It's being a busy week! At the
weekend, I was doing a little Wikipedia hiking and landed on the article for "His Master's
Voice." That led to HMV,
which reminded me of this
inane YouTube item. (There's another one where he calls HMV.)
All this led to an exploration of limited edition Gramophone records.
Finally, I landed on Unusual
types of gramophone records. That's how a Hikipedia expedition goes,
eh!
Unusual grooving: Most vinyl LPs have but one groove! (Remember that if you
play Trivial
Pursuit!) However, there are a few that were released with parallel
grooves. Ever heard of Monty Python's three-sided
album? Can't guarantee its content on any of its three grooves (one on one
side, two on the other) is SFW. There are others!
Unusual shapes: As long as the content groove is spiral, the outer edge of
the disc can be in any shape an artist pleases. Tangerine Dream released
"Warsaw in the Sun" in the shape of Poland. These unusually-shaped
records are often also picture discs.
Unusual speeds: I remember Mum's old stereo console had four speeds for the
record player: 78, 45, 33, and...wha?..16?! "This speed was used almost exclusively for
spoken word content, in particular for the "talking books" used by the visually
impaired, though it was also employed in the Seeburg 1000 Background
Music System." Apparently in some
countries (US must have been one of them), inclusion of the 16-2/3 RPM setting was compulsory. At least
by the time I came along, there weren't a lot of proprietary formats that
required playback at anywhere from 60-130 RPM!
It was so much fun to watch all the mechanics in the player speed up when 78
was selected. I've always been easily entertained.
Funny, we slowed down our "long-playing" records, but we speeded up our CDs. Now, with MP3 and its growing family, there
may be nothing to revolve!
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