, new technology is now playing a part in its resurgence. Old LPs can be converted to MP3s thanks to a new breed of turntables equipped with a USB port. Numark, one of the leading manufacturers of these models, produced them for club DJs and was surprised when the model took off; the company recently shipped its millionth unit.
Also abetting vinyl's homecoming is a growing disillusionment with CD and MP3 sound. The CD has long been known for its clean but overly bright (sometimes grating) audio. "With vinyl, the range is from accurate to warmer" when it comes to reproducing the original source material, says renowned mastering engineer Bob Ludwig, who has worked with everyone from Springsteen to Nirvana. "With digital, it's totally the opposite: accurate to brighter. The brightness in the digital domain is a sound our ears don't seem to like that much, whereas people don't seem to be bothered by the slight loss of top-end you might get with vinyl." (Ludwig, like others, does separate mastering sessions for CDs and LPs.) The compressed audio heard in MP3s has only exacerbated the trend in audio degradation. "It's taking 90 percent of the music and basically throwing it out," says Ludwig. "It takes the bad part of digital and makes it even worse."
Assuming a record is pressed under optimum conditions and played on a high-end system, vinyl can restore some of those missing sonic properties. When the Doors' Ray Manzarek listened to recent high-grade reissues of the band's original studio albums, he was stunned. "On 'Light My Fire,' the guitar and organ solos are like, 'Yeah, that's it — that's the way they're supposed to sound,'" Manzarek says. "Vinyl has a warmth and crispness without the edginess of CD."
There's also something less technical lurking behind vinyl's mini-renaissance. Whether it's inspecting a needle for dust or flipping the record over at the end of a side, LPs demand attention. And for a small but growing group, those demands aren't a nuisance. "There's nothing like putting the needle into the groove of a record," says country singer Shelby Lynne. "It's about as real as you can get. You got your vinyl, your weed, your friends, and while you're rollin', they're pickin' out another record. We're all taking music for granted because it's so easy to push a button. I mean, come on — music should be fun."
[Rolling Stone]
Bertelsmann wants to drop Sony Music
BERLIN — When Hartmut Ostrowski was an up-and-comer in Bertelsmann’s printing and services division in the 1990s, his bosses were discouraged from speaking at meetings of the top executives.
In the glamorous world of Bertelsmann, a global media empire with music, television, and publishing properties — Germany’s answer to Time Warner — services were viewed as strictly a backstage function.
Now, with Mr. Ostrowski at the helm of Bertelsmann, the stagehands are striding into the spotlight. Two weeks ago, he named Markus Dohle, a 39-year-old German who runs the company’s printing operations, as chief executive of Random House, the world’s largest consumer book publisher.
It is roughly akin to putting the head mechanic in charge of an entire airline. While Mr. Ostrowski, 50, acknowledges the risk of choosing an executive like Mr. Dohle, he is not about to apologize for the new focus on Bertelsmann’s nuts-and-bolts side, or for a strategic rethinking that will result in the company’s getting out of one media business, its American book clubs, and very likely a second, music.
For Bertelsmann, which has been home to legendary music executives like Clive Davis and literary tastemakers like the book publisher Sonny Mehta, Mr. Dohle’s promotion is just one part of a broader cultural makeover.
In coming days, Bertelsmann plans to intensify talks with the Sony Corporation about selling its half of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the joint venture started in 2004, according to people with knowledge of the talks.
Mr. Ostrowski declined to comment on the future of the music partnership, as did representatives of Sony BMG. Bertelsmann has often said it could be either a buyer or seller in the joint venture.
But Mr. Ostrowski, who wins praise from his colleagues for his straightforward style, did not mince words about the industry. “The good thing is, more people are listening to music than ever before,” he said. “The bad thing is, it is not easy to monetize it.”
Mr. Ostrowski knows he is viewed by critics inside and outside the company as an agent of retreat: pulling Bertelsmann away from the dazzle of recording stars like Alicia Keys to the humdrum world of offset printing and call centers.
He flatly rejects that thesis, declaring that Bertelsmann will remain a player in media and in the United States. “There’s no doubt we will continue to build our media businesses,” he said in an interview at Bertelsmann’s stately office in Berlin, which resembles a Prussian army headquarters. “We are, and will continue to be, a media company.”
