Welcome to the Sounds On Vinyl brought to you by BoozeHound Entertainment.
We dive right into Season 6 with a new Guest Co-Host, Søren Genefke, who is the author of Alt Om Vinyl and an expert in all things vinyl. This season is all about the ins and outs of vinyl. This week, we start at the beginning (almost), and here's what we talked about:
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Boo Town Entertainment proudly presents Sounds on Vinyl, the show that celebrates collecting and listening to vinyl.
Speaker:And now here are your hosts, Mike, Phil and Soren.
Speaker:Hey.
Speaker:Hey.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:Welcome to the Sounds of Vinyl Show.
Speaker:My name, as always, is Bill Boyer.
Speaker:And with me is not only Mr.
Speaker:Mike Spencer, the Viking extraordinaire, but we have another Viking with us, another special cohost that we're going to have for the entire season because we're going to talk about something really cool.
Speaker:And that is Mr.
Speaker:Soren Soren.
Speaker:How the hell is it going, man? Oh, it's going good.
Speaker:Good to see you guys.
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:This is an incredible privilege to be a co host.
Speaker:I've never been a co host before, but that's kind of a cool title.
Speaker:So thank you so much.
Speaker:Yeah, lucky.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Lucky us.
Speaker:Pleasure is all ours, man.
Speaker:So we're bringing Soren, who wrote a book called Everything About Vinyl, and he is like an expert of all stuff that has to do with vinyl and collecting and so forth.
Speaker:So we're starting, like, from what we talked about from the beginning, the records and how they were made and when it all started out, well, we're kind of talking about there might be a lot of people out there who are kind of new to vinyl and just getting into it, and, of course, a lot of people who've grown up with it and listen to vinyl forever.
Speaker:But there's so much history going into the actual physical product, which is a vinyl record.
Speaker:I mean, most people buy them because it has music on them, but the way it started out, it's actually a different story.
Speaker:And the history of the vinyl album, when we go to a shop today or buy a used album or a completely brand new album, it's actually made from the same technique.
Speaker:And we can trace the history of that format back to 1948.
Speaker:So we're looking at 74 years of nondevelopment kind of it's pretty static.
Speaker:The way it was invented in 1948 is more or less exactly the same as today.
Speaker:So that means that if you find a record from the 50s or 49 or whatever old records, you can play them on a new stereo setup and get the exact sound that was made back then.
Speaker:And I think that makes it pretty unique in a way, because if you think about all the products and all the things that we've grown up with that are no longer with us because technology has surpassed it or inventions of better landline telephones and Fax machines and box cameras and what have you, there are so many things that we remember from our past that are just gone because we have found better things, we have developed, came up with better things.
Speaker:But in a way, the vinyl record has survived, and that's pretty rare.
Speaker:I think even the newspaper is going down.
Speaker:The newspaper business is going down.
Speaker:And people prefer reading news on the Internet now and on their smartphones and whatever.
Speaker:At some point in the future, the newspaper might die out.
Speaker:Just the thing about writing a letter, I mean, we all grew up with letters.
Speaker:Nobody writes a letter today.
Speaker:It's an email, it's a phone call.
Speaker:It's video, FaceTime, whatever.
Speaker:So many things that we grew up with, there's just not much use for anymore.
Speaker:In your opinion, why do you think the vinyl record is still? Why do people find it fascinating still today? I think there's something about I'll just take a record.
Speaker:We're of course, talking about this, just a pretty normal black vinyl record.
Speaker:And there's something about I think that it connects to us in a certain way that so many other things doesn't do, because of course, it has music on them.
Speaker:And if you love music, there's good reason to buy a vinyl album, because if you don't care about music, you'll just listen to the radio or whatever.
Speaker:But if you really like music, there's something about holding a vinyl album containing music from your favorite artist or just music that you like.
Speaker:But the thing is that taking it out of his sleeve, putting it on a turntable, removing the needle and lower it on the vinyl and just watch it play.
Speaker:Because if you play a CD, you'll just Chuck it in a machine and you have no idea what's going on in there.
Speaker:You don't know what happens.
Speaker:You don't really understand that there's a laser in it and it's digital and whatever.
Speaker:But there's something tactile about a vinyl record where you can actually follow the needle going through the edge to the center.
