New CD Player in a Downloading World

As every car, airplane, and home audio device is adding compressed digital music capabilities, one company is taking a stand to stick to high fidelity.

Boulder Amplifiers (from Boulder, Colorado, not made from rocks) is finally releasing the 1021 CD player. With a nod to current trends, it will also play MP3 files from a disc. They're not stupid; they know what people want. What makes the 1021 worth the $24,000 price tag?

Compact Disc: 44.1k, or 45rpm?

Did you miss the Futuresonic 2008 Festival this year? If so, you also missed Aleks Kolkowski's seminar during the Urban Festival of Art, Music, and Ideas. Mr. Kolkowski is using a vintage record cutting lathe to create 45rpm records on your own recycled CDs. What a great way to recycle those old Milli Vanilli discs! He can also carve up your old DVDs too. I wonder what he can do with an HD DVD disc?

4 Record Stores in 1 Record Store Day

That's what my photographer son Tony and I accomplished last Saturday (April 19) on the first annual Record Store Day. As I announced here previously, RSD is an effort (spearheaded by indie-shop organizations) to remind people that, yes, record stores still exist. And on Saturday, some participating shops had specials, and some even had in-store appearances, such as the one you see above: The Parlor Mob at Jack's Music Shoppe. For more on that and the other three stores that Tony and I checked out, click below.

Get Thee to a Shoppery!

What's a "record store"? If you've never been to one, it's time for you to paddle away from your computer keyboard's virtual Amazon and enter the real world of bricks and mortar. And if you're, ahem, an older buyer who hasn't been to one in a while, it's time for you to remember the future. (Band? Nationality? Year? Famous guy who joined them later? Answers below.)

Post-Holiday Clues: Tributes, Covers

Flush with cash from the holidays? Eager to ka-ching those checks and hit the stores?

I hear ya! I help ya!

All through the past year, I've been gathering nuts & nuggets, squirrel-like, that just couldn't fit into the print mag or anywhere else online. And now they're ready for your post-holiday munching, brunching, lunching, and you've-got-a-hunching. (Oh, stop it.) [Okay.]

My first stash from 2007: The Year in Tribute Albums and Collections of Cover Songs. To repeat the disclaimer from my posting of Christmas CDs below: Have I listened to all of the discs below? Of course not! No matter: Just look for your faves and spend away, American consumer!
—Ken Richardson

Best CDs of 2007: The Ones That Got Away

Our Best CDs of 2007 list will appear soonly in the Feb/March '08 issue (you may even find it posted on the site before that if you dig around some), but I wanted to take a moment and bulletpoint a ten-spot of discs I enjoyed in '07 that 1) didn't get on my personal Top 10 list (also posted) and 2) didn't get a full review either in the mag or on the site. All 10 of these entries are worthy of your time, your ears, and your dollars. (Yes, I said dollars. No stealing now, ya hear?)

1) The Ike Reilly Assassination: We Belong to the Staggering Evening (Rock Ridge Music). I LOVE Ike. Gritty songwriter. Sweaty performer. Knows how to build/bulldoze a groove and stay in it. You may have even heard a song from this album on Dirty Sexy Money recently ("You're So Plain") without realizing it. More good 'n' grimy tunes are coming in the new year, and I'm eager to receive, baby.

Merry Krimble!

What? You think it's too late for my guide to the season's holiday CDs? HUMBUG! That's why they made Twelve Days of Christmas, Rudolph!

After all, just ask the artist who has the biggest-selling CD of 2007. Springsteen? Kanye? Eagles? Those High School Musical kids? No, it's Josh Groban! His holiday CD, Noël (143/Reprise), has just become the first Christmas album ever to top the charts for 4 weeks in a row. Total sales so far: 2.77 million. It's a collection of the usual faves, from "Silent Night" to "O Come All Ye Faithful."

But if you're looking to get something different from what all the massive faithful are buying, you've come to the right place. Have I listened to all of the discs below? Of course not! Just check out the names/titles (in alphabetical order), scan the blurbs, and dive in!
—Ken Richardson

Beck's "Odelay" in surround. NOT!

Yes, my friends, the Surround-Sound NOTwatch continues!

Next up: Beck's 1996 album, Odelay. Seems that Geffen is releasing a Deluxe Edition on January 29. CD+DVD-A? No. CD+DVD-V? Sorry. SACD? Nope. DualDisc? Ha! MVI? That's only from Warner, brother.

The answer is: 2 regular ol' CDs. To be sure, there will be 3 bonus tracks on the first disc and a whopping 16 extras on the second disc — with more than a dozen of these recordings making their U.S. debut. But nothing in surround. This despite the fact that Beck has been a genuine fan of multichannel mixes in the past, releasing Sea Change on both DVD-A and SACD and Guero in a Deluxe Edition that did include surround, on DVD-A. Yet another missed opportunity . . .

The Surround-Sound NOTwatch so far:

Beck: Odelay
Michael Jackson: Thriller (see my post below)
Pink Floyd: Oh by the Way (complete boxed set)
U2: The Joshua Tree
Radiohead: Radiohead (boxed set of Capitol albums)
     (for info on those three, see my post below)

Keep the Faith, Multichannel-Music Mavens! —Ken Richardson

"Thriller" in surround. NOT!

Here we don't go again: According to a report on Billboard.com, Epic/Legacy will release a 25th-anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller on February 12. (Actually, last year was the 25th birthday of this 1982 album, although it did make its mark in 1983. But I digress . . .)

It will include a remix of "Billie Jean" by Kanye West, remixes of "The Girl Is Mine" and "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" by will.i.am, and a remix of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' " by will.i.am and Akon.

It will not include a surround-sound remix of the entire album by anyone! I've said it once (see my post below on Pink Floyd, U2, and Radiohead), and I'll say it again: missed opportunity!

Not only that — this is actually the second missed opportunity for Thriller. The album appeared on SACD way back in 1999, but that was a stereo-only, non-hybrid disc.

Other goodies on the 25th edition: the "Billie Jean" demo, the rare tracks "Carousel" and "Someone in the Dark," the unreleased track "For All Time," and a bonus DVD with the "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and "Thriller" videos plus the Motown 25 TV performance of "Billie Jean." But no multichannel goodie? That's just bad.

And the surround-sound NOTwatch continues . . . —Ken Richardson

Secret Spice!

I want to say one word to you. Just one word. (Yes, sir.) Are you listening? (Yes, I am.) Branding. (Just how do you mean that, sir?)

Here's how I mean that: When it comes to bands maximizing their potential — when it comes to bands being "successful" — branding is all-important. Remember those days when people howled at Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend for selling music to commercials? Those days are long, long gone. History. Today, it's not just about selling old music to commercials; it's about linking your new music to an entire company. And that's called branding. Good? Bad? Necessary? I'll leave that discussion for another time. But here's an example:

Tonight (Dec. 4) at 10 p.m. (Eastern) on CBS, you can watch the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show — featuring the VS supermodels in the photo above, shown prepping to jet to the show on "Runway Angel," their own Virgin America plane. (Nice to know that the VS supermodels are virgins. But I digress.) In addition to music by Seal and will.i.am, the Spice Girls will appear in their debut reunion performance. But that's just the beginning of the branding between the Girls and Victoria . . .