Still, while Bertelsmann has struggled with weak advertising and consumer spending, not to mention the migration of traditional media to digital distribution, Arvato, its services arm, has chugged along — generating a quarter of Bertelsmann’s $29 billion in annual sales.
In addition to printing plants in Europe and the United States, Arvato runs call centers for Lufthansa, handles billing for ads on Google, and manages public services for cities in Britain and Germany.
“The service business is good for our media business; we can be proud of it,” Mr. Ostrowski said. “It spreads our risk and gives us opportunities that other media companies don’t have.”
While he declined to say how much of Bertelsmann’s revenue would come from services in a decade, it is clear its share will rise significantly as the company sheds media assets. But the strategy carries considerable risk, according to observers, as well as several current and former executives.
“Bertelsmann has always had executives rising out of Arvato, but now everyone is coming from Arvato,” said Thomas Schuler, a German journalist who has written a book about the company.
Besides Mr. Dohle and Mr. Ostrowski, Gunter Thielen, chairman of Bertelsmann’s supervisory board, came from Arvato, which is based in Gütersloh, the dozy Westphalian town where Bertelsmann is based. Though Arvato operates around the world, its bosses share a worldview that is, if not parochial, then rooted in a particular place.
Mr. Dohle, for example, once joked with a local journalist, Stefan Brams, that he built his home in Gütersloh so close to the printing plant that he could hear the roar of the presses.
By living near the headquarters, executives said, Mr. Dohle was also on hand for social gatherings, like Bertelsmann’s annual spring party, that brought him into contact with the family of Reinhard Mohn, which controls the company and played a role in his appointment.
In dispatching Mr. Dohle to New York, Mr. Schuler said, “Ostrowski is trying to establish somebody loyal to him there, so he really has someone he knows and he thinks that he can trust.”
Like other Arvato-trained executives, Mr. Dohle is known for his entrepreneurial zeal, according to people who know him. On his desk is a corporate motto that translates as “Make it simple. Just do it.” The question, observers said, is whether Mr. Ostrowski can transplant that kind of drive to Random House without harming its creative culture. Some doubt it.
“He is losing the cultural core of Bertelsmann,” said a former senior executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to criticize Mr. Ostrowski publicly.
The makeover of Bertelsmann dates back to 2002, when the Mohns, led by the family matriarch, Liz Mohn, forced out their ambitious chief executive, Thomas Middelhoff, in favor of Mr. Thielen (Mr. Middelhoff, now chief executive of Arcandor, is a board member of The New York Times Company). It has accelerated under Mr. Ostrowski, who took over in January and has embarked on an unsparing review of Bertelsmann’s diverse assets.
First to go will be the company’s money-losing North American book clubs. Bertelsmann has retained Morgan Stanley to solicit bids for the unit, and hopes to select one by the end of the summer, according to the chief financial officer, Thomas Rabe. Second, perhaps, will be Bertelsmann’s share in Sony BMG, depending on how the talks go.
Mr. Ostrowski is clearly not satisfied with the performance of those businesses. With the exception of the RTL Group, Bertelsmann’s highly profitable European television and radio group, all of the company’s media divisions reported lower sales and profits in 2007.
The deteriorating results at Random House were one reason that Mr. Ostrowski pushed out Peter W. Olson, the chief executive. Bertelsmann did not conduct a conventional search for his successor, executives said, and passed over a natural choice, Gail Rebuck, who heads Random House’s British division and has delivered profits while other units lagged.
Her handicap, they noted, was that she is British and does not speak German, unlike Mr. Olson, an American who speaks fluent German and took part in meetings in Gütersloh with ease.
Acknowledging that his choice had raised eyebrows, Mr. Ostrowski said he appealed to the publishers of Random House to give Mr. Dohle a chance. Some at Bertelsmann liken him to a young Mr. Middelhoff, an unpolished gem who grew into a charismatic media executive.
In Los Angeles last week, Mr. Dohle had a coming-out party at the industry trade fair, BookExpo America. He mingled easily with Mr. Mehta and Barbara Walters, whose memoir was recently published by Knopf. Asked what kind of books he reads, Mr. Dohle cited “You’re in Charge, Now What?” a management book by Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin, published in 2005 by Crown Business, a Random House imprint.
Quaffing cocktails on Melrose Avenue is worlds away from Gütersloh, where Arvato functions as a sort of engine room for Bertelsmann’s more glamorous businesses. Its sales have grown 73 percent since 2003, to $7.6 billion, though profits were flat last year. Arvato has made inroads into new areas like municipal administration, where it essentially takes over services like car registrations and even tax collection from local authorities.
