| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| TMAK |
Posted - 16/05/2008 : 11:59:29
Comebacks we'd like to see: #11 -- 45 rpm vinyls by Geoff Williams
This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.
I've always loved the year I was born -- 1970. To me, it was this perfect time when the world was modern and advanced, and yet still with one foot in this quaint and old-fashioned universe. What do I mean? Well, on one hand, we had traveled to the Moon by this time! Yet the country was still using rotary telephones, there were only three television networks, MTV was just letters in alphabet soup, and, yes, we were listening to vinyl albums.
I almost missed that era -- I didn't really start buying music semi-regularly until the early 1980s and 45 rpms, the small version of the big vinyl records, were going out of style, as were the bigger vinyl albums, being replaced by cassette tapes. But vinyl records were still selling in the 1980, and I clearly remember when Bruce Willis, then star of TV's Moonlighting, came out with a single, "Respect Yourself." I probably bicycled over to my local K-mart, or embarked on one of my early drives in the family car, bought the 45 and happily listened to it in my room, taking a brief break from listening to my favorite artists, Huey Lewis and Debbie Gibson.
Ah, good times.
Anyway, the beauty of the 45 was that -- unlike today -- you could buy a song for a buck and you didn't have to purchase the entire album. That's sadly something that kids... er... oh, yeah. Downloadable, often for free if illegal, music.
So you may well wonder, especially if you're under the age of 30, why anyone would want the 45's to come back. I do think I have one good argument.
Aside from the little things -- when you got tired of them, they made pretty good Frisbees -- buying a 45 was a special experience. As noted, I had to go out and physically get the record. I how the 45 felt, this black, 7 inches in diameter, recording. Sure, it sounds corny, but when you had to make an effort to go get your music, there was something kind of special about it. I used to routinely download music -- always, um, paying for it, of course -- heh-heh, why I would I not pay for downloaded music? -- I mean, it's illegal to do so -- so, anyway, yeah, I've downloaded music, and I've always enjoyed listening to songs I had forgotten about and probably wouldn't have gone out and purchased. But it does lose something when you can just download a song, listen to it, and four minutes later be onto something else in your life.
I also remember shooting the breeze with a cousin of mine, listening to her 45's, some of which, I think were songs her father had sung (he was a respectable musician in his day). Granted, downloading music means you can share it with friends far and wide, but now that they don't have to, I half wonder if kids and teenagers get together in a bedroom and just spend an afternoon listening to CDs. Maybe they do, but I'm guessing they aren't in the same room when they listen to Amy Winehouse's latest song, they're doing it in separate houses, texting each other on their cell phones and blackberries.
It's a great world we live in, but I miss the little things in life, little things like 45's.
What do you remember when you think of your first disc of vinyl?
TMak |
| 6 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Carole R. |
Posted - 17/05/2008 : 00:00:32
Thanks for that great post, Brian. Loads of information there.
I'd never heard of Dinking Machines, but I do remember those records that had no middle bit.
------
There used to be a radio/tv shop where Mum and Dad rented the TV......and they had just a small number of 45's on sale.
So, I used to go pay the rental for them and at the same time look at these records and decide which I would buy, when I'd got enough money.It was all so exciting...
My Dad bought a portable record player and I used to take it to school, for the Lunchtime break..We all used to sit there singing along to Neil Sedaka,Carole King and this new group called The Beatles. 
So, I bet you're thinking what has this got to do with anything?
Well, I'm just remembering 45s and those are the memories I thought of first.
Carole R xx
|
| reputation |
Posted - 16/05/2008 : 20:20:14
quote:
Originally posted by TMAK
Rep - I was graduating from High School in 1970!
TMak
You don't make that very clear my girl, I THOUGHT you were not THAT young as to be born in 1970!!!!   |
| Brian |
Posted - 16/05/2008 : 15:39:49
It was one of the joys of life...when 45 rpm singles burst into the market (was it 1958??) the excitement of going to your local music shop and listening to a clutch of 45's in a booth was wonderful.
