Released in 1970, Emerson, Lake and Palmer was the first album from ELP. It is basically a solo album for all three members as only the first song was a combined effort. Extended solos and songs, complex time signatures and many classical influences make this album a definitive piece of progressive rock. However, many people do not like ELP. They think they are pretentious and overblown and boring. I say those people are welcome to their opinion, but that since much of ELP’s music is actual classical pieces or heavily influenced by classical music, then people who don’t like them probably have no appreciation for classical music either.

I have talked about ELP – Brain Salad Surgery before, which I think is one of their best albums.

I think Keith Emerson is an amazing pianist and composer. Plus the Hammond organ he uses is fantastic. I love that dirty Hammond sound. The best example of this sound is on Knife Edge, one of my favorite Emerson, Lake and Palmer songs.

Track Listing:

Side One:

1. The Barbarian
2. Take  a Pebble
3. Knife Edge

Side Two:

1. The Three Fates: (i) Clotho (ii) Lachesis (iii) Atropos
2. Tank
3. Lucky Man

Emerson, Lake and Palmer went to #18 on the Billboard charts, while “Lucky Man” went to #48 on the Billboard top 100.

You can buy Emerson, Lake and Palmer at Musicstack or at Amazon.

The above picture is from an electron microscope from the University of Rochester. It shows the dirt and grim that collect on the grooves of records. You don’t want this.

The best way to clean a vinyl record is to buy a record cleaning machine. The Moth MKII is a good one to use, as it is a vacuum powered cleaner.

You can find the Moth record cleaner at Juno.co.uk. Using a record cleaner is the best and most effective way to clean a vinyl album. However, it is a bit expensive for the casual listener. So there are more options for those not willing to spend the money, however, the quality of cleaning goes down from here.

The next option is to use a solution and brush to remove the junk from the records. You can use homemade solutions, such as water and a tiny bit of gentle dish soap (with no moisturizer); or you can use 90% isopropyl alcohol, NOT rubbing alcohol. You can usually find some cleaner at your local record shop too. Use this with a clean dry  fabric preferably a cloth diaper. Rub the record with the grooves a few times in both directions to get the junk out. Make sure that the record is completely dry before you play it. Also make sure that you do not get the label wet.

While doing all of this, handle the record by the edges, and don’t touch the grooves with your fingers. Touching the records wrong is one of the biggest reasons why they get dirty.

Another important item to have is the proper sleeve for your records. Whenever I buy old records, especially if they are at a flea market or something, they are usually missing the inner sleeve. Or they have one made of paper. Paper degrades over time and leaves dust in the grooves. You can get a pack of 50 inner sleeves for about $15-$18. These will not degrade and also help in reducing static.

I also use an anti static cleaning brush every time I play a record. This doesn’t take the place of a good cleaning, but it helps keep off surface dust and can keep cleaned records cleaner a lot longer.

I love the sound of vinyl, but I don’t love the pops and crackles that come with dirty records. I have read comments of people on the internet say that they like the cracks and pops, and I think that many of them have no idea what a good, clean vinyl record should sound like.

This Christmas tree was made from old vinyl records and is located at Galen Hall Corp. in South Heidelberg Township, Reading PA.

It’s time to pull out all of the old Christmas vinyl, such as this Johnny Mathis Christmas album, and give it a listen.

Yessongs is a 3 disc (vinyl record discs) collection of live concert recordings. It was recorded during the Close To The Edge tour, and was released in 1973.

Yessongs features extended solos by most of the band, except for Jon Anderson and the (at the time) new drummer, Alan White. Because it is 3 discs, it has a lot more album art as you open it up. Of course, this art is done by Roger Dean, the legendary Yes album artist.

On the charts, Yessongs hit #7 in the UK, and #12 in the US. It also went Platinum in April of 1998.

Yessongs Track Listing

Side One

1. Opening (excerpt from ‘Firebird Suite’)
2. Siberian Khatru
3. Heart of the Sunrise

Side Two

1. Perpetual Change
2. And You and I

Side Three

1. Mood for a Day
2. Excerpts from ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’
3. Roundabout

Side Four

1. I’ve Seen All Good People
2. Long Distance Runaround/The Fish (Schindleria Præmaturus)

Side Five

1. Close to the Edge

Side Six

1. Yours Is No Disgrace
2. Starship Trooper

Yes was one of those bands, along with Genesis, that were responsible for bringing prog rock to the masses. Without them, our music would be bland today (of course, I think most of the pop music today is bland). If you are into Yes, but don’t have Yessongs, you need to buy it at MusicStack. They play these songs a bit differently live than they do in a studio, and it is a great album.