In the Bavarian city of Würzburg, Arvato operates an Internet site that is designed to allow citizens to carry out an array of bureaucratic chores from home. With strained budgets in cities and towns across Germany, Bertelsmann believes this could be a vast new market.
But it is not without risk. Opposition leaders in Würzburg criticized the Arvato contract, saying other arms of Bertelsmann could misuse private data it got as a result of its municipal work. The city’s mayor, who had championed the project, was voted out of office recently.
Skeptics also point to a privately owned German mail-services company, the Pin Group, which fell into deep financial trouble after the government introduced a minimum wage for postal workers.
As Mr. Ostrowski looks for ways to jump-start Bertelsmann, some say he will be hamstrung by a balance sheet that carries about $10 billion in debt — a legacy of the company’s buyout of its sole outside investor, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, in 2006.
Mr. Ostrowski said Bertelsmann could spend 5 billion euros to 7 billion euros on acquisitions over the next five to seven years — too little for a blockbuster deal, but enough for its ambitions.
“We are not looking to be the biggest media company,” he said. “We are looking to be the best.”
[NYTimes]
Handleman Company Exiting Music Business in North America
Biggest rackjobber in the US, supplier of music products to places like Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. is closing it's music operations.
Sale of Wal-Mart Related and Selected Other Assets and Operations to Anderson Merchandisers, L.P. TROY, Mich., June 2
TROY, Mich., June 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In a major step in its continuing efforts to address the rapid and fundamental changes under way in the music industry, Handleman Company (Pink Sheets: HDLM) today announced that it is exiting the music business in North America. Handleman will continue to operate its other businesses as usual as it explores opportunities to maximize value for the benefit of the Company's stakeholders.
In connection with its decision to exit the North American music business, Handleman has entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which it has sold music inventory and selected other assets related to its Wal-Mart business in the U.S. to Anderson Merchandisers, L.P. ("Anderson"), of Amarillo, Texas. Sales to Wal-Mart stores currently constitute a substantial majority of Handleman's U.S. music sales. Handleman will work with its other U.S. music customers over the next few months to assist them in achieving a smooth transition to other music suppliers.
Separately, Handleman has also agreed in principle to sell substantially all of the assets and operations of its Canadian subsidiary to Anderson. Completion of that transaction is expected to occur shortly after receipt of Canadian regulatory approval, which the parties expect to receive in the near future.
Albert A. Koch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Handleman, said, "Our decision to exit the North American music business was difficult but unavoidable. CD music sales have been declining at double-digit rates for several years both industry-wide and at our customers' stores, resulting in a sharp drop-off in our business. Unfortunately, even the significant steps we've taken over the past two years to reduce our costs have not enabled the Company to return to profitability. We have reluctantly concluded that there simply were not enough further cost reduction opportunities available to offset the margin erosion in future years from continuing sales declines.
"As to the timing of our decision, we took into consideration a number of factors, including indications from existing customers of their reluctance to maintain long-term relationships with multiple music distributors in a shrinking market, a growing question in our minds whether our key music suppliers would provide trade terms sufficient for us to support our customers for the peak holiday shipment season, and uncertainty whether our credit agreements would permit sufficient liquidity to operate normally through the upcoming Christmas season if our suppliers did not return to historical trade terms.
"Taking all these factors into consideration, we determined that exiting the North American music business now, in the transactions announced today, was in the best interest of our customers, vendors, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders. We regret the impact of this decision on many of our employees, and will do our best to assist them at this difficult time. We also will work with our valued customers and vendors to achieve a smooth, seamless and timely transition."
In conjunction with these actions, Handleman will be reducing its U.S.-based work force by approximately 260 positions over the next several weeks. Most of these reductions are expected to occur at the Company's headquarters in Troy, Michigan, and its distribution facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is anticipated that some U.S.-based employees, particularly field service personnel, will be offered opportunities by Anderson. Handleman said that in addition to providing severance benefits to affected U.S. employees, it has engaged Right Management, a leading provider of career continuation services, to assist these employees with their career transition. Anderson, which currently has no operational presence in Canada, is expected to retain substantially all of Handleman's approximately 230 Canada-based employees when the contemplated Canadian transaction is completed.
