I confess. I am a dailykos lurker. While I enjoy posting on Mudcat, I've never done so on dailykos. But I avidly read the diaries and the comments and listen and learn. But little did I expect when I opened up a thread about trolls being paid to post comments on political websites, that shortly into the discussion, a fascinating exchange would occur about recorded music and the machines that play it. How the conversation jumped to music is a story in and of itself. If interested, you can read the entire dairy and comments Here

I don't want to do a long cut & paste post, but imo, these comments are so rich that I want to share them with this community.

So here goes:

"Caution: Music snobbery ahead.

The term album is actually the proper way to refer to any titled collection of music released as a whole. It does not, or should not, infer "vinyl record". Album is appropriate as the generic term no matter what medium the music is physically stored on.

When I hear DJ's referring to an artist's new "CD" that just came out, it makes me cringe. They should refer to it as "an album released on CD" -- or in the case of downloaded albums, "on MP3". Just "album" is best."...

As for actual vinyl, many music-heads prefer to play vinyl for serious listening. There is still no commercially available digitally sampled form of recorded music that reproduces the "full sound" or "warmth" that is possible on high-quality analog media such as vinyl LP's. I'll spare you the technical details. Just try an A/B test on a decent system and you'll see (er, hear).

Some of my favorite artists are still co-releasing new recordings (or back catlogs, sometimes) on good quality vinyl. Try it, you'll like it!" by Mountain Don on Sat Jun 17, 2006

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language changes all the time. how one generation uses a word can be completely destroyed and come to mean the opposite by a later generation. (the words "bad" and "wicked" are two that leap to mind!) In the case of music, these changes in terminology and their meanings and their uses is often tied specifically to the sub-cultures that re-invent, change, modify, or re-use specific words and phrases. For example, I am a composer, and I compose so-called "serious" music, as opposed to "pop" music (terms used by ASCAP and BMI). I hate this dichotomy. However, when many friends and family describe my music, they call it "classical," which it certainly IS NOT to any professional musician who performs or writes or studies in this particular genre. To that class, "classical" music refers to some music of europe in the 1700's and is usually distinguished from "romantic" music (which followed it) and "baroque" (which preceded it). But, to the vast majority of music listeners in the US, "classical" refers to most music played by orchestras or other such ensembles. I try to understand the use of the terms in reference to the speaker. And that's o.k. by me. To you, I'd probably say "album", but to some kids in a class that I teach as a volunteer, I usually say "CD". And now, with mp3's and other downloadable materials, I hear those kids simply call it "the entire disc".

whadda-ya-gonna-do?" by troubador on Sat Jun 17, 2006 at 12:04:33 PM

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-snip-
And there's more where those comments came from.

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Maybe Ipods aren't the latest gizmo. I don't have one yet...How is the sound on Ipods?

What is your choice for playing recorded music and why?