Vinyl
Watch This Artist Build a Functional Vinyl DJ Deck Out of LEGO Bricks
From life-size cars to Daft Punk stages, the possibility for ingenuity with LEGO bricks is endless. Nothing hits quite as close to home, however, as the latest invention from Look Mum No Computer, who has built a set of working vinyl DJ turntables made completely out of LEGOs. The creation arrives as an official collaboration with the children’s toy organization in celebration of the recent launch of LEGO Vidyo, the brand’s augmented reality music video-making platform. It’s fascinating to watch as he navigates thousands of blocks to conceptualize a fully-functioning piece of music equipment. To turn the idea into a reality, Look Mum No Computer used both LEGO Mindstorm programmable bricks and various items from the LEGO Technic component pack. The only thi...
Daft Punk’s Iconic “Homework” and “Alive 1997” Get Vinyl Reissues
Just after iconic dance music innovators Daft Punk announced their split earlier this week, EMI has announced that the duo’s earliest albums, Homework and the Alive 1997 live album that followed, will be re-issued on vinyl today. Homework was Daft Punk’s debut album, also released in 1997. Alive 1997 was recorded at Birmingham’s Que Club that same year. The vinyl re-releases of the two albums are very welcome news since the seminal dance musicians announced their split last Monday with a short film called Epilogue, which served as the final chapter to not only Daft Punk’s Electroma feature film, but also their career as a whole. Homework and Alive 1997 have officially been re-issued via EMI today. You can purchase Homework here an...
Bandcamp Expands Its Vinyl Pressing Service to Accommodate 10,000 Indie Artists
Bandcamp made a lot of indie artists happy last year by raising $40 million for musicians during their monthly Bandcamp Fridays campaign. The music platform is keeping that momentum going in 2021 with the announcement of a new initiative that’s possibly even more appealing: they’re going to press vinyl runs for 10,000 different artists on their platform. Back in 2019, the company quietly rolled out the pilot program for an in-house vinyl pressing service. According to an announcement on their website, Bandcamp pressed and shipped 13,000 vinyl units for 50 different artists. In 2021, the Oakland-based music marketplace is ambitiously inviting 200x the amount of musicians to participate in the program. Given that only a small handful of vinyl pressing plants are tasked with manufac...
Black Sabbath Dio-Era Albums Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules Getting Deluxe Reissues
The first two Ronnie James Dio-fronted Black Sabbath albums, 1980’s Heaven and Hell and 1981’s Mob Rules, are receiving deluxe reissues via Rhino Records. The expanded editions arrive March 5th, and to tide us over, live cuts of each title track are now available to stream. Both albums will be available on CD and vinyl, featuring a 2021 remaster of the original LPs, along with B-sides, alternate versions, and rare live recordings. Do to space constraints, the vinyl versions will feature a selection of the bonus tracks available on the CDs. 1980’s Heaven and Hell marked Dio’s debut with Black Sabbath. It proved to be one of the heavy metal’s greatest comeback albums following the ousting of original singer Ozzy Osbourne. The expanded edition includes live versions of “Children of the Sea” a...
Hip-Hop, Latin & Vinyl’s Popularity Grew in 2020 (Rock, Pop & CDs’ Did Not)
Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” (via Atlantic) was the top streaming song in 2020 with 1.3 billion on-demand streams, beating out Future’s “Life Is Good” featuring Drake (via Epic), which had 1 billion on-demand streams. Lil Baby’s My Turn (via Quality Control) was the No. 1 album for the year, generating 2.6 million consumption units, with Taylor Swift’s folklore (via Republic) coming in second at 2.2 million album consumption units — of which 1.3 million were from sales (including 796,000 from downloads), making it the year’s best-selling album. In fact, Swift placed four albums in the year’s top 200 albums, as her Lover album ranked No. 33 with 878,000 album consumption units; evermore was No. 70 with 569,000 units and 1989 was No. 116 with 428,000 units. For the 21st year in a...
Vinyl Just Had Its Best Sales Week in History
We already knew vinyl was making a tremendous comeback, but the format has downright shattered records this month. The most important of them all: vinyl just had its best sales week ever. As Billboard reports, there were 1.842 million (!) LP’s sold in the US during the week leading up to Christmas, ending on December 24th. That’s the biggest week the format has had since Nielsen/MRC Data began tracking sales information in 1991. The previous record was achieved just a week prior, when 1.445 million vinyl records were sold between December 10th and December 17th. These gargantuan figures arrive at the end of a year that’s been historically great for vinyl. For the first time in 34 years, LP sales outpaced CDs during four separate weeks in 2020 (all of them since September), w...