Speaker:So actually, in a way, you're part of the process and you have to interact with it.
Speaker:As soon as the record is finished, you got to turn it over or choose another one, and you even have to clean it.
Speaker:You have to dust it off.
Speaker:So there's a care that goes into it.
Speaker:You have to invest something.
Speaker:You invest something of yourself in the product.
Speaker:And someone said to me once, when you get something for free, it doesn't have a value.
Speaker:So when you buy a record and it does cost money, it always has.
Speaker:But when you invest something, you kind of attached to it in another way.
Speaker:So that's why streaming, I think I like streaming.
Speaker:I use it every day, but I could easily live without it.
Speaker:I wouldn't miss it because I don't feel invested in it.
Speaker:I would miss my albums.
Speaker:I would miss my records because I fought for these.
Speaker:I took up jobs when I was younger to afford them.
Speaker:So you've got to put some work into it.
Speaker:They don't just come for free, like running water, for instance.
Speaker:So there's a connection, I think, emotional connection to records.
Speaker:And also because they have been around for so long that a lot of the music that was released on albums back in the day have never been reissued on CD or even digital.
Speaker:So you can find music that's kind of not many people have heard before.
Speaker:So in that sense, it's not that easily accessible.
Speaker:I think that will make Crate Digging so fun, going searching for records because you won't be able just to turn on Spotify or Apple Music or whatever you have and listen to the album.
Speaker:Sometimes you'll search up things online that you just can't listen to because it was never released in a digital format.
Speaker:So the only option you have is to search for a record.
Speaker:There's a kind of a uniqueness to vinyl records that just doesn't attach to digital format, I think, and digital format, you can copy it endlessly and you can send it to people via the Internet.
Speaker:You can't copy an album, you can't buy a record and go back home and rip it and give one to your neighbor or even sell them.
Speaker:So in that sense, they're kind of unique.
Speaker:They're also heavy.
Speaker:They sometimes make noises, there's a crackle noise, and you really need to be careful with them.
Speaker:You have to take care, otherwise they won't live as long as you.
Speaker:But if you do take care and if you do handle them with care, you have endless hours of enjoyment, I think, and they just keep getting better and better with age.
Speaker:I think it just sounds better the more you play them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I try to explain to people why I have so many records.
Speaker:And it goes back to when I was like a teenager.
Speaker:And I would say it's sort of like for me it's like a photo album of my life going through all those records because I remember I didn't take a lot of pictures of my friend growing up, but we had records and we came together because of records.
Speaker:Somebody had bought a record and everybody was, wow, so you got money from your mom to buy this record.
Speaker:And we all sat together and looked at the album and took turns and looking at the pictures and so forth.
Speaker:So in that sense we saw like a photo book of my life.
Speaker:I see what you mean.
Speaker:I have to be honest, because when I was young, I was six or seven, probably when I got my first record, it didn't really matter that it was a vinyl record because I didn't really have much to compare it to.
Speaker:Vinyl was just a format around.
Speaker:So it's later in life that I kind of learned to accept the beauty of records and the beauty of vinyl because back then I was almost as shocked with the cassette tape as long as it had music on it.
Speaker:And cassette tapes are very convenient because you could tape over a friend's album and you can make your own mixtapes.
Speaker:Because I think back then it was more about music than the actual product.
Speaker:And today I think many people go into vinyl because there's something about the product that's fun because it doesn't really matter if you listen to a record or listen to a CD, if you're just interested in music.
Speaker:But there's something about the product that there's a longevity to the product.
Speaker:And you know that in the format you have a huge sleep.
Speaker:You can actually read the lyrics.
Speaker:If the record has lyrics, that's more difficult than CDs.
Speaker:But there's something about holding a huge sleeve in front of you while listening to the music.
Speaker:And you kind of delve into the artwork.
Speaker:And the artwork often kind of connects you more to the music.
Speaker:And for me, a good artwork is actually.
Speaker:I don't know how to explain this, but there's something about if, let's say, when I listen to the black album by Metallica.
Speaker:I've just taken this example out here.
Speaker:But if you listen to the black album, I always think of the color black.
Speaker:There's something about the music that reminds me of the color black.
