I reviewed Vinyl: The analogue record in the digital age a few years ago in Linear Audio. The authors are both sociologists, and I was probably not the best person to review this book. I am copying the concluding paragraph of my 2700-word review below, which will give you some idea what you're getting into should you wish to pursue it.
Best,
Gary
"Vinyl has been exhaustively documented. The “Notes” section at the end has at least two dozen footnotes for each chapter, and in some cases many more. The bibliography spans seven pages. No one can accuse the authors of failing to be diligent in their research. But, I’m not sure that readers of Linear Audio and other audio and music periodicals are the intended audience. Vinyl reads like a doctoral dissertation, or a major research publication by a university professor seeking tenure and promotion; it is part sociology, part philosophy. In the interests of approaching each topic and idea from every perspective, the book becomes repetitious, and even though those repetitions are couched in various forms of sociological and philosophical writing, the cumulative effect is tedious. I’m not sure how appealing this book will be to people with more conventional interests in audio and music; many, I suspect, will react to the writing as though it were a foreign language. Speaking for myself, as a lifelong audiophile, music lover, record collector and audio professional, I found this book a difficult slog. It’s not that I don’t agree with much of what is said here, including the many wonderful, euphonic qualities of vinyl playback, the physical handling of media and equipment, the pleasure of searching through bins of used LPs in search of that elusive record, conversing with other collectors along the way, and the cultural and artistic importance of sound recordings. I relate to all of these things. What I cannot relate to is the method of presentation. Readers of this review will have to decide for themselves if this approach to the subject will resonate with them."
Gary Galo, Copyright 2015
____________________________
Gary Galo
Audio Engineer Emeritus
The Crane School of Music
SUNY at Potsdam, NY 13676
"Great art presupposes the alert mind of the educated listener."
Arnold Schoenberg
"A true artist doesn't want to be admired, he wants to be believed."
Igor Markevitch
"If you design an audio system based on the premise that nothing is audible,
on that system nothing will be audible."
G. Galo
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Francesco Martinelli
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2019 2:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] 25 books for collectors
I have about half of them and certainly quality varies. The worst is the
Free Improvisation book, extremely expensive and poor in content.
Others are anedoctal, or coffee table books for wanna be hipsters (the
hipster doesnt have a coffee table).
fm
On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 7:53 PM Paul T. Jackson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'm not sure if anyone in ARSC has seen this, but some might find it fun
> and useful:
>
> https://thevinylfactory.com/features/25-essential-books-for-record-collectors/
>
> Possibly also a label history tree in there somewhere.
> Paul Jackson
> --
>
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inviato dal mio pulsatore a bassa cutena
Francesco Martinelli
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