Discogs Logs 8 Millionth Release: Discogs, the online vinyl and CD marketplace now in its 17th year, is today celebrating a major milestone: the site will log its eight millionth release. The benchmark was achieved with help from more than 326,000 contributors who contributed to compiling a massive database filled with release information, artists, images and more. “We hit 5 million releases in 2015,” said Ronald Rich Jr., the company’s marketing director, in a statement. “It’s crazy to think we’ve more than halved the distance to hitting 10 million in just 2 years. As the community’s collection grows so does the database.”
David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ designer discusses why he won’t reveal artwork secrets, and what’s left to find: The designer of the artwork for David Bowie‘s ‘Blackstar’ has spoken out about the many ‘secrets’ hidden within the sleeve. Last year, designer Jonathan Barnbrook said that the vinyl sleeve and artwork for Bowie’s final album is packed with more hidden surprises – after some fans found that exposing the art to sunlight unveiled a galaxy of stars. Many more secrets have reportedly been found since. NME attended a talk at the V&A this weekend to celebrate David Bowie’s birthday, where Barnbrook said he had learned to give away less of his creative process, after coming to a disagreement with the late music icon over releasing the original rough designs for ‘The Next Day’ in the acclaimed ‘David Bowie Is’ exhibition.
The 17 best new vinyl releases to look out for in 2017: With the needle lifted from 2016, the sound of Solange, A Tribe Called Quest and Nick Cave still wringing in our ears, we’re looking forward to what’s in store in the coming months. Focussing on records that are either already available for pre-order or heavily mooted, we’ve picked out seventeen new releases for early 2017 that are worth tightening your belts for over the coming weeks. As ever, ours is a broad church, and we’re as excited about oddball synth experiments and modal jazz as the possibility of getting a new Gorillaz record some day soon.
Record stores adapt to consumers, Modern listeners move to streaming music: The good news is that music listenership was up in 2016. The bad news for music retailers, locally and nationally, is that more and more of those listeners are streaming and not buying their music. BuzzAngle Music, a music industry analytics service, released a 67-page report at the start of the year looking at how people listened to music in 2016. Overall consumption was up 4.9 percent over 2015, but that growth came almost exclusively from streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal. “They’re selling you air basically” is how Sonny Hrehovcik, owner of Underdog Records in Hubbard, described those services, where customers pay a monthly fee for access to music libraries which include many, but not all, top recording artists.
Illinois dentist offers vinyl-record listening to patients: A visit to the dentist typically isn’t very pleasing to the ear. There’s the high-pitched whine of the dreaded dental drill, the glottal crackle of suctioned saliva, perhaps some bland elevator music on a staticky radio. But Dr. Dan Rangitsch believes high-quality audio can make the experience of going to the dentist that much more bearable. Rangitsch, owner and operator of Aspen Dental in Marion, began collecting vinyl records about a year and a half ago. His practice is outfitted with a turntable, speakers and a subwoofer, and patients can peruse his assorted collection of LPs to decide what they’d like to hear while their teeth are being cleaned.
R.E.M.’s Peter Buck needed a new label; the one he chose won’t take your credit card: When Peter Buck released his solo debut, the guitarist wanted to share the news with R.E.M. fans. His former band had sold 80 million albums before disbanding in 2011. So he posted the contacts for his new label, Mississippi Records, on the R.E.M. website. A few days later, Buck ran into Mississippi’s founder. Eric Isaacson seemed amused. “What did you do?” he asked. “I gave out the phone number of the store,” Buck said. “I know. I got there at noon and the phone rang once a minute,” Isaacson said. “So I unplugged it.”
