Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Tom Fine wrote:

> Producer Don Was, for a while at least, advised clients to keep an album to 45
> minutes and to put it together like a 2-sided LP because "that's what the people
> want and are used to."

As you have suggested in other places in your post, the longer playing
time of the CD has indeed changed the notion of a release. It seems to me
that one can find similarities in the world of information in general.
Years ago, I would simply tear out a page of an article that interested
me. Now, I save a PDF of the entire article, or report, or
magazine.

I believe the increased, inexpensive storage, has changed the notion of an
album being the "best" of something to its being a collection of something.

As for the playing time...well, I would guess that few will listen all the
way through a disc, but, with the nature of the CD, one doesn't need to.
In the days of the LP, one could not automatically jump over a
track...well I think there were a few turntables that tried to do that. As
for what the people are used to...I am reminded of the playing time of the
12 inch 78 and how RCA mirrored that playing time with the 45 rpm disc.

When it comes to the "encyclopedic" nature of our storage...I think of all
of those iPods filled with an average person's entire collection...and
then there is a friend of mine who put, on a single disc, MP3s of all of
the music of Chopin, plus photos of his trip to Chopin's home...

As for all of those "unreleased" and "rejected" takes being
available...somehow, as a collector, I take comfort in knowing they can be
available on my shelf...likewise, perhaps I might be in the mood for a few
baryton trios by Haydn...well I never have been, but I might be...

I am reminded of an article I just read the other day...It was about
the label Brilliant Classics...you can buy
a set of recordings which feature just about everything Mozart
wrote...cost, as I recall...about $150. I am waiting for it to come out
on a single holographic disc, with the complete works of Bach, Haydn,
Schubert...but I wonder they would have to charge for that disc.

Karl