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IUG
Jul 14, 2007


precision posted:

The addition of a "Skip Track" button was invaluable to the evolution of the album as form.

Here's a fun one: try to count how many CDs from the 90s/early 00s have an absolutely killer track 7.

I just made an iTunes smart playlist, Year is in the range of 1990 to 1999, and track is track 7.

Beastie Boys - Check Your Head - So What'cha Want.
Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty - Intergalactic
Bush - Razorblade Suitcase - Mouth
Bush - Sixteen Stone - Machinehead
Cake - Fashion Nugget - I Will Survive
Cake - Prolonging The Magic - Sheep Go To Heaven (Not my favorite, but it was a single)
Daft Punk - Homework - Around The World
Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape - My Hero
Live - Throwing Copper - All Over You (Also a single that isn't my favorite)
Orgy - Candyass - Blue Monday
Pearl Jam - Yield - Do The Evolution
Rage Against The Machine - Evil Empire - Down Rodeo
Rage Against The Machine - S/T - Wake Up
Soundgarden - Down On The Upside - Burden In My Hand
Soundgarden - Superunknown - Black Hole Sun
Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hot - Hell
Stone Temple Piolots - Core - Creep
Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music - Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart

This was out of 181 tracks. (I'm not really sure the point you were trying to make with that though.)

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precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
For a while it was common practice to put a killer track at 7 to stop people from skipping through the whole album, that's the entirety of the point :)

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.
Counting Crows - Rain King, Have You Seen Me Lately?, Cover Up The Sun
Green Day - Basket Case, Give Me Novacaine
The Mountain Goats - Pink and Blue, No Children, Up the Wolves
Ninja Sex Party - No Reason Boner, The Sacred Chalice Pt. 1, Party of Three
Pink Floyd (CD era) - Take it Back
They Might Be Giants - Particle Man, With the Dark, Tesla
Weird Al (CD era) - Gump, Party in the CIA

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

precision posted:

For a while it was common practice to put a killer track at 7 to stop people from skipping through the whole album, that's the entirety of the point :)

you'd think a better strategy would have been to make the whole album good

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.

A human heart posted:

you'd think a better strategy would have been to make the whole album good

I would argue that Billy Joel mastered this. I still like his later stuff, though (River of Dreams, Storm Front, etc.), so I may be a bit biased.

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002
Mastered what?

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.
Making the whole album good

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

A human heart posted:

you'd think a better strategy would have been to make the whole album good

I think that, as a rule, people who were skipping tracks in the first place weren't really listening for "the album experience". We're talking people who bought the CD for the singles, here, not Robert Christgau.

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

precision posted:

I think that, as a rule, people who were skipping tracks in the first place weren't really listening for "the album experience". We're talking people who bought the CD for the singles, here, not Robert Christgau.

I think its possible to listen to a whole album without being robert christgau, but that might just be my opinion

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.

precision posted:

I think that, as a rule, people who were skipping tracks in the first place weren't really listening for "the album experience". We're talking people who bought the CD for the singles, here, not Robert Christgau.

To be honest, I do both depending on what mood I'm in. Sometimes I don't care about listening to the deep cuts.

Zorodius
Feb 11, 2007

EA GAMES' MASTERPIECE 'MADDEN 2018 G.O.A.T. EDITION' IS A GLORIOUS TRIUMPH OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY. IT BRINGS GAMEDAY RIGHT TO THE PLAYER AND WHOEVER SAYS OTHERWISE CAN, YOU GUESSED IT...
SUCK THE SHIT STRAIGHT OUT OF MY OWN ASSHOLE.

BUY IT.

Three-Phase posted:

I mean sure digital files are much higher quality but the leap from tapes and vinyl (on a basic home system) to a good CD player was amazing. Sort of like going from a Nintendo to a SNES.

