Get Ya Freak On.

[Phact0rri]

Speaking of LPs... Uncle Kracker did a song called Follow Me that he added the pop and crackle of an LP to.

I don't know why I thought of that aside from it annoying the crap out of me. If I want noise in my music, I'll turn the volume down so I can hear the rest of the world.

The crack and pop of records use to be really popular in the indie/punk crowd in the early bit of the decade. I got really tired of hearing it.

[McDuffies]

I don't know why I thought of that aside from it annoying the crap out of me. If I want noise in my music, I'll turn the volume down so I can hear the rest of the world.

You're into John Cage, eh?

[Paul Escobar]

Love my LPs - a little over half of my music collection is on vinyl. Mostly because I bought a fuckton of vinyl records back when CDs still cost much more than LPs. Got a lot of classic albums cheap on sale. It took me a long time to start buying CDs simply because bothering with two formats seemed silly to me at the time. I remember the big debate going on regarding the differences in the sound of the two formats, but I'm not enough of an audiophile to care much (listening to mp3s on cheap-ass headphones ATM). So the LP buying was for economic reasons. Still love 'em, though. Plus the 12 inch format allows for some great cover art, that's more or less a lost cause with CDs. ... to speak nothing of mp3s.

Going by what you said, it's rather ironic that Rothko's works ended up fetching exorbiant prices.

It's an irony of entire 20th century painting. I guess only dadaists managed to screw art dealers.

Most of the 20th century painters probably wouldn't have minded making big money, paintings just usually only sell for large sums when they have achieved seminal status, long after the artist sold them himself.

There are contemporary artists who make bank though, like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. I'm very fond several of Hirst's works, but the huge prices he sells them for has more to do with very clever marketing than with the art itself. Perhaps that's a modern form of dadaism.

[Phact0rri]

The main issue about Records sounding better than CDs is when CDs were new, engineers sucked royally at mastering CDs. These days records really aren't that much different unless records are given the love the deserve. And by love I mean Grooved like they should be to promote the versitility of gapping and groove deepness. Most of the time records really don't sound any better than CDs. Though the ones that were mastered well are treasures of sound. I can go more into this, if people want to be bored.

That being said I enjoy records for the simple fact, of laying an LP on my turn table, hearing the needle drop and watching it play. I really adore letting them spin. However I do tend to rip records as I do cds. I don't need a fancy converter. I just output the player into a mic jack and create a wav on my computer, then convert them into mp3's. easy peaszy.

[McDuffies]

Most of the 20th century painters probably wouldn't have minded making big money, paintings just usually only sell for large sums when they have achieved seminal status, long after the artist sold them himself.

There are contemporary artists who make bank though, like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. I'm very fond several of Hirst's works, but the huge prices he sells them for has more to do with very clever marketing than with the art itself. Perhaps that's a modern form of dadaism.

I pretty much hate both of them, I don't see anything more in their art than a few gimmicks repeated over and over again (which were stolen in the first place, at least in case of Koons). Compared to lifetime of reinventing and research of earlier artists, Hirst has already repeated himself too much.

I gather that gallery art pretty much comes down to what Koons and Hirst achieved: celebrity status is what sells paintings/sculptures/instalations, so young painters aspire to became celebrities, find a nice gimmick or shock their way into spotlight, after which they don't have to even try anymore. And buying works has more to do with financial investing than anything else, which is exactly the kind of thing that most of art movements tried to destroy. Weren't most of great artists kind of socialists?

It's all ridiculous and awful really, I don't have much faith in contemporary art, except forms like grafitti, performance, guerilla art, perhaps some instalations and land art, street sculptures and that kind of stuff. Forms that don't produce sellable object.

Not that there isn't a lot of dadaism in Koons' and Hirst's work, but I think that comes mostly through pop art. Maybe they are truly cynics who make works that in future won't be worth shit therefore ruining those who invested in them and making the whole finansial construction collapse... I'm more convinced that they're just cynics who found a way to use the system for their own benefit.

