exploremusic

How about a little history of the record?  Up for a little light reading?  If you collected records you’ll understand all this.  If you’re much younger than moi, it might seem like Greek.

 I miss my records. I’m still looking for a decent turntable.  The one I had a line on at a good price fell through.   

I used to love when they had so-called ‘sidewalk sales’ at the mall, and I could get ‘em for, um, ‘ a song’.  (pardon the pun).  That was in the 70′s, about 30 years after the first 45′s came out in 1949.

Turns out it was this week in 1955, the 7 inch single (the ’45′) took the lead in sales for the first time over the ten inch (the ’78′). 

Background:

Once upon a time, in the good ol’ US of A, in and around 1900, the two leading manufacturers of records were Columbia, which used 80 rpm as its speed, and Victor, which used 76 rpm. One  one company’s records were playable on the other’s machines.  By 1925, the speed of the record became standardised at 78 rpm.

Size matters:

In the 1890s, the early recording formats of of discs (records) were actually  usually seven inches. By 1910 the 10-inch record was by far the most popular standard, holding about three minutes of music on a side. From 1903 onwards, 12-inch records  were also sold, (featuring mostly classical or operatic music), with four to five minutes of music per side.

Other sizes did appear. 8 inch discs with a 2 inch diameter label became popular for about a decade in Britain.

In 1931, RCA Victor, launched the first commercially available vinyl long-playing record, marketed as "Program Transcription" discs. These revolutionary discs were designed for playback at 33 rpm and pressed on a 30 cm diameter flexible plastic disc, with a duration of about ten minutes playing time per side. In Roland Gelatt’s book The Fabulous Phonograph, the author notes that RCA Victor’s early introduction of a long-play disc was a commercial failure for several reasons including the lack of affordable, reliable consumer playback equipment and consumer wariness during the Depression.  Because of financial hardships that plagued the recording industry during that period Victor’s "long playing" records were quietly discontinued by early 1933.

There was also a small batch of "longer playing" records issued in the very early 1930s: Columbia introduced 10" ‘longer playing’ records as well as a series of double-grooved or longer playing 10" records on their Harmony, Clarion & Velvet Tone cheap labels. All of these were phased out in mid-1932.

However, vinyl’s lower surface noise level  was not forgotten, nor was its durability. In the late ’30s, radio commericals and pre-recorded radio programs being sent to disc jockeys started being stamped in vinyl, so they would not break in the mail. In the mid-1940s, special DJ copies of records started being made of vinyl also, for the same reason. These were all 78 rpm. During and after WWII,  when shellac supplies were extremely limited, some 78 rpm records were pressed in vinyl instead of shellac, particularly the six-minute 12-inch (30 cm) 78 rpm records produced for distribution to US troops in World War II. In the ’40s, radio transcriptions, which were usually on 16-inch records, but sometimes 12-inch, were always made of vinyl, but cut at 33 rpm. 

 In 1948, the 12-inch (30 cm) Long Play (LP) 33 rpm microgroove record album was introduced by Columbia.  In February 1949, RCA Victor released the first 45 rpm single, 7 inches in diameter, with a large center hole to accommodate an automatic play mechanism on the changer, so a stack of singles would drop down one record at a time automatically after each play.

"WAR of the Speeds"

The commercial rivalry between RCA Victor and Columbia Records led to RCA Victor’s introduction of what it had intended to be a competing vinyl format, the 7-inch 45 rpm disc. For a two-year period from 1948 to 1950, record companies and consumers faced uncertainty over which of these formats would ultimately prevail in what was known as the "War of the Speeds".  In 1949 Capitol and Decca adopted the new LP format and RCA gave in and issued its first LP in January 1950. But the 45 rpm size was gaining in popularity, too, and Columbia issued its first 45s in February 1951. By 1954, 200 million 45s had been sold!

Eventually the 12-inch  rpm LP prevailed.

Then came the 80′s, bad hair, bad clothers and the big bad CD.

LP versus CD

In the early days of the compact disc,  vinyl records were still prized by audiophiles because of better reproduction of analog recordings; however, the drawback was greater sensitivity to scratches and dust. Early compact discs were perceived by many as thin and sharp—distorting sounds on the high end. In some cases, this was the result of record companies issuing CDs produced from master recordings that were compressed and equalized for cutting.

Though digital audio technology has improved over the years, many of us still prefer the superior sound of vinyl over CDs.

Proponents of digital audio state differences are generally inaudible to normal human hearing, and the lack of clicks, hiss and pops from analog recordings greatly improves sound fidelity. Modern anti-aliasing filters and oversampling systems used in digital recordings have reduced (some of) the problems observed with early CDs.

Vinyl’s Comeback

The vinyl record regained popularity by 2008, with nearly 2.9 million units shipped that year, the most in any year since 1998.

And that’s enough history for one day.  

How about some music?  

Three vids below I think you might enjoy.  The first is a commerical featuring the voice of the legend – Burgess Meredith.

Cheers,

Jeff.