Speaker:And also when I listen to an album with a very vivid and colorful cover, I kind of connect that image to the music.
Speaker:And it kind of affects the way I interpret the music, I think, in a way.
Speaker:So a good record cover can really make me enjoy music even more.
Speaker:That's probably a bit strange, but that's the way I have it.
Speaker:I see the covers in front of me when I listen to the music.
Speaker:That's funny, because I was talking to a friend of mine earlier today about.
Speaker:Because for me, there was something really sad.
Speaker:I remember because we talked about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar, Sex Medic, which came out like in that was my first city that I bought.
Speaker:And I actually cried because the local record store, they didn't have that one on vinyl record.
Speaker:And I remember looking at this little box and I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is this? You can't even read the lyrics.
Speaker:This is nonsense.
Speaker:And moving into the mid nineties, you couldn't get a new album from your favorite artist on a vinyl record because they weren't pressed.
Speaker:You had to buy those CDs.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:And I remember thinking, and I get so sad because I envisage.
Speaker:Like you said, I invested so much money into my record collection.
Speaker:I had so much fun reading all the lyrics.
Speaker:I remember, like, sitting there looking at the gatefold for Kids Alive, too, and seeing everything and opening up that little CD box.
Speaker:And it didn't do anything for me.
Speaker:I think that's a very good point.
Speaker:You're racing there because I think one of the reasons why vinyl came sort of the second coming of vinyl, if you might call people still talking about the revival of vinyl, although it's been going on for 1516 years.
Speaker:But I think one of the reasons is that we kind of lost vinyl in the 90s and most of us went digital when CDs.
Speaker:And then we started ripping CDs and downloading.
Speaker:And along the way we lost something.
Speaker:We lost a connection to the music because like I said before, when everything is free, you don't connect with it in the same way.
Speaker:So I think for our generation, maybe that one of the reasons that vinyl came back is because a lot of people missed it.
Speaker:They missed records, they missed going to a record shop.
Speaker:We saw so many shops closing in the 2000s, shops everywhere closing down, shops that used to sell records.
Speaker:They sold T shirts and PlayStation games all of a sudden and mugs and shit.
Speaker:And there was just no record.
Speaker:In some way.
Speaker:We kind of thought, hey, minute, this is not the right direction to go here.
Speaker:We need the record back.
Speaker:We need the vinyl back.
Speaker:We need the excitement of going to a record shop.
Speaker:We need the excitement of digging in crates and finding stuff we didn't know existed and all of that stuff.
Speaker:We need somebody to recommend new music to us.
Speaker:Go to the shop owner, ask him for recommendations.
Speaker:All of that disappeared almost instantly.
Speaker:So luckily, when the record companies decided to bring back vinyl, a lot of people just flooded the record shops because all of a sudden there was a reason to go back to the shops.
Speaker:And luckily that hasn't has remained for 1516 years maybe, and it just keeps getting bigger.
Speaker:But another interesting thing is if you look at the actual sales, vinyl sales.
Speaker:I think the other day I read that there was a sale of 48 million copies in the US on vinyl.
Speaker:But back in the early 90s, that was what they sold in a week.
Speaker:Compared to back then.
Speaker:The numbers are really low, but there are still quite a few good people who are going back to vinyl and rediscovering music and just also the younger generation falling in love with this format.
Speaker:it does have some survival instincts.
Speaker:I think this product.
Speaker:So maybe I really hope that it's going to stick around, but you never know what's going to happen in the future.
Speaker:But it's been a good ride the last 15 years.
Speaker:They started doing really good vinyl copies again.
Speaker:They started really taking care of sleeves and do good pressing.
Speaker:I don't think we're quite at the height that we were in the 70s, but I think we're pretty good with the records that come out now.
Speaker:Most of them.
Speaker:I took almost all my CDs and this was like five or six years ago when I knew that every album that I'm interested in is going to be pressed on vinyl from now on.
Speaker:So I could go to the local record store and choose my favorite.
Speaker:So I went to the shop and I said, you can take the lot here.
Speaker:Why did you do that? There's a lot of music on there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, for me it has to do with like in Something Died.
Speaker:For me.
Speaker:It sounds brutal, but it was because I invested so much energy and money.