Apparently, it is an audiophile version that is straight from the masters that the vinyl is recorded from. although compressed, it is not nearly as sqaushed as standard CD’s. This means that the sound is much better, more dynamic and more expressive. The following is a quote from producer and engineer Ryan Ulyate;

Standard CDs are designed to play back well on the many different systems which exist today such as iPod, car, radio, computer and home. To make it sound as good as possible on all these different systems, compression is added. What compression does is to make the CD sound louder. Too much compression can make the music sound harsh and distorted. Producers and artists today compete to make their recording sound louder and some have pushed the limit with as much compression as possible. Some have gone too far. On the other hand, without any compression, a CD would not sound as loud as other albums. This would be especially noticeable on iPods and other mp3 players and when played back to back with compressed music, uncompressed music would sound less impactful and not ‘jump out of the speakers’ which is the effect most producers are going for when they add compression. [You can see the effects of crappy sound and compression on the new Metallica album Death Magnetic.]

Great, so why don’t other artists and engineers do this? I believe that first of all, the majority of people don’t really care how their music sounds, otherwise we wouldn’t have such high sales of iPods. Second of all, there is a lot more money involved in putting out three versions of the same album. However, it seems that some people (like Mudcrutch) get it, and are willing to spend the money for their music to sound true to what they wrote.

The Completion Backward Principle is a pretty good example of 80′s New Wave, leaning towards pop, and it does have some good songs on it. It was the 6th studio album put out by the band, and it made it to #36 in 1981. The single, Talk To Ya Later went to #6 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. You can buy The Tubes at Musicstack.

This album is supposed to be a little stab at corporate America I believe. The back cover has all of the band members is suits, looking very professional and yuppie-ish, with important sounding jobs appointed to them. For example;

Bill Spooner – Analyst, Guitar, Vocals

Michael Cotton – Trend, Synthesizers

Fee Waybill – Motivation, Lead Vocals

Roger Steen – Development, Guitar, Vocals

Prairie Prince – Systems, Drums

Vince Welnick – Accounts, Keyboards, Vocals

Rick Anderson – Policy, Bass

Haven’t we all heard important sounding titles that really don’t mean anything?

The Completion Backwards Principle Track listing

Side One

1. Talk To Ya Later
2. Sushi Girl
3. Amnesia
4. Mr. Hate
5. Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman (mp3)

Side Two

1. Think About Me
2. A Matter Of Pride
3. Don’t Want To Wait Anymore
4. Power Tools
5. Let’s Make Some Noise

Overall, I don’t listen to this album very much. I really like The Tubes original and older stuff. It was much more experimental and almost on the verge of prog. This is a great album though, if you are into early new wave, and 80′s pop.

By the way, Fee Waybill has also appeared in the movies ‘Xanadu’ as a rock singer, a little known movie call ‘Ladies and Gentleman, the Stains’ as lead singer for the band The Metal Corpses, and also in ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ as one of the Three Most Important People in the World.

There is not a lot of information about this album, as it didn’t make much of an impact. It is out of print, although released on CD in the mid 90′s. However, you can find Richard Wright CD’s and vinyl records at Musicstack.

Richard Wright - Wet Dream Vinyl LP

This album was released in 1978, my copy is a promo copy, so it is original, and 30 years old. What do your 30 year old tapes sound like? Rick Wright wrote and produced all of his own songs, except for the second track which he co-wrote with his wife.

Track listing for Wet Dream by Rick Wright:

Side One

1. Mediterranean C
2. Against The Odds
3. Cat Cruise
4. Summer Elegy
5. Waves

Side Two

6. Holiday (MP3)

7. Mad Yannis Dance
8. Drop In From the Top
9. Pink’s Song
10. Funky Deux

If you listen to the entire album (hard to do when you have iTunes on shuffle), you can hear definite influences from different Floyd albums. I know this because I love Pink Floyd and have every album, most on vinyl.

I am very sad that I will never get to see the original Pink Floyd in concert.

“There will always be a very special place for vinyl albums. That place is called eBay.

There they rest in peace, alongside trashed DC comic books, used Pinto cars (read: moving coffins) and 500-pound Atari PONG systems.

But for the rest of the living, breathing and dare I say evolving world, the medium of choice is any of the latest supergadgets — may it be incredibly convenient iPods, laptops or BlackBerry phones…”

“…Vinyl lovers are thereby unavoidably left in the Stone Age…”

“…Many vinyl users argue that the biggest difference between the modern digital album and the outdated … er, “classic” … vinyl album is the feel. Vinyl “feels warmer” or has a special crackling sound to it. I don’t hear many people pining for the days of VHS’s poor picture quality or dial-up Internet’s molasses-like speed, but I suppose to each his own…”

“…In indie music, nothing screams shameless pretension quite like vinyl records…”

“…I ask that if you make modern music, get with the modern age. I understand Radiohead’s Thom Yorke is obsessed with the “complete album” experience, which I respect. But people who want that experience will do so without buying a $100 vinyl packet. I’ll keep my pay-what-you-want (in other words, free) digital copy and still listen to it completely and in copious amounts…”

“…Let’s face it, we may be currently looking at the end of compact discs. Eight-tracks and casette tapes are long gone. Vinyl is as dead as disco, and the music-loving community needs to respectfully move on…”

Those quotes were from Emorywheel.com where the writer obviously doesn’t like vinyl. He brings up the old argument about vinyl “feeling warmer” or having a “special crackling sound”. I’ve never heard anyone say they love the crackle on vinyl.

