Suffice it to say that I am satisfied with Spotify for the car,
but it's the
tactile sense that's missing with the virtual world. An album cover on my TV screen does not make
up for holding Dark Side in my hands, for thumbing through the pages of Tommy or
Magical Mystery Tour, and how, exactly, does today's digital music generation roll a
joint without a gatefold LP?
OK, I'm back. I took the plunge. I found Rock 'n' Roll Animal for $6.99 and I bought a pretty mint Ten Years After for a buck 99. Pretty good score. I also found a nice copy of "Pleasant Valley Sunday" on 45 with a photo sleeve; so I'm happy.
Interestingly, there are those who actually argue the superior
sound quality of the 45, based on the increase of speed and the wider grooves.
No one has ever persuaded me that the quality of a 45 is superior on any level,
and I would maintain that the typical 45 lacks sorely in manufacture and
quality control. That said, I am a collector.
I adore my 45s. I love the look,
the diversity of the labels, the size and format. I play them on an RCA 1953
bakelite 45 phonograph. It's vacuum tube-driven and if you don’t allow for it
to warm up, you'll only hear the sound coming off the needle and not through
the phonograph's speaker. Despite being fully restored, the motor's hum is
audible, though not over the speaker.
The quality of the sound is rich and heady, but quality here is
subjective. There are perceptible clicks and hisses, and an empty, somewhat
hollow sound that just, well, sounds authentic. I guess it's an acquired taste.
Here's the deal. I collect 45s for the thrill of collecting
based on my interest in the era (I confine my collection to the 60s and early
70s), the unique format, the bang for the buck (45s are notably inexpensive),
and the aesthetics. I appreciate the
Snap, Crackle, Pop of the format, the wow, the hiss, and the nostalgia. I
doubt that I will ever take my mint version of 10cc's "I'm Not in Love" and
play it on a $600 Shinola turntable. If I did, I have my doubts that the
experience would exceed the digital sonic landscape created by the LP, let
alone my SACD of The Original Soundtrack.
The 45 and LP were developed based on the rivalry between
Columbia Records and RCA Victor to replace the 78 rpm format created early in
the century. Made of brittle and noisy shellac — a compound consisting of
secretions from Southeast-Asian beetles — the 78 rpm format was ripe for
replacement by the late 1940s. (The term "album" originated with the
photo-like albums manufactured for multi-record 78 rpm releases.) In 1948,
Columbia unveiled the 33-1/3 rpm, 12-inch record made of "Vinylite"
(vinyl) that was quieter and less prone to breakage than shellac. The new
format was perfect for reproducing long musical performances, and even though
no "album" was required to contain them, single LPs (Columbia
copyrighted the term "LP" for Long Player) retained the moniker and is utilized even in today's digital world.
Not content to use Columbia's format for its huge back
catalog, RCA released its own 7-inch, 45 rpm format in 1949. Originally, RCA's
strategy was to tout its new format's superiority over Columbia's LP, viewing
it as a replacement, for rather than a complement to, the 33-1/3 rpm record. (The "45" rpm concept was established by subtracting "33" from "78.") RCA began to manufacture inexpensive 45 RPM players featuring a spindle that could hold
many 45s, dropping each to the turntable for play as soon as the previous was finished. Part of RCA's thinking was that the 45's sound reproduction was
superior to the LP, and part was its unwillingness to cede the long-playing
music market to Columbia, even though Columbia was willing to license its
manufacturing process to any record company. (Columbia did not make music
playback equipment.) Both companies felt they had the upper hand; both concepts
would become industry standards.
By the early 1950s, playback equipment for consumers quickly adopted
modifications for playing all three formats (not to mention an unused format
for spoken word recordings, 16rpm). The 78 format persisted well into the
1960s, but its fate was sealed by the sheer superiority of the new 45 and
33-1/3 rpm records. For a while, RCA tried to position the 45 as the 33-1/3 rpm
LP's equal by releasing box sets of 45s intended for use on their
"spindle" player system, but by the end of the decade, even RCA had
adopted the LP helping to bring it to the Pop audience by releasing LPs for
Elvis Presley and other big-name artists.
While there was a plethora of corporate labels releasing
LPs, names like Victor, Columbia, Capitol, Decca and Mercury, the manufacturing
process was expensive and left rather exclusively to the big five in the U.S.
Smaller subsidiary labels began to appear and in the heyday of rock there were
dozens of iconic labels, many started by bands and distributed by larger
conglomerates: Brother Records (Beach Boys), Swan Song (Zeppelin), Manticore,
Harvest, Virgin, Asylum, to name a few. 45s, though, would find hundreds, if
not thousands of manufacturers, tiny labels made in someone's garage and
distributed locally or to radio stations. That phenomenon created one of 45
collecting's most interesting idiosyncrasies: many collectors are in it only
for the labels. Names like Del-fi, Kama Sutra, Stateside, Ever-Soul, Fairmont,
End, Parrot and Dooto exemplify the phenomenon.