Why Fidelity…
Considering the hyperactive mind of the modern music listener, the 50 million songs in Spotify’s catalog and Amazon’s universe of subpar listening devices, can anyone tell which music medium sounds best anymore? What does “sounds best” even mean? While we’re at it, what the hell is sound? Glad you asked because there’s a whole lotta science in sound quality that may go in one ear and out the other, so to speak. Sound, as studious readers may know, is a vibration of the air particles around us, an energy which travels in waves that cause our eardrums to vibrate and us to experience noise, some of which we call music. Tape recorders preserve sound waves physically, using components that realign magnetic particles on tape to represent the wave’s loudness and rate of frequency vibration....
Win a Christmas Vinyl Collection with Mariah Carey, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, and More
We’re well into December at this point, which means it’s time to ring the bells of holiday music. Celebrations may look different this year, but the timeless sounds of the season are still here to bring warmth and good cheer to your Zoom gatherings. To help make sure your homes are filled with the carols and classics you love, we’ve teamed with Sony to give away a collection of Christmas vinyl from all-time great artists. Five (5) winners will receive a bundle of vinyl that packages together nine beloved Christmas albums. Featured LPs include: — Elvis Presley’s 2012 compilation The Classic Christmas Album — Gene Autry’s 1957 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Other Christmas Favorites — Johnny Mathis’ 1958 favorite Merry Christmas — Sax legend Kenny G’s 1994 album Miracles: The Holiday Alb...
Tower Records Is Back… as an Online Music Store
Tower Records, the iconic music store chain that closed its doors nearly 14 years ago, is back. On Friday, the beloved franchise announced it’s returning as an online service — just in time for vinyl’s record-breaking growth. The new Tower Records has plenty of music on sale already, including vinyl,… Please click the link below to read the full article. Tower Records Is Back… as an Online Music Store Nina Corcoran You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
Someone Forked Up $1,764 for a 12″ Vinyl Version of Avicii’s “Levels”
How much would you be willing to pay for vinyl from Avicii? How much would you be willing to pay for vinyl from Avicii? One eager buyer has dropped a cool $1,764 to purchase a special 12″ vinyl single of “Levels,” the legendary dance music producer’s breakthrough 2011 single, on Discogs. Discogs runs a monthly feature about the 30 most expensive items purchased from its marketplace, and in the October edition, the 12″ limited version of Avicii’s “Levels” appears in the #19 spot. Pink Floyd‘s 1967 The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn LP topped the list at $6,500. Prevalently known as the most recognizable song in the history of EDM, the inescapable “Levels” has stood the test of time as a generational ...
Watch Armin van Buuren and Ferry Corsten Perform Rare B2B Trance Set on Vinyl
Fans of trance music are in for a treat after Armin van Buuren and Ferry Corsten—two of the genre’s most iconic artists—uploaded a rare B2B trance set. The set, performed completely on vinyl, is a must-watch for any trance connoisseur, considering the mythos of van Buuren and Corsten. Over a full hour, the two dance music legends spin a slew of classics, including Inertia‘s “The System,” Tiësto‘s “Lethal Industry,” and Rank 1‘s iconic “Airwave.” They tied a bow on the performance by closing it with “Brute,” their timeless collaboration that was released on Corsten’s Flashover Recordings imprint back in 2011. You can watch the full B2B vinyl set below, courtesy of van Buuren’s A State Of ...
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie Soundtrack Gets First-Ever Release from Mondo
Yeah, bitch! A full year after the film’s initial release, the soundtrack to El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is finally seeing release. The 26-track collection is being pressed as a double-LP exclusively from Mondo. On sale beginning Wednesday, October 14th, the soundtrack’s debut pressing features the complete score from Dave Porter, who also penned the award-winning music from Breaking Bad. Also present are nearly a dozen of El Camino’s perfectly timed needle-drops, such as Lynyrd Skynyrd (“Call Me the Breeze”), Jim White featuring Aimee Mann (“Static on the Radio”), Family Force 5 (“Kountry Gentleman”), and Lulu (“To Sir with Love”). In addition, there’s an exclusive Chloe x Halle bonus track called “Enchanted” that wasn’t featured in the movie. The vinyl comes housed in artwork from Ma...