[Killbert-Robby]

Augh, things I hate about indie rock - I'm really not a big fan of the genre, so I'll be in a shop and suddenly they'll put on a song and I think AW MAN I LOVE THIS, but since I don't like the genre, I can place who's playing it <_<

[Phact0rri]

Augh, things I hate about indie rock - I'm really not a big fan of the genre, so I'll be in a shop and suddenly they'll put on a song and I think AW MAN I LOVE THIS, but since I don't like the genre, I can place who's playing it <_<

Indie is genre that is really hard to say you like or dislike it. Indie is essentially any band not on a major. Thats why there are the sub genres. Indie rock even has a few different sounds. Of course genre labeling in terms of music one likes tends to be fruitless. This of course coming from a guy who drops genre labels constantly! I think there's sounds we like and want to hear more of the same of course, and thats the benefit of labels, but I believe in most genres there are stand out acts and its best to not worry so much what a band identifies in as much as if you hear some good music, to pick up a record and enjoy some tunes.

BTW if your in a store and you hear a song, why not go to the workers and ask who's playing?

[Phact0rri]

Good thing you didn't try to go see DM in belgrade Mcduffies. Dave Gahan got a severe case of gastroenteritis and had to cancel the show (along with four others)

[Paul Escobar]

The main issue about Records sounding better than CDs is when CDs were new, engineers sucked royally at mastering CDs. These days records really aren't that much different unless records are given the love the deserve. And by love I mean Grooved like they should be to promote the versitility of gapping and groove deepness. Most of the time records really don't sound any better than CDs. Though the ones that were mastered well are treasures of sound. I can go more into this, if people want to be bored.

I'm interested... I'm no audiophile, but I can hear a difference in dynamic range (is that the term? I'm a layman here) on various records. I have a few LPs that sound decidedly flat, and they're clearly not not produced to sound like that, so something's off with the mastering.

I gather that gallery art pretty much comes down to what Koons and Hirst achieved: celebrity status is what sells paintings/sculptures/instalations, so young painters aspire to became celebrities, find a nice gimmick or shock their way into spotlight, after which they don't have to even try anymore. And buying works has more to do with financial investing than anything else, which is exactly the kind of thing that most of art movements tried to destroy. Weren't most of great artists kind of socialists?

Yeah, there's a lot of that about. I still see good art in galleries, though. I don't think contemporary art is overall any worse or more cynical than what was contemporary art 25 or 50 years ago. There's always been humbug artists, it's just the in-fashion style and concepts they latch onto that change - I'm quite certain there were young wannabe artists in the 1950s who thought all there was to abstract expressionism is random spattering of paint. "90% of everything is crud" - and for better or worse, contemporary art is unfiltered by time, while the crap of the past has mostly been forgotten.

Were many great artists socialists? Maybe, I'm not sure it matters - once they put their work up for sale, it's subject to supply and demand and potentially an investment object for someone. That said, I think most people who buy art still do it simply because they want a piece of art they like in their home.

[Killbert-Robby]

BTW if your in a store and you hear a song, why not go to the workers and ask who's playing?

Because I'm in full sprint to grab my airplane before it leaves without me?

[McDuffies]

Good thing you didn't try to go see DM in belgrade Mcduffies. Dave Gahan got a severe case of gastroenteritis and had to cancel the show (along with four others)

Yeah, I've heard. It seems like halfa my friends wanted to go, too bad for them.

[KWill]

So, this weekend was Eurovision. What did y'all think?

[Phact0rri]

I'm interested... I'm no audiophile, but I can hear a difference in dynamic range (is that the term? I'm a layman here) on various records. I have a few LPs that sound decidedly flat, and they're clearly not not produced to sound like that, so something's off with the mastering.

The power in vinyl is essentially the range of sound you can achieve that cannot be achieved by any other medium. Bass and deeper sounds can go past the clipping levels of Cd and digital processing by making deeper concave valleys and widening the groove. Like ways higher sounds can be achieved by narrow valleys and thinner grooves. This processing can afford sounds that go further into the "visable" eq and process sounds that might not even always be completely noticable by listeners and is more of a comfort "sweet" sound even to casual listeners. On the downside it takes a lot of experience and patience to properly mix a record and these days, the talented engineers don't really even try to do the artistry that really made audio production an art form in the days of vinyl.

[McDuffies]

So, this weekend was Eurovision. What did y'all think?

I didn't feel like watching it. I've heard that we didn't pass to finals which is fair because the song is a freaking joke, and not in a good way. I've heard that bosnians passed, which is better I guess, song is not interesting to someone who grew up listening to bosnian pop, but I suppose you westerners might find it interesting.
What was it like? Who won? Are the winners as crappy as the last year?