Digital files are either lower or equal quality to CDs

realbez
Mar 23, 2005

Fun Shoe
Some people are putting out higher than cd quality digital files now. Personally I think they're a waste of time, I can't tell If they sound any different.

dk2m
May 6, 2009
spotify and soundcloud have changed the game for me. some of the best music is coming out of some guy with 100 followers on soundcloud that makes music for fun. gently caress the label execs and distribution channels having a say in anything creatively.

the age of streaming is cool and good.

Rageaholic
May 31, 2005

Old Town Road to EGOT

dk2m posted:

spotify and soundcloud have changed the game for me. some of the best music is coming out of some guy with 100 followers on soundcloud that makes music for fun. gently caress the label execs and distribution channels having a say in anything creatively.

the age of streaming is cool and good.
It's pretty weird and awesome that some of the most fun shows I've been to in the last year or so have been put on by artists who either aren't signed to a label at all or they run their own label.

BENGHAZI 2
Oct 13, 2007

by Cyrano4747

realbez posted:

Some people are putting out higher than cd quality digital files now. Personally I think they're a waste of time, I can't tell If they sound any different.

MP3 is transparent down to around 192kbps iirc, it used to come up all the time about ten years ago when people would say dumb things about FLAC

The Modern Leper
Dec 25, 2008

You must be a masochist
You guys might be interested in murfie.com. They will hold your CDs in a central warehouse, then give you access to FLAC, ALAC, MP3, etc. files from YOUR CD (it's how they avoid piracy complaints). Alternatively, you can sell your CDs or buy CDs from others. Rather than ship you the CD, they give you the "license" and let you download tracks from the CD you bought. Once you download from the site, you can't sell your CD again.

It's a little bit more expensive than buying a box of cutouts at your local store (~$5 or $6, with fees), but (a) all my record stores have closed or switched to vinyl, and (b) it's an easy way to get the full-quality audio without dealing with ripping / storage / etc. They also sell new CDs, but used feels like their biggest market.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Although I'll always put them on iTunes for convenience, I have a vast collection of CDs, which goes to my interest in physical media. I have large collections of DVDs rather than Netflix, of comics rather than online sources rather than Comixology or Marvel Unlimited and paper books rather than Kindle etc etc. I suppose I just like having them.

I'm into reissue labels like Hoodoo Records that have great little album booklets. When I was into AOR for a while (don't like it any more) I was big on Rock Candy Records.

There are some artists whose work I have almost exclusively via iTunes purely because of how difficult it is to get them on CD - Jackie Wilson mainly, and some Motown artists etc.

Others still - primarily gospel artists from the 1950s and 1960s - I have only on vinyl for the same reason (I spent ages trying to find the songs from Country and Western Meets Rhythm and Blues by Ray Charles on some other format and eventually an inexpensive vinyl LP was my best option).

I will post some pictures when I get home from work later on.

Applebees Appetizer
Jan 23, 2006

Zyklon B Zombie posted:

I think this was around a thousand CDs. It took me a year to rip them maybe 10 years ago, and really haven't opened these since then. I honestly don't miss the format, and moving was a pain in the rear end.



I did this exact same thing since I love CDs but hate the drat jewel cases. Got tired of having them on display because honestly it makes the living room look like a music store, and all of them are ripped now to my PC system anyway so there's no need to have them readily available. I listen to CDs in my car all the time tho because they just sound better through a good system, I keep my favorite albums on CD in the car, then I have playlists on a thumb drive if I wanna listen to 80's or 90's random songs.

BeanpolePeckerwood
May 4, 2004

I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK



I still buy CDs for certain things.


If you listen to music from any genre produced before ~ 1965 then CDs are amazing. Country, folk, blues, soul, jazz, and gospel numbers prior to the album era were all 3-5 minute singles, and you gotta be extremely diehard to track that poo poo down on vinyl EP. Even though the CD sound quality can never quite match the stereo or mono vinyl masters, CD compilations are often really decently mastered by the small labels like Kent or Rhino that still produce them. Streamed versions of a lot of this music sound like absolute garbage.

There are still 'new' things being dug up from the vaults of that era, soul performers that never made it big due to the outright dominance of Otis or Aretha or whathaveyou. And many of the best compilations come with extensive liner note histories in the booklets that are pretty lovingly crafted these days.

My CD copy of the Elmore James compilation is the album that pretty much introduced me to blues outright. Life has never been the same.

Both the Bettye Swann and Candi Staton compilations released by Honest Johns are loving superior documents of soul, and I dunno if they have bonus tracks or not, but there are so many songs on each that it's almost intimidating to spin my vinyl copies. I've mostly played my CD or MP3 rips of them over the years.

Irma Thomas has several incredible compilations of her early '60s singles, completely essential.

Another great compilation is the recent Patsy Cline: Sweet Dreams / Complete Decca Recordings, which is strangely enough the very first complete collection of all her best work, most of it from the last 4 years (or 4 months!) of her life. It's insane that this stuff was always split up onto different vinyl collections until now. The 'countrypolitan' sound she helped invent in those final days is pretty much the seed for pop music as we know it. Also, Faded Love is probably the single saddest song I've ever heard in any genre, you can even hear her in tears while singing it! (recorded only weeks before her death)

Hell, even stuff recorded firmly in the album era can benefit from CD pressing.

James Carr's masterpiece soul album 'You Got My Mind Messed Up' is probably available in all formats, including LP+MP3, but the CD version comes with 12 bonus tracks and the liner notes are extensive.

Anyways...

BeanpolePeckerwood fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Sep 8, 2017

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.
I picked up Powerslave by Iron Maiden for $8 today. I was pleasantly surprised by it. Guess I'll have to listen to more Iron Maiden now.

1000 Brown M and Ms
Oct 22, 2008

F:\DL>quickfli 4-clowns.fli
More Iron Maiden is always a good choice. My personal favourite is Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

I still buy CDs from time to time, mostly because my car stereo is too old for Bluetooth/aux and I can't be bothered upgrading it. Last one I got was Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell from a book fair for $1, a couple of weeks ago. That was a good find.

IUG
Jul 14, 2007


Iron Maiden is one I'd almost not buy on CD. If the Onkyo remastered FLACs ever went on sale, I'd buy the first 7 albums. But I'm not at $16 each album.
https://www.onkyomusic.com/US/artists/1252/releases

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.

1000 Brown M and Ms posted:

Last one I got was Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell from a book fair for $1, a couple of weeks ago. That was a good find.

Nice. That's one of my favorites. Bat Out of Hell 2 is just as good IMO.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Beelerzebub posted:

I picked up Powerslave by Iron Maiden for $8 today. I was pleasantly surprised by it. Guess I'll have to listen to more Iron Maiden now.

You chose wisely, that's their best album

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.
Which should I try next? My friend told me that Number of the Beast is really good.

1000 Brown M and Ms
Oct 22, 2008

F:\DL>quickfli 4-clowns.fli
Number of the Beast is really good, and it's probably their most well known album. It was my starting point and I would definitely recommend it to anyone curious about Maiden.

As I mentioned previously, my personal favourite is Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, however it is a concept album of sorts and a little proggy. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I can see how a lot of Maiden fans didn't really like it.

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.
I really like prog rock, so I may have to check it out.

Beelerzebub fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Sep 22, 2017

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
Somewhere In Time is really good and definitely in the artsy/prog vein as well (guitar synths!)

Seventh Son too, just try to ignore that it's based on an Orson Scott Card novel

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Beelerzebub posted:

Nice. That's one of my favorites. Bat Out of Hell 2 is just as good IMO.

Bat Out of Hell is a great album because it's Jim Steinman taking all these 50s rock and roll ideas and blowing them up until they're so ridiculous they loop round to become awesome. For my money, there is no other album like it and certainly not in 1977; it was something other than punk and prog.

Most of the songs on Bat 2 are just him repeating the title for nine minutes. It's not bad but it feels like a parody of Meat Loaf to me. :shrug:

Edward Mass
Sep 14, 2011

𝅘𝅥𝅮 I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
Friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever seen
𝅘𝅥𝅮
Just bought a copy of the limited edition of Barenaked Ladies' Stunt over Discogs from some person in Denmark. Super stoked - I've never heard the studio version of Long Way Back Home.

Bread Dragon
Apr 7, 2012
I got some good CDs this summer at a yard sale I saw on the way to visiting the in-laws. I think I spent like $5 for twenty discs, all 90s alternative and hip hop. My biggest gripe with the format is that it felt like CDs encouraged the average album length from being around 30 minutes to something more like 45 or 50 minutes. I rarely want to listen to the same band for 50 minutes. I guess that makes it a good format for soundtracks. Soundtracks on vinyl are usually double LPs and cost an arm and a leg.

third_aunt
Jul 3, 2005

baltimoron
I still buy CDs, a lot of the time I can find and buy them for super cheap. One place I used to go to had a budget bin for cd's and I'd often walk about spending 20 bucks and getting 10-15 cds of mostly rare/weird/obscure bands.

I often prefer to buy the cd if the vinyl version is stupid expensive (Cherub's Heroin Man, im looking at you).

My cd collection did downsize recently, it needed to be done. Otherwise, I'd show y'all a picture of it.

1000 Brown M and Ms
Oct 22, 2008

F:\DL>quickfli 4-clowns.fli

Bread Dragon posted:

My biggest gripe with the format is that it felt like CDs encouraged the average album length from being around 30 minutes to something more like 45 or 50 minutes.

Totally agree. Not to mention that vinyl has to be split in two sides, so effectively an album was two twenty-minute mini-albums. I feel as though it made bands think more about not only the lengths of songs, but how songs would fit together on an album side.

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.
Quick question: Is Anthrax worth listening to?

realbez
Mar 23, 2005

Fun Shoe

Beelerzebub posted:

Quick question: Is Anthrax worth listening to?

Sometimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be7iNHw8QoQ

(goddamn the audio quality on this video is trash)

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.

realbez posted:

Sometimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be7iNHw8QoQ

(goddamn the audio quality on this video is trash)

I got State of Euphoria for $5, so if I don't like it, it's no big deal.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Beelerzebub posted:

Quick question: Is Anthrax worth listening to?

hell yeah they are! when i was in 6th grade (1987) my middle school inexplicably voted them as the best band of all time. we had a lot of skater punk/metal kids!

Hedrigall
Mar 27, 2008

by vyelkin
I'm in Tokyo and I tracked down a CD copy of my favourite tv series soundtrack ever: Wolf's Rain, music by Yoko Kanno (best known for doing Cowboy Bebop's music). It's a beautiful soundtrack with gorgeous orchestral pieces, some tracks done with traditional Japanese instruments, and others with world music influences. There are also quite a few vocal songs in English, Japanese, French and Italian.

The CD was released in 2003 I think, so I was so thrilled to find a brand new copy for about $22-23 Australian bux


all-Rush mixtape posted:

Just bought a copy of the limited edition of Barenaked Ladies' Stunt over Discogs from some person in Denmark. Super stoked - I've never heard the studio version of Long Way Back Home.

drat this is a great album, and yeah the two bonus tracks are awesome. Another good one to get is the Australian limited edition of Maroon, which has two extra songs as well.

AtomicRust
Aug 6, 2013

Morning, Lister! How's life in hippie heaven, you pregnant baboon-bellied space beatnik?
CDs are more dead than vinyl but I still buy CDs if vinyl ain't an option.

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Juaguocio
Jun 5, 2005

Oh, David...
I should really stop buying CDs, but it's hard to resist when they can be had for so cheap. Recently I found Them Crooked Vultures, Dungen's "Tio bitar", and a whole bunch of Roland Kirk for $3 each.

A couple weeks ago, one of my local stores had a sale on reggae CDs, and I was really stoked to find the Blood & Fire release of "Heart Of The Congos," as well as a nice Phyllis Dillon compilation from Trojan.

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