Speaker:And like you said, I had summer jobs just to be able to buy my favorite records.
Speaker:So now getting rid of all the CDs, there is something there.
Speaker:It's sort of like a ceremony and going, good riddance, begone you, dirty cities, going back and digging in my own collection.
Speaker:I mean, taking the time sitting in front of my turntable, having my children grown up and being a part of that now saying, hey, could there be a chance that we could buy albums with our favorite artists? I mean, my daughter's into Ariana Grande and so forth.
Speaker:Well, let's go and look.
Speaker:So we asked around the local record store and say, yeah, she released a couple of them.
Speaker:Do you want me to get them for you? Oh, yeah.
Speaker:And when they got there, she got the same experience that I did when I was a teen opening up that gatefold going, Holy crap, this is big because you only had the little CD with a magnifying glass trying to read the lyrics.
Speaker:What's going on here? My youngest kids, they hardly know what a CD is there on Spotify all the time.
Speaker:They don't really care about physical format at all.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:My youngest daughter, she's in kindergarten and she was asked to bring an item from her home starting with C.
Speaker:So we thought a CD.
Speaker:And I gave her a CD.
Speaker:It's just that.
Speaker:Yeah, it just moves on so quickly in a way.
Speaker:And that goes to what you were saying earlier about the sales.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And with vinyl sales, they finally eclipsed the CD and other formats.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:For the first time in years.
Speaker:And even though they're still so low because everybody's streaming these days and that margin wasn't very big between the vinyl and the CD, but it was still something.
Speaker:And it shows you that vinyl, that revival, it's only growing, it's only getting bigger.
Speaker:And it was exciting for me to read that.
Speaker:It was a lot of fun.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If we're going back to the history subject a bit, because vinyl record, a lot of people think that the CD killed the vinyl.
Speaker:That's not entirely true because the vinyl sale was actually hitting an all time low in the late 70s, early 80s, before the CD came out.
Speaker:And one of the main reasons for that was the cassette tape because the cassette tape was invented in 1963.
Speaker:But in 1975, they started putting tape decks in the car in cars.
Speaker:So that meant that all of a sudden you could actually take your favorite music on a car journey.
Speaker:You couldn't do that before.
Speaker:So if you wanted to listen to music in the car, it was by radio.
Speaker:But if you wanted to listen to your favorite albums.
Speaker:That was back home.
Speaker:But now in itunes 75, you could just again do a mixtape, buy a cassette, because again, back then it didn't really matter what format it was.
Speaker:I mean, there were probably a few vinyl nerds also in the 70s, but the general public, they usually don't care.
Speaker:And that's the same today.
Speaker:People don't really care as long as they can turn on the radio and there's music, they're happy.
Speaker:But for the hardcore music fans in the 70s, cassette was a great alternative because you could listen to in the car, as I said.
Speaker:And then in 1980, Sony, they launched the Walkman, or as they say in Sweden, a freestyle.
Speaker:No idea why.
Speaker:Me neither.
Speaker:But the Walkman actually was a revolution because, okay, you could sit in your car, but now you could actually take a walk listening to music.
Speaker:You could go on a bus ride, you could sit in an airplane, you could run whenever you wanted, you could bring your music with you and you couldn't do that before 1980s.
Speaker:Back then, in the late 70s and early 80s, people starting to actually buy cassettes instead and in a way, shunning the vinyl.
Speaker:Vinyl record.
Speaker:And a lot of factories started closing down in the late 70s.
Speaker:And in Europe we had a lot of factories.
Speaker:We had Denmark.
Speaker:We had Sweden, Norway, Germany, Holland, everywhere, but actually closed most of them and concentrated on a few factories.
Speaker:We had one in Oslo that made for polygam and Philips and all that stuff.
Speaker:And then we had one in Holland, in Harlem I think it's called who pressed all the things for Sony and CBS and all that.
Speaker:So you actually most of the albums, the European pressings that were made in the 80s were made in either Norway or Holland.
Speaker:They could actually supply most of the demand.
Speaker:And of course, in the UK also, we had a few record plants, but back in the 60s and early 70s, there was a factory or even more factories in every country.
Speaker:So that says a lot about how quickly the vinyl actually kind of spindled down in sales.