[KWill]

So, this weekend was Eurovision. What did y'all think?

I didn't feel like watching it. I've heard that we didn't pass to finals which is fair because the song is a freaking joke, and not in a good way. I've heard that bosnians passed, which is better I guess, song is not interesting to someone who grew up listening to bosnian pop, but I suppose you westerners might find it interesting.
What was it like? Who won? Are the winners as crappy as the last year?

I've discovered my taste in music is out of sync with the rest of Europe... Norway won, with a song I found ok, but not great. Certainly not "Best Eurovision Song EVER!", which it apparently now is. Nearly got an average of 10 points per country, and basically started off on first and the gap to the others just kept widening.
I kinda liked the acts from Sweden, UK, Germany, and Greece, and annoyingly enough, only the UK placed anywhere near the top. Turkey did far too well as well. The song kept breaking its rhythm, in my opinion, whenever its title got shouted out. The vote counting was painful though, not so much because Germany didn't do too well, but because the German commentator kept whining about it and just how spectacular the result for Norway was. Seriously, guessing whom the top three points were being doled out to prior to the announcement wasn't very hard this time around.

[Paul Escobar]

On the downside it takes a lot of experience and patience to properly mix a record and these days, the talented engineers don't really even try to do the artistry that really made audio production an art form in the days of vinyl.

Why would this be? They regard it as pointless due to the (apparently) limited range of CDs?

[McDuffies]

So, this weekend was Eurovision. What did y'all think?

I didn't feel like watching it. I've heard that we didn't pass to finals which is fair because the song is a freaking joke, and not in a good way. I've heard that bosnians passed, which is better I guess, song is not interesting to someone who grew up listening to bosnian pop, but I suppose you westerners might find it interesting.
What was it like? Who won? Are the winners as crappy as the last year?

I've discovered my taste in music is out of sync with the rest of Europe... Norway won, with a song I found ok, but not great. Certainly not "Best Eurovision Song EVER!", which it apparently now is. Nearly got an average of 10 points per country, and basically started off on first and the gap to the others just kept widening.
I kinda liked the acts from Sweden, UK, Germany, and Greece, and annoyingly enough, only the UK placed anywhere near the top. Turkey did far too well as well. The song kept breaking its rhythm, in my opinion, whenever its title got shouted out. The vote counting was painful though, not so much because Germany didn't do too well, but because the German commentator kept whining about it and just how spectacular the result for Norway was. Seriously, guessing whom the top three points were being doled out to prior to the announcement wasn't very hard this time around.

But that's nothing new, eh? Best songs win almost never. Eurosong is generally out of sync with anyone who has remotely good taste in music, it's hardly representing what's popular in Europe at the moment. Perhaps for certain audience, but I can't imagine a person who's picking what to listen to based on Eurosong.

[Phact0rri]

On the downside it takes a lot of experience and patience to properly mix a record and these days, the talented engineers don't really even try to do the artistry that really made audio production an art form in the days of vinyl.

Why would this be? They regard it as pointless due to the (apparently) limited range of CDs?

There's really no money in it. Skillfully mastering has really went to the way side. I mean most people listen to mp3's anways so whats the need to make an organic sounding album, when most of it won't be heard? seems these days music is more track f/x than it is sound modulation.

[McDuffies]

Well it's a sort of like making comics more violent and with more splash pages, isn't it? It doesn't make a better comic, but it gets attention, and when you're working within an industry, all you need is to impress readers for long enough to buy the comic. Like, each time, a hero gets a larger oponent, and everyone pretends that it's not absurd to have a bad guy the size of the planet. Or that it's not absurd to have records mixed louder than the last year, if I'm gonna listen in same volume I'm used to anyways.
Basically if you have an entertainment industry with emphasis on industry, you want to make this industry as alike assembly line as possible. So you try to replace every part of the process that takes skills and talent, with something that could be taught to anyone in two days.

[Prettysenshi]

I miss my Yeahduff and his bastard smugness <3

Anyway, I've been listening to Drake (the wheelchair kid from Degrassi) and his mixtape is really good. it's been played all over the place, and he's working with Lil Wayne, and tons of people and he's not even signed up. I think that's pretty impressive.