"The support of our lenders means that we have sufficient liquidity to operate while we complete the wind-down of our North American music business and continue to explore opportunities to maximize the value of other assets and operations for the benefit of our stakeholders," Mr. Koch said. "If we are able to generate cash proceeds in excess of what is needed to satisfy the Company's obligations, we currently intend to distribute any such proceeds to our shareholders rather than pursue reinvestment opportunities."
The Company currently anticipates that shareholders will receive a cash distribution. Whether there will be any excess cash proceeds for distribution to shareholders is subject to a number of material risks and uncertainties that may prevent any such distribution from occurring. Accordingly, while the Company believes that a cash distribution is a definite possibility, actual results may differ from current estimates, perhaps materially. The Company will endeavor to provide information about future cash distributions, if any, at such time as it believes that they are reasonably estimable.
Handleman's other operations, which are not involved in or affected by the transaction announced today, include Crave Entertainment Group, Inc. ("Crave"), a leading full-service distributor of video game software, hardware, and related accessories and a specialty video game publisher; Handleman UK Limited, a leading UK-based distributor and store merchandiser of books, music, computer games and other products; Artist to Market Distribution ("A2M"), an independent music distributor that works directly with branded artists and artists' management to streamline the supply chain and deliver new music product to the marketplace at a lower cost; and REPS LLC, a national in-store merchandiser. As previously announced, Handleman has retained the investment banking firm W.Y. Campbell & Company for the purpose of exploring a sale or other strategic options for Crave.
Cautionary Comment Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are not historical facts. These statements involve risks and uncertainties and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results, events and performance could differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements because of factors affecting any of a number of critical objectives, including, without limitation, our reaching a final agreement to sell the assets and operations of our Canadian subsidiary to Anderson and obtaining of all required regulatory approvals, our ability to transition our U.S. music customers other than Wal-Mart to other vendors smoothly, maintaining satisfactory working relationships with our lenders, customers and vendors, retaining key personnel, satisfactory resolution of any outstanding claims or claims which may arise, finding and capitalizing on opportunities to maximize the value of the Company's non-music operations, and other factors discussed in this press release and those detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Handleman Company notes that the preceding conditions are not a complete list of risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward- looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release.
[PRNewsWire]
Vinyl goes from throwback to comeback
Young fans say analog records sound warmer and fuller than digital music
Monica Morgan, an 18-year-old high school student from Jacksonville, Fla., is taking a breather from scouting prospective colleges in and around Boston. She is standing inside Newbury Comics in Cambridge, scouring the bins of new LP releases by artists such as Gnarls Barkley and Bjork. Rows of colorful album covers catch her eye.
more stories like this"My dad just gave me a record player, so I mostly like to buy vinyl," says Morgan. A stash of records originally owned by her mother, and now bequeathed to her, led Morgan to her latest love. "I have some old Beatles records with my mom's maiden name on them," she says. "I just like the way they sound."
Almost any other decade, this scenario would have been ordinary. But the scene - a teenager perusing stacks of cumbersome vinyl in a sleek digital age that is gradually rendering the compact disc obsolete - was unfolding on a Friday afternoon in 2008. And it is one that is being replicated in small but growing numbers across the country. Although she may be an anomaly among her peers, Morgan and other young music fans are embracing the virtues of vinyl.
Mike Dreese, cofounder and chief executive of the New England music store chain Newbury Comics, says his company's vinyl sales, which had been increasing at an annual rate of about 20 percent over the past five years, are 80 percent higher than they were at this time last year.
"Right now, we're selling about $100,000 a month worth of vinyl," Dreese says.
But why vinyl and why now, especially when even CD sales have plummeted 40 percent since 2005? Dreese blames the sterility of technology. "I think there are a lot of people who are looking for some kind of a throwback to something that's tangible," he says. "The CD was a tremendous sonic package, but from a graphic standpoint, it was a disaster. People still want a connection to an artist, and vinyl connects them in a way that an erasable file doesn't."
Vinyl lovers insist that analog records sound warmer and fuller, as opposed to the brighter yet brittle digital experience of CDs. The compressed sound of MP3s, meanwhile, sacrifices both the highest and lowest ends of the sonic spectrum.