Speaker:And then, of course, when the CD came, that was also part of what helped remove the vinyl from the shelves.
Speaker:And of course, the final blow was the MP three and file sharing and all that.
Speaker:But you cannot say that CDs were solely responsible for killing of Winyl.
Speaker:There are many factors going into that.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:I remember going streaming because of course I'm like you.
Speaker:I use streaming services when I move back and forth to work and so forth out and about and listening to.
Speaker:But I didn't get it at first because not all my favorite albums were on there, but suddenly there's a boom and everybody's on there.
Speaker:But if you have that collector's gene that I got, you tend to go, oh, because you remember going to the record store with the headphones and you annoy the shop owner.
Speaker:Oh, man.
Speaker:Like four or five records, really you have to listen to before I buy them.
Speaker:And now I could sit there on my own listening to the albums on Apple Music or Spotify or whatever.
Speaker:And then I went out and bought the album if I thought it was any good.
Speaker:And I discovered new music like that.
Speaker:But I didn't move from the format because I still love the vinyl.
Speaker:I just bought more because I could sit by myself and discover music.
Speaker:I think we also talked about this before, Michael, but I feel the same way.
Speaker:But I also find that after I stream a lot of music, also, I find myself losing interest much quicker than before, because if I listen to a new release by some band or if I'm not kind of hooked within the first couple of minutes, I'll just move on.
Speaker:And I would never do that before when I had bought an album, I listen to the whole thing and I listen to it again until I liked it.
Speaker:You know what I mean? It's weird, but there's so much stuff now.
Speaker:But you paid for it.
Speaker:You paid for it.
Speaker:So it meant it did.
Speaker:Because I think on a previous show we also talked about that when we grew up, it wasn't very accessible.
Speaker:As I said, you had to put some work into getting these albums and you had to go down to the shop to listen to it before you bought it because you had to make sure that your money was well spent.
Speaker:So you didn't just buy something off the cuff or whatever just to check it out.
Speaker:You couldn't afford that.
Speaker:So you had to make sure that the record I buy is one that I'm going to like.
Speaker:You don't do that today.
Speaker:You just listen to Spotify and a couple of minutes later move on next.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then you share stuff like that, too, and you put links and so forth.
Speaker:I remember going back because we're all growing up in the early 80s, it wasn't even that easy because if I had a friend who had the money to buy an album, I would go there with my cassette tape.
Speaker:So the work I had to put in just to get him to copy that album to a cassette tape so I can use in my boom box with my other friends.
Speaker:It took a while.
Speaker:It took a while.
Speaker:So I cherished all my cassette tapes as I did with my vinyl records, because I had to put like I mean, there was stuff going on there.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Really put some effort in those tapes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was hard work, man.
Speaker:It was yeah.
Speaker:The amount of money I spent on blank tapes just to record albums, that's the funny thing.
Speaker:You talk about the cassette taking over the vinyl.
Speaker:I would buy vinyl and put that on tape so that I could put it in my boom box that was on my bike, and I would ride around the neighborhood or whatever.
Speaker:Right? You can't do that with the vinyl.
Speaker:So, yeah, the cassette tapes were, like vital for me, more so than vinyl.
Speaker:But the vinyl, you got that artwork that comes with the music.
Speaker:It's almost like a two for one, right? You got this beautiful album cover, plus you got the music inside and you got, like this whole package that I remember when I started buying cassettes.
Speaker:I'm like, what the hell is this, man? You can't even like the lyrics.
Speaker:I'm like 18 and my eyes aren't good enough to read these things I remember about because if I had to tape over my favorite record, I would buy one of those metal tapes because you can get normal Chrome and metal.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Metal was, of course, most expensive, but they were kind of designated your favorite albums and albums that you kind of got taped over from a friend that would go on normal tape.
Speaker:And Chrome was like in between because middle tape sounded so good.
Speaker:So, yeah, that's funny thing.
Speaker:I remember those metal tapes because those are the ones that I had to go to my friend's older brother with, because if he can record it so I can get it, I have to use the best quality cassette tape, and I have to plead with him, could you please tape this for me? Okay.
Speaker:Only once.
Speaker:It is like ten or twelve times he felt sorry for me.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:It was all in good funny.
Speaker:It was all in good fun.
