Revival of Vinyl?

I still remember the amazement I had when I was younger as I gently pulled out stacks upon stacks of my dads old LPs. Classics like Genesis's 'Selling England By the Pound", The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour' and many, many others (at one time, over 300) had me mystified as I gazed at the trippy and artistic covers and found the ancient and (even then) long dead creatures known as 'vinyl LP's".

So what is it that happened to our old friend? Ah, yes, I remember now: technology.

From the 70's to the mid 90's 8 tracks and tapes reigned in the music world, offering the portability that vinyl lacked. Soon later came the CD or 'compact disc' which as it progressed offered more space for songs, and a clean, crisp sound unknown to ears use the the familiar and comforting crackle that you often heard on vinyl.

Just when we thought that music couldn't get any more compact and impersonal, along came the un-godly MP3.

Yes, MP3's are amazing. The fact that with new technology you can store millions of songs on one hard drive is great, but the sound quality is sterile and for me, it alienates the listener from the music. Maybe its just me, but with the invention of iTunes, iPods and whatever the hell else Steve Jobs has up his sleeve, it seems that things like cover art, the layout of the tracks, the way the artist has mixed the album as a whole and the entire finished product in general is being desecrated. Now you can just download single tracks, without hearing the album entirely, most artists put little to no thought in their cover art / album covers.... it just seems to me like the roots of music are beginning to shrivel.

BUT recently along with things like mod 60's sunglasses, tights and biker shorts (insert shudder here) it looks like vinyl may be making a come back.

In 2007, nearly 1 millions LP's were bought, and it looks like for 2008, that number could rise to 1.6 million. Sales of turntables are also up, with half a million being bought last year. Its also becoming easier to buy vinyl, with big-box stores like Best Buy, and online favourites like Amazon.com stocking more and more vinyl (even recent albums like Cat Power's jukebox). And of course, you can always rely on your local record store or indie store to carry this old favourite.

Also, even though it was technology that lead to the death of the LP, its also helping revive it, with a new species of turntables being made that allow you to convert your LP's into MP3's. Many artists are also helping with the comeback, by having their albums come out on vinyl first, or including download codes when you buy an LP (like the Arcade Fire).

So, it looks as if many of us may be returning to the format our parents used as kids. You may make the switch for many reasons: it's trendy, it's got better sound quality, it's cool, whatever. But what you can't deny is that vinyl with never die for those hard core fans that frequently enjoy sitting down with a turntable, an LP and a bunch of memories.

Sweeney Todd: The Anthony Rant

Okay, so I've finally gotten with the times and I saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (film version, recently directed by Tim Burton). And I have to say, after hearing people sing its praise for weeks I was a bit disappointed....mainly because of ANTHONY.

Sure, visually it was great to look at. The contrast of the dull and drabness of 1800's London next to the vivid red of blood (which there was plenty of) was great and captured your attention.

But...

I found that the songs were lacking. I found that they were sub-par, most of them being only words put to violin music. Also, I thought that most of the time, there wasn't even a purpose for singing, they could have just spoke to each other!! There were about two or three songs that were actually songs and they worked well. Other than that, I found that sure, the score was great, the vocals were okay and over all it was just fine.

There was also the characters. Almost every character that I wanted to beat over the head with a blunt object got to live (though you never found out what actually happens to them) and the characters that I did enjoy died. Sure, I saw most of the deaths coming, but still. The sad thing is that I predicted how the movie would end about 15 minutes before it was actually finished, I felt no remorse what so ever for Sweeney...and then there's the matter of Anthony.

This little prick of a kid goes to London with Sweeney, and while walking glimpses a beautiful girl with a falsetto voice through a window, and promises to steal her away so he can marry her. Problem?

You haven't even said two words to this chick and you're already planning your future. Love at first sight isn't real, life doesn't work that way. I hate when this happens in books, movies, etc because, sure, you do have to suspend your disbelief and sometimes just go with it, but 'love at first sight' has been used as an excuse so many times its a cliche that has lost all relevant meaning. So already I had it out for Anthony.

Also, this character was used time and time again to stop the most interesting parts of the movie!! When ever something interesting was about to go down (aka when I starting to actually enjoy the movie) Anthony would come bursting in running his mouth off about something or another (aka his plan to save miss falsetto) and ruin everything. Anthony was an excuse that was used time and time again to prevent a real story from happening. Yes, this can happen once as an odd coincidence, but this situation is used THREE TIMES!! Also, he can't sing to save his life (I fast forwarded through all his songs to save myself the pain) and as a character, he's not really needed, he's not all that relevant to the plot, he's used as an excuse time and time again and he's written so that he is just plain STUPID (its called KNOCKING.)

Oh, and he gets to live in the end.....bugger.

So I hate to be one of those people whose movie experience is completely ruined because of one character, but I am today! There were also a few other things that bugged me about the movie, such as the cheap ending, etc but I won't get into that. All in all Sweeney Todd is okay...and Anthony deserves to die. If anyone wants to help me devise an alternative ending where Anthony gets the sh*t kicked out of him......call me.