Physical Formats Death Watch (Part 36)

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard and/or read about the imminent demise of the CD these past years. Just recently, once again, a news item (that has never really been substantiated) made the rounds again, stating that EMI, Universal and Sony had plans up their sleeves in regard to giving the CD the chop in 2012.

Do I care?
Well, uhm, yes and no.

Besides the fact that I don’t think any label (greedy bastards), will annul any one format that is still making it more than 10 cents of income, I do think that even if labels were to start dropping physical formats altogether in favor of digital download solutions, those formats would survive for quite some time. Continue Reading →

Recent Acquisitions (October 2011)

Back from my much-needed extended holiday way down south, as close to the Sahara as one can get short of floating in the water just a few miles offshore. Twenty-five to thirty-something degrees Celsius each and every day, nary a cloud. Great places to see, a breathtaking landscape and lots of insiders’ tips in my back pocket.

Recent Acquisitions

“Recent Acquisitions” has been something I’ve had around for quite a while on this site, in one form or another. And looking back on past posts or drafts that never came to fruition, there’s one single aspect that stands out immediately. The shopping sprees of the past are long gone. It could be that I have reached a saturation point somewhat, although I do doubt that. It’s just that I have so much to listen to that whenever I stumble over more “Want-Need-Will Have” items, I’m reluctant to shell out the dough, mostly because my bad conscience (left shoulder, far right) parades those CDs in front of my inner eye that I haven’t really listened to intensively yet. Continue Reading →

The Perfect Dinner CD: “For You” by Frank Chastenier

I know that from the few regular readers I have around here, I might get some severe flack. And from all others who have probably written this site off as another one of those useless and uniformed vanity projects, I’ll probably get a “told you so”. Still, I’m not going to back down.

I don’t know about you, but if you have a larger collection of music, you might well have an imaginary section or two entitled “Perfect Dinner Music” or “Soft as Soft Can”. I do.

And I’m about to tell you a few things about a CD that has been so severely criticized by just about every mainstream and dedicated critic that it’s almost become a point to ridicule said effort. It is certainly in the vain of the kind of criticism that I abhor; you know, the kind that simply can’t get off its high horse, the one that aims the most poisonous of arrows at someone who might have had simple passion driving him- or herself, even with commercial interest at heart. Continue Reading →

Recycling

One of the most irritating aspects of most music labels’ reissue policies (if there is, indeed, a “policy” of any kind present, aside from generating the most cash with the least amount of effort) is the constant need of company bigwigs to recycle releases for the umpteenth time.

I know it’s akin to yelling into an empty forest, especially since just about every music collector is likely to get a hernia sooner or later when faced with the 756th reissue of “Kind of Blue”, but it also needs to be said around here:

It is maddening to see how much music remains unreleased, is left to shady European offshore labels to reissue in more or less adequate format or which, in a worst-case scenario, is just lost to the sands of time and tape deterioration because the management, as is customary, couldn’t give a flying leap about the music it has been and is selling. A product is a product, and if the ($) signs are right, the same music will be reissued again. And again.
And again. Continue Reading →

The Music of “The Lord of the Rings”

To veer off the beaten path again for a brief moment, I would like to draw your attention to a site I literally “tripped” over the other day, “The Music of ‘The Lord of the Rings’“.

This website, oddly enough hosted on a student sub-domain, although copyrighted and supposedly licensed (which I somehow doubt, myself being the eternal cynic and all), gives you a detailed insight into the conception and composition of the entire score which did, if you recall, garner two Academy Awards and got quite a bit of praise from critics around the globe. Many people would consider this to be Howard Shore’s masterpiece. Continue Reading →

DFTMC: “Don’t forget the Motor City”

Once in a while, one stumbles upon a fabulous website unsuspectingly.

“Don’t Forget the Motor City: The Ultimate Guide to Motown (and related) recordings 1956-1972. Eigth Edition (June 2011)“, compiled by Keith Huges and published by Richie Hardin, is such a website. From the first click into the staggering wealth of discographical information on this website you just know that you have landed on an Internet presence that has been and is a real labor of love. Continue Reading →

Ed Thigpen: Live at Tivoli / Master of Time, Rhythm and Taste

Everyone who has ever met me – or read more than just a small snippet on this site – knows that I was and am also a huge fan of the late Ed Thigpen, drummer extraordinaire and somone who graced more than 1500 albums with his tasty style and impeccable work. He was also someone I had the fortune of meeting many times in the late 70s and then several times again throughout the 80s and 90s.

Still, somehow, the following release completely passed me by.
It wasn’t until I checked edthigpen.com that I became aware of it. Continue Reading →

Jan Johansson in Hamburg (with Georg Riedel)

As readers of this site know, I am a huge fan of Jan Johansson‘s work.
This month, ACT will finally release a much-anticipated Jan Johansson CD, which can already now be pre-ordered from Amazon.de. Continue Reading →