Speaker:I was thinking, should we talk a bit about the actual record again? Of course.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:I'm just taking this example here, the usual record.
Speaker:And this is if there are listeners out there who are new to this.
Speaker:I just want to explain a bit.
Speaker:So if you're really a nerd, go watch the telly for five minutes.
Speaker:Come back.
Speaker:But, yeah, twelve inch.
Speaker:This thing in here is called a label.
Speaker:This is where the record label will put their logo and of course, the artist and the tracks and all the info you need to identify the album is in here.
Speaker:And then, of course, out here on the edge here you have one group that actually don't make out one side.
Speaker:Some people think that a new groove starts with each track, but it's one long groove.
Speaker:So when the recording from the master tape is played, a needle is kind of engraving the sound onto a lacquer master record.
Speaker:We'll probably go into detail in a later episode, but this is just a teaser.
Speaker:And of course, in the middle here along the label, you have the run out area, and that's all you need to know.
Speaker:But there's lots more if you then want to dig a little deeper, of course.
Speaker:Well, okay.
Speaker:It plays at 33 rounds per minute.
Speaker:Most records.
Speaker:So this is a standard long play record.
Speaker:And as I said before, this was invented in 1948 from exactly the same engineering principles as today as I used today.
Speaker:But the actual album does come with a kind of, well, DNA in a sense, because if you go and buy a pottery or furniture or whatever, you'll be able to turn a chair upside down and actually see.
Speaker:Maybe if you're lucky, you'll see what factory it was made from, and even by which Carpenter made the chair or pottery or whatever.
Speaker:Usually these kind of handmade products come with the kind of initials of the ones who made them.
Speaker:And records are the same, because in here, in the run out area, also called the dead wax, because the needle will come along here and then skip along the dead wax, it won't hurt the needle at all.
Speaker:There's just one groove that kind of spirals quickly into the center here and there's.
Speaker:What do you call a deadlock groove along here, which prevents it to go onto the label.
Speaker:So there's a lock groove at the end here for the needle.
Speaker:But in here, along the deadliest here, you will find information about the actual pressing of an album.
Speaker:Sometimes you'll find very detailed information and sometimes you'll find very little, especially on newer records.
Speaker:You will maybe just see a bunch of numbers, and some of them are just the numbers from the catalog number of the record.
Speaker:So, for instance, I don't know, Led Zeppelin album will be called SD something, and that's what you'll see is stamped in the dead box.
Speaker:But sometimes you'll also see handwritten or hand edged initials or messages, or maybe even some information about where it was pressed, where it was mastered.
Speaker:Because audio needs to be mastered to go on a vinyl, and that needs to be done by special people, people who know what they're actually doing.
Speaker:So along the way of the process, each step of the way, they will be added some markings, features to the metal stampers that they use to press the vinyl from, and that identifies exactly what record you're holding.
Speaker:So for each factory, this will be different from every record label.
Speaker:These inscriptions will be different because every factory have their own set of won't call it rules, but what they are, these dead wax matrix information, as we also called it, is actually production details for a factory to keep track of the production.
Speaker:So if a line in the production fails or they discover a sound, some sound issues with one pressing, they know exactly which ones were pressed from the same stampers, so they can remove them from the production and do a new one.
Speaker:That's why a record, the same album, the same artist, US pressing, let's say that will have maybe 20 different versions because they were pressed at 20 different clans and some of them won't be mastered by the same guy.
Speaker:So you will find different initials in the runner area, depending on who did the audio or cut the master vinyl.
Speaker:One of the things that I think makes vinyl collecting fun is that when you know where to look and if you know how to read this stuff and decipher this stuff, you'll actually find that there are not two records that are exactly identical, although they are oppressed in millions and millions and squillions of records, you will be hard pressed to find two exactly identical albums, because for each batch, as I said before, they were only pressed a small batch from the same stampers before they need to make new ones.
Speaker:So you'll have like 10.
Speaker:00, 20.
Speaker:00 maybe records that are identical, but over time, over 50 years of time, they will not be identical anymore, depending on who bought them, play them, store them, whatever.
Speaker:So they kind of get their own life in a sense, as soon as they bought.
Speaker:Some people buy albums just to store them and sell them when they hopefully get more valuable.