The reason these articles annoy me is that there is a big, definite reason why vinyl sounds better. Most people hear it, but don’t know what it is. Vinyl inherently has a lower dynamic range than CD’s or MP3′s. Which means that the volume can’t be too loud on vinyl records. Therefore the sound engineering and mixing that goes into vinyl records is much more precise and musical. In a CD every instrument is taken to the loudest point, then mixed together, then compressed to the loudest point overall possible. The difference in listening is that on vinyl the separation between the instruments is very easy to hear, but in CD’s ( and especially MP3′s) every instrument is as loud as every other instrument or voice.

To understand why this is bad for CD’s, check out what fans are saying about Metallica’s new album Death Magnetic.

Now there are exceptions, but not a lot. That is why record labels love CD’s, because they can increase the volume of the music, at the expense of the musicality.

That is why vinyl records are better than CD’s.

What the crap?

Isn’t the point of records to enjoy the high quality music? I understand that a lot of people have records, but don’t really care to listen to them. So they want them converted. But what I don’t understand, is that downloading music is supposed to be illegal, UNLESS YOU OWN IT!

If I own the vinyl record, It is not illegal to own the MP3.

But this is where it gets kind of weird. I have talked about ripping MP3′s from vinyl records before, but it could probably be done again. There are two ideas about ripping MP3′s from vinyl.

Do you own the content of the vinyl, or just the vinyl? That is the question.

Some say we bought the album, we own the music on it, and can copy it (for ourselves) as many times as we wish in any format we wish.

Others (mostly record companies and their lawyers) say that we only bought a piece of vinyl that just happened to have music on it. We own the vinyl, but not what is on it. If you want to have the music on CD, then you need to buy it on CD. If you want to have MP3′s to take with you, then you have to go and buy the MP3. Even if you already own it on one format.

I agree with the first idea, and I’m sure most people do. However, if you agree with the second point of view, I’d love to hear why. Because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Anyway, my point is that the Vinyl to MP3 industry is booming. These record players that convert vinyl are selling in high numbers. But why? If I can download it legally (because I own the vinyl), why would I want to buy something when I can just get it on U Torrent?

Anyway, whether you download it or rip it, you have still lost so much quality in the conversion process, that it’s almost pointless. I don’t like to listen to MP3′s on my big stereo. Small speakers are ok, but not the good stereo.

“…but nothing sounds as good as a vinyl record. That’s not an opinion; it’s a fact. That’s why some records were cut direct-to-disk, bypassing analog tape with 1/8” track widths. By comparison, a cassette is just a little wider with four tracks on it, and those awful 8-track tapes had one-fourth of that track width.”

If you don’t understand what he’s talking about above, here is some help.

The above picture shows the tape as you would look at it stretching from left to right. They put four tracks on that little thin piece of tape. Each track is just over 1/2 a millimeter! Not much room for information there.

Of course, 8-tracks had even thinner tracks with even less room for information.

“Studios used tube amps until the manufacturers sold them a bill of goods that transistors were the way to go. The studios then bought tube pre-amps to regain some of the lost quality. With CDs, they lopped off the highs and lows and were able to get more than twice the time on one disk. MP3s subtract even more signal.”

We have talked about CD’s and MP3′s before enough.

“…you have the car stereos with grossly disproportionate low frequencies that amount to scrotal massage – nothing at all like music is supposed to sound.”

LOL. I love how he put that. I believe he is right though. I think we have been conditioned to think that we need a whole lot of bass in our music. Everything should be balanced, it’s why they mix and master the music before we get it.

The article goes into the benefits that we have in digital recording, although it doesn’t sound as good, “You can alter the sounds into digital samples of other instruments, turn a wobbly drummer into a human clock and even make a tone-deaf banshee sing on pitch. In short, bad musicians can be made to sound almost talented. Is this a good idea?”

No, I don’t think it is a good idea. If you like a band, then go to hear them live, aren’t you disappointed when the singer can’t really sing (Axl Rose)?

More and more engineers are trying to stay away from crappy bands, and only working with those that have some talent and don’t need all the tricks to make them sound good. Also, more band are taking the hint and are writing and rehearsing all their songs prior to recording, instead of doing it in the recording studio.

Let’s hope this leads to better music.