"It's unbelievable how much vinyl's coming out," says Josh Bizar, sales director for musicdirect, a company that specializes in analog products ranging from new and reissued vinyl to turntables. "We're seeing this explosion of young people under 25 who never even saw an LP as a child running toward a format that was pronounced dead before they were even born. But if a title has any kind of mass appeal, it's coming out on vinyl today."
The new push for records is also coming from musicians. Elvis Costello issued his new album, "Momofuku," on vinyl two weeks before the CD and digital versions were released. And the Raconteurs, led by White Stripes frontman Jack White, recommended that listeners hear their new album, "Consolers of the Lonely," on vinyl (it is also available on CD and as a download).
"I prefer vinyl," says White, 32. "We talk about this backstage; as musicians it comes up a lot. It's a shame the new generation is missing out on albums - not just the sound quality, but the artwork, the experience of holding something tangible in your hands."
Scores of listeners have begun to follow White's example.
Bizar's firm, musicdirect, services 250 to 300 independent record and electronics stores worldwide and stocks CDs and MP3 players. But it is the company's analog-related inventory that is causing a stir: Sales of albums and accessories like needle cartridges and record cleaners have jumped 300 percent in each of the past four years, according to Bizar.
Sales of turntables, which can run anywhere from $150 to $24,000 (including models that can now transfer the sound on vinyl to a listener's portable player or computer) have spiked 500 percent annually during the same time span. Indeed, huge retail outlets such as Best Buy now stock an array of turntable brands and styles that reflect the surge in both technology and demand.
"They cannot make them fast enough," says Bizar. "Owning a record album is certainly a lot cooler than owning a digital subset of zeroes and ones on a computer. And the simple act of playing an LP takes a certain single-mindedness that seems to go beyond today's culture of multitasking. It's not as easy as just pushing a button."
Merge Records founder Mac McCaughan estimates that for every 10 albums his label puts out as a digital download or CD, eight get a vinyl release. "It's not going to come back and replace CDs or MP3s," he says. "But if you do it right and make the vinyl heavy and make the packaging nice, it's everything that people liked about music in the first place."
Then there's what Bizar calls "the collectibility issue." A limited-edition LP box set of Radiohead's 2007 album, "In Rainbows," which retailed for about $80, sold out briskly. A recent search on eBay found the now out-of-print package selling for $300.
Music fan Nick Pioggia, 25, buys even more vinyl now than he did as a teenager. "I got into it because the [punk] music I was trying to find was only available in that format," says Pioggia, who also runs a small label called Painkiller Records in Boston. "No one cares about CDs anymore, but someone will still buy an album because it's got the huge artwork and is a limited pressing. That's the biggest draw."
New releases are typically being pressed on vinyl in quantities of about 10,000 per title. But when it comes to the demand for lavish reissues, that number can double or even triple. Bizar says his company saw 35,000 advance orders for the four-LP edition of Led Zeppelin's "Mothership," a career-spanning collection released this spring. While that is certainly a far cry from vinyl's heyday of the 1970s, Bizar calls the demand for a bulky box set that retails for roughly $60 a pop "astonishing."
As an enticement for consumers to buy a record rather than a 99-cent download of a single, artists and record labels now usually include a CD version of the album with the LP package gratis, or enclose a secret code that allows listeners to download for free the album they just bought on vinyl.
The idea represents a compromise for convenience-minded consumers and artists who want their creative work to be something more substantive than a digital file. "If you're an artist," says Dreese, "you're like, 'What do I have to show my grandkids?' "
No one artist has released more records since the early 1990s than Robert Pollard, both solo and with his band, Guided By Voices.
"I have to have vinyl," says Pollard, who's issued dozens of records on labels large and small, including his own in-house imprint. "To me it's psychological. If it's not on an LP, it's not real. Anybody can make a CD, but as we used to say, 'Vinyl's final.' "
Evan Shore, singer-guitarist for the Boston band Muck & the Mires, recently announced that his band's next Extended Play would be a "vinyl-only release." With a European tour this summer, the reasoning was simple: "Vinyl is huge in Europe."
Geoff Chase, a 40-year-old "classic rock" fan from Watertown, says he stopped buying records because many older titles weren't available on LP to replace his worn copies. Until now.
"What got me back into it big time," says Chase, "was that one day I found an old [stereo] receiver on the sidewalk."
He took it home, hooked the receiver up to his turntable, and put on his copy of AC/DC's "Back in Black."
"I could not believe how good it sounded," Chase says. "I was blown away."
[Boston Globe]
