Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium
John Corbett is a music critic, record producer, and curator. He is the author of Microgroove: Forays into Other Music and Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein, both also published by Duke University Press, and A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation. His writing has appeared in DownBeat, Bomb, Nka, and numerous other publications. He is the co-owner of Corbett vs. Dempsey, an art gallery in Chicago.
Track Three: Freak, Not Snob
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Published:May 2017
Track three is concerned with the comparison between different audio formats. Enumerating the specific pros and cons of the various means of playback—magnetic tape, vinyl, CD, MP3, streaming—the author professes a flexible sense of affinity, depending on what the music and playback circumstance demands. He draws on his experiences as a disc jockey and over twenty years of service on the job, and reflects on the particularities of different record formats, from playing time to noise floor.
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