AU | Cassettes and CDs selling for eye-watering amounts: They’re something a millennial probably wouldn’t even now how to use, but cassettes are still highly sought after. Remember the last time you picked up a cassette? Neither do we. But there are still folks out there who are after the now vintage pieces — and they’re willing to pay a hefty price. Discogs, the biggest music database website in the world, has revealed its 100 most expensive cassettes, and none fall below the $500 mark. Coming in at number one was The Artist (Formerly Known As Prince) – The Versace Experience – Prelude 2 Gold, which sold for an eye-watering $6116. It was handed out to attendees of a Paris Fashion Week show in 1995 and was recently re-released for the first time on Record Store Day 2019. Discogs actually says cassettes are the fastest-growing format of the big three sold on its website — the others being CDs and vinyl.
Seattle, WA | Mexico City’s Georgetown Records keeps Seattle’s indie spirit alive: Six days a week from noon to 8 p.m., Alex Bautista can be found sitting behind the counter at Georgetown Records in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City (CDMX). Spinning his favorite jams on a desktop turntable, he often hands an old-fashioned address book to the latest Amoeba employee to stop in, or talks business with a friend on a well-worn couch against the back wall. During a recent Friday art show, the sound of live music often drowned out chatter in the store. Located next to a store that sells musical instruments and other gear, visitors at CDMX’s Georgetown Records can often hear a rogue guitar or the squeak of a speaker. Posters, album covers and stickers adorn almost every available surface of the store, which opened in 2016 as an informal partnership with Martin Imbach, who owns the original Georgetown Records located in Seattle. “The original idea was to make a bridge, a Seattle connection,” Bautista said.
Williamsburg, NY | Former manager of Record Theatre opens new record store in Williamsville: It’s been exactly two years since Record Theatre shut its doors, but the former manager of the store isn’t done selling music. Joe Igielinski opened a new record store in Williamsville, and he’s even got a couple of former Record Theatre employees working there too. Hi-Fi Hits opened on Tuesday. The new store is located at 5221 Main St.- a location which was home to a Record Theatre store that closed in the mid 1990s. Igielinski, who worked at Record Theatre for 26 years, says he has always wanted to own his own record store. “I felt if I was ever going to do it, now would be the time,” Igielinski said.
Reading, UK | Meet the Reading DJ who has been spinning vinyl for nearly 60 years: Jim B. Donovan – who runs Just Imagine Memorabilia in the Harris Arcade – has been nominated for two Pride of Reading Awards. A DJ who has been carrying hundreds of records to sets across Reading for nearly six decades has been nominated for two Pride of Reading Awards. Jim B. Donovan, who also established the record and vintage toy shop Just Imagine Memorabilia back in the 1980s, has been nominated in both the Cultural Contribution and The Chris Tarrant Award categories. He received the nomination from Rachael Chrisp, Tim Hooper and Pete Wheeler, who jointly recognised Jim for his work in the town. In their nomination, they said: “Jim is an inspiration to many in Reading. “Hundreds of us regularly visit his shop to listen to music, and hear stories, soaking up as much knowledge of Reading’s musical history as one can from his encyclopaedic brain. “He has incredible attention to detail, acknowledging individual players on records, and a relentless appetite to collect and share music with anyone that wants to listen.
Pedro Bell, Artist of Funkadelic’s Iconic Album Covers, Has Died: The Chicago artist was the mind behind One Nation Under a Groove and Cosmic Slop. Pedro Bell, the Chicago visual artist behind many iconic Funkadelic and George Clinton album covers, has died. The news was shared by George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. In his 2014 memoir, Clinton said the band began receiving letters from Bell around 1972. “He doodled these intricate, wild worlds, filled with crazy hypersexual characters and strange slogans,” Clinton wrote. Clinton and Bell began speaking over the phone, and from their conversations, Bell created his first cover for Funkadelic: 1973’s Cosmic Slop. “When he sent us his interpretation, I was blown away,” Clinton wrote. “It included pimps and hos, some of which were drawn as aliens with little worms coming out of them. It was nightmarish and funny and beautiful, a perfect fit for the music we were making.”
Discogs Releases 2019 Mid-Year Marketplace Report: Vinyl Sales Continued Growth At 3%; CDs See 23.60% Increase In First Half Of 2019: Discogs, the world’s foremost Database, Marketplace, and Community for physical music, shares the Mid-Year Marketplace Analysis & Database Highlights for 2019. The report emphasizes physical format sales of both catalog and new releases, across multiple genres, including the Top New and Catalog Albums Sales over the first half of 2019. The Discogs Mid-Year Marketplace Analysis also compares data from the Nielsen Music Mid-Year Report to deepen the analysis of how the music industry and music consumers are continuing to change inclusive of the elusive C2C data only available via Discogs. Notable data coming from this year’s report is the continued rise in sales of the vinyl format at 3.03% year-over-year with over 4.3 million records purchased. However, CD sales saw the most growth at 23.6%, so perhaps the CD is not extinct just yet?