Speaker:And some people just buy them to enjoy them and whatever it takes.
Speaker:But you'll find a lot of different nerdy information in here.
Speaker:We'll do a special episode on some of the dead wax inscriptions that you can find.
Speaker:And there are some of the stuff is really fun if you like geeky humor.
Speaker:And if you give a teaser of that, what's the strangest thing that you can remember reading in a dead wax? Well, I don't know.
Speaker:But if some of the records will have messages etched by the guy who cut the master vinyl.
Speaker:So the artist will probably tell him, oh, could you write this? You have the pain already.
Speaker:Could you write some fun quotes or whatever? There are Monty Python records that are actually along the whole way around the dead wax.
Speaker:There's a long line call saying, Dear Mom, I'm still cutting the Python LP.
Speaker:Please send down a copper love Porky.
Speaker:It's just a long line of words.
Speaker:And there was an English guy called, well, his nickname was Porky.
Speaker:And if you look up UK pressings of a lot of albums from the 70s, like Deep Purple and all that stuff you'll find sometimes it says a Porky Prime cut or PECO duck or some strange things.
Speaker:And that was him.
Speaker:And he also did the Python LPs.
Speaker:And of course, the Pythons would always make jokes at every opportunity.
Speaker:So of course, there should be some jokes written on the album also.
Speaker:But you will only find those inscriptions in the first UK pressing because most records pressed outside of UK were locally cut at the factories.
Speaker:And Porky wouldn't be there to do it.
Speaker:So you'll also be able to identify an original pressing if it has these funny inscriptions.
Speaker:And again, you'll have two almost identical albums, the same music, same release, but they will be completely different if you look at it depending on where it was pressed in which country was released.
Speaker:So that's the fun side of collecting.
Speaker:And that's why, Michael, you have so many pressings of Kiss Alive, because they are not identical.
Speaker:Of course, there is no point in buying the exact same copy twice.
Speaker:Maybe not.
Speaker:Some of us might do, but it's fun to search for albums that carry all these differences, and that's kind of fun.
Speaker:I was just wondering, to go back in the history, you said that the format hasn't changed since the 40s.
Speaker:What was that change like? What was that before? And why is this format that we currently have so much better than what we had before? Good question.
Speaker:One of the main characters in the history of Honor Records are Columbia Records.
Speaker:They invented the LP format in 1948.
Speaker:But before that, records were mostly made out of shellac, which is a kind of a fragile material that breaks easily and scratches easily.
Speaker:And you only had, like seven to ten minutes of music on each side because the group was really wide.
Speaker:And to be able to play them, you needed, of course, very expensive equipment, but also the styluses, the needles that you used.
Speaker:They could either be made from bamboo or some kind of metal substance.
Speaker:The bamboo ones, they needed to be changed after every play because they wore out so easily and the metal ones destroyed the albums.
Speaker:So you're kind of stuck between two evils and even three, because there wasn't a lot of music on the album.
Speaker:So if you wanted to buy a whole Symphony, let's say Mozart Symphony of Beethoven, you had to rent a van to get things on because there were so many records to be able to hold all the music.
Speaker:So there was a guy at Columbia Records called Peter Goldmark, I think.
Speaker:Yeah, just after the Second World War, he started working on a new format because he was annoyed about all the hassle of playing a record.
Speaker:And the sound wasn't very good either.
Speaker:So he said, okay.
Speaker:And of course, the old records, they were all played at 78 rounds per minute, and some of them were even 80.
Speaker:But he thought if we speed down and make a more narrow groove, we will be able to hold more music on each side.
Speaker:And he did, and he said, we'll change the material as well, because shellac, as I said before, was very fragile.
Speaker:So if you drop it on the floor, it would crack.
Speaker:We also had albums made from stone dust or whatever, and they were really heavy and also very fragile, and the sound was awful.
Speaker:So he worked for two or three years, I think, with a team of engineers developing the LP or the Long Play, as it was called, and that was launched in June of 1948.
Speaker:But it took a while before it kind of caught on because the funny thing about music on physical format is that when it was launched in the.
Speaker:Well, we're going back to 20s, at least when it became more widely available music on physical format, there was a lot of musicians who were actually opposed to this because for a traditional singer or a musician, the art in performing music was to do it in front of people that was playing live.
