The 8 best vintage turntables and what to look out for when buying second hand: …Buying a vintage turntable is a great option. For many, a budget for any sort of hi-fi is a low priority. Once the bills are paid, it can be virtually impossible to purchase a new, top quality hi-fi system. Going vintage can offer quality at a low cost. Others may have spent a bundle on a new deck but have little in reserve for that second system that would be ideal for a study, bedroom or spare room. Some might even want to revisit younger days when the then ‘new’ turntables were objects of desire and now they can afford to purchase one, or even two of these classic designs. Below, we have listed our Top 8 vintage purchases, but before you run off to your local second-hand store or eBay account, pause for thought.
Characters and music star in The Music Shop: Rachel Joyce’s The Music Shop (Random House, 2017, 307 pages) takes place in England and tells the story of Frank, an eccentric owner of a dingy record store, and Ilse Brauchmann, a young German woman who wanders into the shop and soon asks Frank to teach her what he knows about music. Surrounding these two figures are a collection of Frank’s eccentric friends and fellow store owners: Kit, Frank’s young assistant who has a penchant for breaking everything he touches; Father Anthony, a fallen priest who operates a nearby religious articles store; Maud, the scowling, bitter tattoo artist who secretly loves Frank; a pair of undertakers; Pete the barman; and Peg, Frank’s dead mother. And then there is the music.
The End of Owning Music: How CDs and Downloads Died. Physical formats are cratering, but vinyl’s niche is growing. Jack White and other experts explain the future of listening. As streaming gives the music industry its biggest profits in a decade, the CD business continues to plunge. CD sales have fallen 80 percent in the past decade, from roughly 450 million to 89 million. Since Tesla began manufacturing cars without CD players, other companies like Ford and Toyota have recently followed. Downloads – once seen as the CD’s replacement – have plummeted 58 percent since peaking in 2012, their profits now even smaller than physical sales. Artists have taken note; Bruce Springsteen released his latest box set, The Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996, exclusively on vinyl, with no CD option, unlike 2014’s Vol. 1. “It’s a streaming world and a vinyl world with a quickly diminishing CD,” says Daniel Glass, president of Glassnote Records, indie-label home of Mumford & Sons and Phoenix.
Call Me By Your Name Soundtrack Releasing On Peach-Scented Vinyl: One of the more memorable scenes in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name is the one where Timothee Chalamet has sex with a peach. It’s kind of sweet in the context of the film. Later this summer, the movie soundtrack will be pressed on peach-scented and -colored vinyl, which, in the context of the film, is kind of gross. 7,777 copies of the “peach season” edition will be released. The soundtrack features songs by Sufjan Stevens, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Giorgio Mororder, and the Psychedelic Furs, among others. Call Me By Your Name “peach season” edition is out 8/3 through peach harvest season via Music On Vinyl.
Even Walls Fall Down: The Last Days of Cincinnati’s Ultrasuede Recording Studio: Plastic Ants entered Ultrasuede Studio to pay tribute to Tom Petty’s brilliance and soon found themselves mourning the loss of the recording space itself. Ants singer/songwriter Robert Cherry shares a behind-the-scenes look at an Ultrasuede session and documents the last days of one of Cincinnati’s longest-running music institutions — and its subsequent rebirth. Plus, check out the world premiere of the music video for Plastic Ants’ cover of Tom Petty’s ‘Walls,’ which (fittingly, as you’ll read) was one of the last songs recorded at Ultrasuede’s longtime space in Camp Washington.
