Links: The history of records, copyright troll woes, Chuck Berry in space, the other Top 40 charts.

 

  • An Ode to the Fuel of the Wheels of Steel. A potted history of mechanical methods of sound recording. Pictured above: a Stroh violin, with the body replaced with a horn so that strings could be heard when cutting a 78. I hadn’t realised Argentina had kept making 78s until 1970. Predictably, “A BBC/ICM poll conducted in 2015 found that 48 per cent of people who buy vinyl will never play it, and seven per cent do not even own a record player.”

  • Whither the copyright trolls? As the companies take down large torrent sites, times are getting tough. How sad.

  • Why Chuck Berry is on the Pioneer record but the Beatles aren’t. Go on, guess.

  • To be fair, if you wanted a chart that reflected what people are actually listening to, the present one is probably not completely awful. But things get more interesting as you delve into the physical sales charts.

 

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