In those days we had a 'top twenty' which soon expanded into a 'top thirty' compiled by returns from selected shops. Charts were published in the papers on Tuesday each week.
I started collecting 45's around this period, not knowing at the time that it would become an obsession which would last thirty odd years! Over the years I spent most of my spare cash on singles, with an album perhaps once a month in the early days. As funds became more readily available so did the 'collecting'...eventually with me having over 30,000 records! Different labels obviously had different pressing plants resulting in a wide range of quality in the discs.
The Decca group always pressed the best discs - very rarely would they have a fault. EMI followed close behind along with Pye Records.
Columbia (CBS) and RCA were generally ok. By far the worst company pressing-wise was the Polydor group which included Dusty's Phillips label!...they (I think!) pressed a lot in Germany/Holland on a thinner vinyl which was prone to warp more than the other labels. Fortunately none of my Dusty singles suffered this fate. It was a completely different story on the album front - Polydor/Phillips were amongst the best pressed.
Anyway - back to 45's - here in England we always had 'centres' in our discs, but the American pressings didn't. You could place an Amerian pressed record straight onto a juke-box, but the UK ones had to be 'dinked'*
* dinked was the name for removing the centre section with believe it or not - A DINKING MACHINE!
The shop where I worked had 3 of these contraptions - the only shop for miles that did. We would sometimes have to 'dink' 300 records + for a company who supplied juke boxes throughout Oxfordshire/Berkshire/Buckinghamshire which was quite a tiring procedure! Sometime around 1968 the record companies agreed to supply the records already 'dinked' for juke box suppliers, however members of the public were always coming in to have their singles 'dinked' (for juke boxes they'd aquired?)...we charged a penny per disc!...and collected the monies for the Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary. In ten years we collected £11,500 for them and they gave us a diploma for the greatest single (sic!) donation!..it took pride of place by the till in the shop
Although 7" singles sold by the bucketload in the sixties the heyday was most probably the period 1971-76. After that 12" singles became readily available, along with cassettes, and sales of the 7" very slowly declined. However they still sold well right up until 1988 when cd singles appeared. Our shop specialised in vinyl right up until this time. Anyone remember the 'OLD GOLD' RECORD LABEL?
'OLD GOLD' produced thousands of titles, basically re-issues of former hits. They were extremely good value for the late 'collector', having two hits on one single. Dusty had several - 'IOWTBWY' coupled with 'IJDKWTDWM' was one, 'ISLAND OF DREAMS/SAY I WON'T BE THERE' by The Springfields was another. Most artists had OLD GOLD singles, though never The Beatles or Rolling Stones - these were always kept in the catalogue by their respective record companies. One hit 'wonders' were often coupled with another one hit 'wonder' for a single. One of the best companies for keeping 7" singles in their 'back catalogue' was Tamla Motown. 'Jimmy Mack' by Martha & The Vandellas, 'Roadrunner' by Junior Walker & The All Stars, 'My Guy' by Mary Wells and 'This old heart of mine' by The Isley Brothers were BIG back catalogue sellers - in fact they sold far more this way then when they first hit the charts! At Christmas Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas' was always a big seller, along with Slade, Wizzard and Mud's Christmas offerings. Dusty was always a good seller on vinyl single (I HELPED IN MY OWN LITTLE WAY!)...you have to 'spread the word don't you?
I know cd's are easy to programme, but NOTHING can take away the joy of the 7" single
Brian. |
| Carole R. |
Posted - 16/05/2008 : 15:00:56
Great article Tere..
I thought it'd be good to take this question from it:
What do you remember when you think of your first disc of vinyl?
So,
Carole R xx |
| TMAK |
Posted - 16/05/2008 : 13:04:14
Rep - I was graduating from High School in 1970!
TMak |
| reputation |
Posted - 16/05/2008 : 12:14:06
You were born in 1970???
Tere you are a baby, does your mama let you go out alone?
Are there no releases of 45's in the States at all?
You can still get some 45's here, I know Duffy's releases are also on 45's. |
|
|
