19
votes
Accepted
Why do many vinyl albums place sides I and IV on one record and II and III on the other?
Many phonographs were able to play multiple records in sequence with a mechanism that would hold one or more records on the turntable, and one or more additional records elevated on the center post.
...
- 372
8
votes
Is there deliberate marketing that tries to persuade people to prefer vinyl records over CDs?
This might come across as a tad cynical ;)
Personally, I feel it's that people, given sufficient peer pressure, can easily be convinced to fool themselves. No need for marketing pressure.
Most people ...
- 7,795
7
votes
Why did fans used to buy "bootleg" recordings of live concerts?
You are used to highly produced music which is created primarily for studio recording, and then reproduced live on stage for fans who demand an exact copy of the recording. But there are bands, and ...
- 15.7k
5
votes
Longest song recording that hit the charts
I searched for "American Pie Duration" and in the Google results I saw "is the fourth longest song to enter the Billboard Hot 100, at the time of release it was the longest". Wikipedia then had a ...
- 209
4
votes
Accepted
Improvised music by notes
Not that I know of.
The only "note for note" recreation I've heard of is Blue by Other People Mostly Do The Killing, which is a note for note recreation of the famous Miles Davis album Kind of Blue (...
- 156
3
votes
Accepted
Where can I find the original, drunken version of Screaming Jay Hawkins' I Put a Spell On You online?
Based on you profile it seems like you're located in UK, in which case it should be fairly easy to find that version of the song, since that compilation was released in the UK. Here it is on Amazon; ...
- 4,345
3
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between o/b/o and c/o
I'm not sure about any possible technical usage in publishing credits, but typically "A in care of B" just means that B is doing nothing but passing it along to A, whereas "A on behalf of B" means ...
- 15.7k
3
votes
Longest song recording that hit the charts
I was sure it would be Don McLean's "American Pie" weighing in at eight minutes and thirty-six seconds - The single had to be split into two parts but it did chart as one piece.
But recently ...
- 219
3
votes
Accepted
Was Elvis Presley's 'Suspicious Minds' the first song with a fade-out and fade back in?
The Wikipedia article on Fade states that it is not possible to reliably identify the first modern recording to use fade.
It also states, in relation to earlier recordings:
By the early 1930s ...
- 4,298
3
votes
Accepted
What is the recording location, studio, and year of the song "That's What Friends Are For"?
It was recorded in 1985 at Conway Studios in Hollywood.
According to Dionne Warwick's autobiography:
One day in 1985, I ran into Elton John at the supermarket in Los Angeles the day before the ["...
- 3,801
2
votes
Did Aphex Twin ever used samples from someone else's tracks?
Using WhoSampled.com, you can find some of the songs that Aphex Twin has sampled. It turns out that he has sampled over 75 songs, including (among many other songs of varying popularity):
"Apache" by ...
- 4,345
2
votes
Accepted
Is there a prepared piano in Staier's recording of Diabelli Variations?
The effects you're asking about are built into the piano itself, activated by pedals. So, "prepared" in the early 19th-century sense (specialty pedals were all the rage), but not in the ...
- 3,801
2
votes
Before the days of downloads, were 'single' releases ever really only one song?
This question is fraught with conflation. Everyone here seems to be trying to shoehorn answers to fit with the original question. When the term came about, 'single' was not intended to connote that ...
2
votes
Tuning of songs
Unless you're a rare person with perfect pitch, you'd be unlikely to even notice this, let alone be distressed by this. Most people only have "relative pitch" which means they compare a note solely to ...
- 15.7k
2
votes
Longest song recording that hit the charts
In August 2019 "Fear Inoculum" by the band "Tool" charted in Billboard Hot 100 with a length of 10:21 (Position 93). As of October 2020 it's the longest song in Hot 100.
- 245
2
votes
Accepted
Is any Tomorrowland Orchestra music available on CD?
The Tomorrowland Orchestra is actually The Metropole Orkest, an orchestra for hire based in the Netherlands. Wikipedia's entry for them includes a selected discography.
The Metropole Orkest seems not ...
- 3,801
2
votes
Do musical recordings remove the breathe of the players?
Sometimes.
It depends mostly on what the producer is trying to do and the style of music. The general goal of recording an instrument is to get the sound of that instrument and as little else as ...
- 911
2
votes
Will Taylor Swift release her re-Recorded music to the public?
If she records them, she'll almost certainly release them. Otherwise, what's the point? It's not unprecedented --a number of other artists have rerecorded their old work, when they've been unable to ...
- 15.7k
2
votes
Is there deliberate marketing that tries to persuade people to prefer vinyl records over CDs?
No particular marketing campaign was necessary for vinyl --like many older technologies that were once ubiquitous, it has become a beloved, nostalgic niche product for aficionados. As one of those, I ...
- 15.7k
2
votes
Ariana Grande verse in key of D, track is still in C: Save your tears remix
Here is the official video for "The Weeknd & Ariana Grande - Save Your Tears (Remix)". The video you linked is not the official video, and Ariana Grande doesn't even sing on that ...
- 121
2
votes
Why are vinyl RPM and tape speed the way they are?
Emile Berliner created the first vinyl player with an electric motor, in 1888, which just happened to run at 3,600 rpm. That made the disc run close to 78rpm, allowing about 5 mins of play per record. ...
- 421
2
votes
Why are some of the lyrics in Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera omitted or missing entirely?
The song was originally written for Andrew Lloyd Webber's wife Sarah Brightman and went though several changes before it ended up in "The Phantom of the Opera" which can probably be ...
- 6,035
1
vote
Accepted
Do musical recordings remove the breathe of the players?
At a live performance there will always be sources of noise that will distract from the music. There are different ways of dealing with this:
Purists will just set up a stereo mic pair. Everything it ...
- 6,035
1
vote
Barbershop Amen Cadence
I'm sure what counts for you as a "barbershop ending," but I did a search on some of the old men's choir songs, and I found this which might be a match: Doyle Lawson - "Climbing Up the ...
- 15.7k
1
vote
Accepted
Is there a sizable audience for very long rock/metal songs?
I find it hard to believe that a band (any genre, not just rock) can produce a song over an hour long and retain enough musical interest to satisfy anything but the most die-hard fans. Maybe there's ...
- 6,035
1
vote
Accepted
Did Meat Loaf ever perform the song live, or release a recording of "Everything works if you let it"?
I've gone through Meatloaf's set lists, and while it is not exhaustive, I can't locate any reference that he performed this song live. Also, I can't find any reference to Meatloaf performing this song ...
- 416
1
vote
Accepted
Simple, straightfoward rendition of "I skovens dybe, stille ro"
I find the following simple, straightforward, and very appealing (list first, videos follow)
Anette Kruse: solo voice, self-accompanied with light guitar
Danish National Radio Choir: uncluttered ...
- 3,801
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible