It might not mean as much now in an era dominated by digital files (not to mention a music business that is more or less split between four major labels), but there's a certain beauty in looking at the label on a piece of vinyl. Next to a picture sleeve, it's the prettiest art you could get in the early days of buying music. With that label, there would be an image, not only literally but spiritually as well; the image a label projected onto its LPs and singles usually called a certain emotion
Inspiration comes from strange places. My latest bout would never have happened if it hadn't been for a burst water heater. That part of the story's not worth recounting - suffice to say that a new carpet had to be installed in the basement - but while my family began moving furniture back downstairs, I made a crucial discovery: a shelf full of records and tapes that I'd never bother to look through. As we put the boxes back in their place, I intended to take a cursory glance through the
There's a lot of older music fans out there who would give anything to "bring things back" - whatever that might mean to them. Bring it back to the days of radio hits, record stores and so on. Optimistic though we may be, we're pretty much resigned to the fact that most things aren't going to revert back to the way they were. One notable exception exists in the catalogue world, though: it's a simple four-letter word that is quite literally changing the way we listen to our older music. It's
From now until Monday, The Second Disc will be bringing out some features and opinions on Monday's upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. Let's start with a column that ultimately addresses what a mixed blessing the Hall can be. Few music-oriented entities draw so much criticism and debate as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In its 25-year history, it has inducted 165 artists into its ranks (with another five to be inducted on Monday), spurring decades-long debates about which of them
The artist-specific compilation almost seems like a useless gesture in the digital age. Now that anyone can buy a song for around a dollar, there's seemingly no need to buy a CD full of singles for more than pocket change. That's simply not true, though; such discs represent more than just songs everyone loves. It's ideally the chronicle of hard-earned success within a lengthy body of work. It's sometimes a chance to visit a catalogue unified by certain musical or lyrical themes. And for
If you're an avid follower of the music business at large, you know the common narrative that defines the industry: once, record labels signed great talents and earned lots of money and influence off the back of that art. Gradually, that art became secondary to business and excess, and as labels became absorbed into bigger corporations and followed trends instead of setting them, music fans got increasingly put off by the product. By the time rapid technological advances changed the way we
It greatly pleases me that The Second Disc has attracted an interested readership. It's a pleasure that there are many out there interested in how the industry behaves and evolves. And as a writer and enthusiast with such devotion to the niche, it's just exciting to connect with like-minded individuals. To that end, I pose something of a catalogue-oriented challenge to you. In all my years collecting and listening to pop music, I have only come across the following track once. The complete lack
I've been listening to Pet Sounds a lot lately. Maybe it's the dreary weather; whenever I put on some Beach Boys things feel a bit sunnier. But it's a heck of a record (as I'm sure most of you know) - one of those rarified few that's hard to chop down entirely. It's also fascinating that it's one on a rather short list of pop albums that have supported its own box set. The sprawling The Pet Sounds Sessions, released in 1997, chronicles the process of the album through alternate mixes, outtakes,
When you're around kids, you often find themselves saying what they'd do if they were in charge. There would be no school, no bedtime, unlimited pizza, that sort of thing. Once you grow up those visions look more fanciful, but sometimes that sentiment sticks with you, no matter how much you bury it. I know I feel that way with the catalogue scene. Every day, every song, every trip to the record store spins off a dozen ideas in my head that I can't wait to share with anyone who will listen. And
Much has been made about the communal nature of music by both those who create it and those who consume it. Millions of words, from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity to Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke," have been spelled out on the subject. Sometimes it takes time for us to grasp and appreciate their true meanings, but when we connect through song, it's usually a wonderful thing. This is usually the kind of thought that runs through my head as I walk into that beautiful, endangered ground they call a
Today, Legacy releases a double-disc edition of Supernatural, the massive comeback album Santana released in 1999. Perhaps more than any catalogue reissue I've ever followed, there's something positively mind-boggling about seeing an album that's only a decade old - even one that's a successful, good listen - get the deluxe treatment. You see, while I have been passionate about reissues for much of my music-collecting life, I'm firmly a part of the generation that went from watching Britney
There's a few weeks to go until Legacy Recordings and Experience Hendrix LLC reprint the Jimi Hendrix catalogue. March 9 will see CD/DVD versions of four classic Hendrix albums as well as a new unreleased compilation, Valleys of Neptune, on store shelves. In preparation for the reissue, I've been acquainting myself with the ridiculously deep catalogue Hendrix left in his 27 short years on this Earth. And if music research could make me curl up and whimper, I'd have my arms around my knees by
The other day I was talking about how us catalogue fans can sometimes end up wanting that one missing track to add to our collections. I used the 45 version of Billy Joel's "Sometimes a Fantasy," which runs well past the fade-out on the LP, as an example. Interestingly enough, I realized that the track also adhered to another concept I realized I'm enamored of concerning music in general. When I was a kid, I was always interested in the idea of a fade-out. You'd be listening to a song, getting
A few days before the Grammys, USA Today ran a really intriguing piece on the only living person who can be described as an ex-Grammy winner. I refer, of course, to Fabrice Morvan, one-half of the dance-pop duo Milli Vanilli. Many hardcore music fans remember the story of Milli Vanilli, the critically-loathed commercial behemoths that scored five consecutive U.S. Top 5 hits and a Best New Arist Grammy before admitting later that year that they didn't sing a note on the record. The Grammy was