Speaker:So to have music put on a record was actually seen as a bit of a stupid compromise.
Speaker:Some people actually, they didn't want to be on a record because that was not their art.
Speaker:Their art was singing in front of people because that's what singers do.
Speaker:And even the radio stations, in the beginning, they were actually very reluctant to play albums on air because they always had live music on air.
Speaker:And in Denmark up until 63, the amount of live music in the radio was like it was over 50%.
Speaker:But in 63, when Beetles came along and all that, that changed because they couldn't have Beatles live in the studio and Rolling Stones and all that because we were flooded by British.
Speaker:The British invasion happened in Denmark too.
Speaker:But in 63 it tipped over in favor of vinyl.
Speaker:But before that, it was mainly live music on the radio that was seen as art.
Speaker:And vinyl was looked down upon.
Speaker:So that's a major turning point in the history of vinyl.
Speaker:Also in the early 60s.
Speaker:But again, they launched, they launched this and the year later, the company RCA launched the 45 rounds per minute, which of course was used and still is used for maxi singles and singles.
Speaker:But the vinyl record as an album didn't actually hit through until much later because of course, technology moved slowly back then and you couldn't just make turntables for everyone to buy because it was still very expensive.
Speaker:So we're actually a good ten years before the first sort of vinyl record was a major hit and that was South Pacific.
Speaker:And I think that came out in 1958 on record.
Speaker:And it was a best seller in the US because people have gone to the theater to see South Pacific and it was a huge hit.
Speaker:And suddenly you could buy the songs from the performance and listen to it in your own homes.
Speaker:You can invite people over and listen to the songs and that was a major breakthrough as well.
Speaker:And then, of course, in the 60s, you had the whole pop revolution, rock and roll and all that.
Speaker:But the major format was still the single because it was mostly important to have a hit single because you would get played on the radio.
Speaker:So you didn't really care much about doing a whole album because a whole album wouldn't be played on the radio.
Speaker:So it wasn't until the late Sixties after Sergeant Pepper came out that the album format actually found its way or its place in popular culture, because for the first time, people released an album with no singles.
Speaker:There were no singles prior to the release of Sergeant pepper.
Speaker:Because Sergeant pepper was meant to be listened to as a whole album a complete work of art.
Speaker:And that kind of started a new revolution about artists doing albums with meaning, with something to say.
Speaker:Combined with the artwork, that records became an experience.
Speaker:The gate falls and all that also came along there in the middle.
Speaker:You bought a package.
Speaker:You didn't just buy music to listen to random hits.
Speaker:You bought a whole thing.
Speaker:That's why we see so many great, I think, releases in the 70s that also come in extravagant packaging.
Speaker:I'm looking at Alice Cooper's schools out there are so many great album covers from the 70s Because the creativity that went into marketing the music was just incredible and everybody just wanted to chop one another.
Speaker:You can see what kind of music the stones put out after Sage and pepper came out.
Speaker:They really had to up their game.
Speaker:They couldn't play those two minute pop songs anymore.
Speaker:They needed something more to match the Beatles.
Speaker:Soren, it's so awesome having you here.
Speaker:And as we mentioned, Soren's got a book.
Speaker:We'll have a link to it in the description, so go check it out.
Speaker:I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next time.
Speaker:It's going to be awesome.
Speaker:Oh, I hope so.
Speaker:I'm not sure.
Speaker:What the name.
Speaker:I think probably either we're going to talk about record sleeves or maybe delving into the dead racks a bit Because we have a few things lined up.
Speaker:Yeah, then you have to be here, man, or you're missing out.
Speaker:Yeah, sure.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And with that, go to Sansafinal.com to check out everything.
Speaker:Soren, it's been a privilege.
Speaker:Yeah, you're one of us now, man.
Speaker:We're three.
Speaker:We're three.
Speaker:Three of us.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Three of us.
Speaker:We all time later.
Speaker:See you guys later.
Speaker:This has been found on vinyl.
Speaker:For extended show notes, playlists videos, and episode collection, visit Soundsonvinyl.com Sound on vinyl is produced by At Boothound entertainment in cooperation with Boo Town Music.