The Disc Vinyl Takes again service, (crudely translated from "Le Monde")

A link to the following article published in "Le Monde" was distributed today via the Analogue Addicts mailing list. I've used an Altavista translator to get a rough rendering for the english speakers among us. Hope you enjoy...I think it's fun to read...

Markus

TENDENCIES
the disc vinyl takes again
service

What one is joint the last albums of Johnny Hallyday, Henri El Salvador, Michael Jackson or Robbie Williams ? Like others before them, they were the object, parallel to the impossible to circumvent compact disk, of a version vinyl to limited diffusion which quickly
found taking. After more than ten years of a serious unproductive period, the good old man vinyl ceased péricliter and takes again colors. He owes it with the esthètes and the DJ which juggle and scratchent with platinums on which turn of wafers to old, but also to new " It is not a return in strength, but the sales set out again " ,observes one in Fnac, where one notices also a renewal of the purchases of platinums record players.

However, the senior aficionado as the simple amateur generally prefer to rely on the second-hand market. It is less expensive and more amusing. It happens that one falls on invaluable specimens or quite simply from old memories. Not a secondhand trade which does not pour its batch of transitory 45-turns of glories of the contest of Eurovision, of the black Socks, even of Danny Boy and his Penitent. The request is such as specialized conventions multiply. The international Market of the discs of collection (Midisc) figure among most significant. This demonstration, organized three times per annum by the monthly magazine Juke Box Magazine (20 000 exemplaires), will be held samedi 12 and Sunday 13 janvier in Paris, with Space Champerret entrée : 5,50 .). One awaits there 160 exposants and 6 000 à 8 000 visiteurs around a million exposed discs, 78-turns with the minicomputer-cD.

" the amateurs are generally old of more than 35 ans, they are men in crushing the majority of the cases, and their purchases are not proportional to their incomes , ensures Annie Vincent, head of publicity of Juke Box Magazine and member of the organization of the 7e Midisc. They do not collect
relics to be put under bell, but objects alive which they will delicately deposit on the record player and will listen with respect. " To tenderize the expert, a vinyl disc must be in perfect state. It is necessary aécautionneusement to extract wafer from its small pocket, to seize itself some by taking care, by a scientist set of fingers, not to dirty it, and to worry about possible stripes or a suspect wear of the label around the central opening, signs of an intensive
use.

The must consists in putting the hand on the national discographies, these discs especially published for a country, recognizable with their new small pocket and sometimes containing one or more titles not being reproduced on the album of reference. For the small discs, this characteristic did not survive for two reasons the quasi-disappearance of the super-45-turns (four titles), replaced by 45-turns at the beginning of the years 1970. The official record of the speciality is held by an extremely rare French edition of super-45-turns of Beatles dating from 1964 but in perfect state, allocated in 1997 for the equivalent of 3 800 .. This original pressing is worth especially for its small pocket, a superb stereotype carried out for the arrival of the quartet in Olympia putting in John scene capped with a cap of Gavroche, Paul carrying a beret, Ringo bicornuate vaguely a napoléonien and George a kepi of policeman. The air a little patibulaire, all the four holds a sandwich-rod. The amateurs are also interested in the picture discs (illustrated discs, of rather bad sound quality in addition) and even in the floppy discs. Celebrated after scornbeing scorned, the disc vinyl belongs to this category of objects " vrais"- avec the old instruments of kitchen, the fishing rods in bamboo, the old motor bikes, the leather easychairs or the Kona - que coffee machines one is not satisfied to collect but that one uses from time to time, for the only pleasure of keeping them alive, ready to support mordicus that they are better well than their cold contemporary successors. In this vein, the
rediscovery of the disc vinyl is well more than one nostalgia. It is a way of filling the emotional lack generated by fifteen years of compact disks, less fragile, less cumbersome and a priori richer silver plated metal discs sicalement (what disputes savagely the esthètes), but so much more austere and distant.

In fact, truths music lovers are orphan replaceable small pocket, ECRIN sometimes colourful, indissociable of the personality of the uvre which it contains. The immaculate cover of the double white album of Beatles whose title was engraved on the paperboard, the fly bent on Sticky Fingers of Rolling Stones, the album Meddle de Pink Floyd which it was necessary to deploy in all
its length to discover an ear photographed approximately plane or Thick Have A Brig of Jethro Tull which was presented as the edition of a newspaper testify to a lost creativity. The interior face of the small pockets told stories, and the words were often reproduced on the protective paper of the disc. CD, this unsavoury individual, is quite chiche. It proposes only tiny booklets whose characters are so small that they are almost indecipherable by the most forty years. One will be able to be always avenged by carrying out his own compilations and while downloading via Internet of the images, even original small pockets in small size but nothing could replace the 33-turns that one opens a such book. Honor is returned to faithful of the vinyle ; they defend a besieged citadel.

After the blues of CD, is profiled a pure dematerialization and simple guarantor in the name of MP3, this technology who allows to store the contents of an album on the disc dur - cruelle ironie - de his computer and to transfer it from simple a clic on the memory of a walkman. It is a little sad, the désincarnée music.

Norman Jean-Michel

• ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN the EDITION OF the 12.01.02