quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

I had a pair of Esprit jeans that my mom and I found on sale, and when I wore them to summer camp all the other girls were shocked that someone as obviously uncool and loser-ish as me would have a good label.

They were pink jeans, iirc.

I had one pair of totally sweet two-tone Jordache jeans (acid wash on the bottom with a grey denim yoke at the top) and I wore the shit out of them such that the Guess girls would comment on it. BUT I AM OVER IT NOW.

nytimes explains the mysteries of the turntable. warning: features non tri-state hipsters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/technology/personaltech/how-to-enjoy-turntables-without-obsessing-over-them.html

there is an emotional reliance on a certain brand to constitute or support your sense of self. huh? i don't really get that.

elmo this is the entire foundation of modern capitalism, you should try to get it

“Young people didn’t grow up with turntables,” said Kenny Bowers, manager at Needle Doctor, a Minnesota store specializing in turntables. “It seems mysterious and complicated because you don’t just push a button and have it play for you.”

haha what

i am suspicious to say the least that "young people" are baffled by turntable technology

“There is a fuller sound to it, and more depth to the sound,” said Ryan Holiday, the New Orleans-based marketing director for American Apparel. He’s a new devotee of jazz and David Bowie, thanks to LPs. (For the youngsters, that stands for long playing, as in long-playing record; there were also small records called 45s). “I could hear hands going up and down the frets, and stuff that they probably didn’t want you to hear. Which is a nice little surprise,” he said.

jfc

RYAN HOLIDAY YOU ARE A MORON

lots of people have never had one though! young people.

x-post

ryan holiday otm.

i lost heart after that, it is literally the worst article about vinyl in the history of time.

hooking up my first turntable-receiver-speakers setup was pretty wild after always having the CD-player packages they sell at Best Buy

it's complicated! no, it's simple! don't obsess! except you should probably buy calibration equipment that will run you $200!

haha thanks tracer, i'll try.

it is literally the worst article about vinyl in the history of time.

looool that just suddenly seems like a very Ally thing to have said.

fwiw i think it's fair to say ppl interface with brands in different ways and that the ppl in that article comparing their affinity for brands in terms of personal relationships could maybe use a goddamn reality check

maybe they are our most genuine TRUTH TELLERS

haha laurel. you're right. i miss ally ;_;

needle doctor was really happy about the nyt article on facebook today!

and i've read way worse. many of them in the new york times.

I had a pair of Esprit jeans that my mom and I found on sale, and when I wore them to summer camp all the other girls were shocked that someone as obviously uncool and loser-ish as me would have a good label.

― how did I get here? why am I in the whiskey aisle? this is all so (Laurel), Thursday, April 19, 2012 3:55 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

JNCO & similar style jeans were popular at my school, I remember begging my mom to buy them for me, she got my off-brand ones, I wore them to school one day and the coolest kid in the class noticed and said "looking good dan" and I felt so embarrassed that I never wore those jeans again.

ah the wide-leg jeans arms race - 20" 23" 26"
I quit at 26"

Sutter's Mill (house brand of skate shop Fast Forward?) were acceptable in my junior high, thankfully

Ah man, clothing was so fraught in middle school and I had so many bad moments. There was the time I bought these loud-ass Nike Air Huaraches with neon green and blue, which honestly were awesome sneakers that made it feel like you were running on a cloud. This one popular kid goes, all loudly, "Hey look at J---, the AIR HUARACHE STUD!"

iirc a good friend of mine had JNCOs with 40" leg openings as a hs freshman

I miss 26 Red shirts. So many arguments over exactly which drug that was a reference to. (presumably not a drug reference at all)

I had a lot of arguments over whether Stussy was for surfers, skaters, everyone, or posers

“I could hear hands going up and down the frets, and stuff that they probably didn’t want you to hear. Which is a nice little surprise,”

= your music is really handmade and artisanal but someone (???) didn't want you to know that it was and turntables will totally make you able to find out!!!

'l one day and the coolest kid in the class noticed and said'
'This one popular kid goes, all loudly'

is this everyone's experience? the popular kid wielding so much apparel power?
if the most popular kid at our school had that much influence, we'd wear nothing but megadeth t-shirts.

Some of the power the popular kids had over what I wore was probably in my head, but there were a small group of kids who were not shy about public call outs if they thought we were wearing something not to their arbitrary and capricious standards. I got a lot of shit for wearing pants more than once in a five-day week, for example. I remember another kid (we were both in band at the time, so I mean, how cool could he have been the little shit) telling me if I wore the shoes I tended to wear every day one more time, he was going to kick my ass. I kind of figured he was kidding, but I never wore the shoes again because I was embarrassed.

TBF I did dress like a weirdo, but this was the 80s and all the kids should have embraced me like they embraced Andy and Duckie.

there was a trio of cool kids in my middle school class

i think they mean that you can hear mistakes or sounds in the recording studio that wouldn't be as apparent on a cd.

x-post

which is pretty much bullshit

i think they mean that you can hear mistakes or sounds in the recording studio that wouldn't be as apparent on a cd.

x-post
--scott seward

Yes. Of course this is exactly what they said when the CD came along.

Most audiophiles hear with their eyes.

we didn't really have popular kids in my jr high, we had the stereotypical cliques (jocks, freaks, skaters, etc.) with a few people straddling two and within those you had some dress codes that ideally would be adhered to - Chucks or Docs among the freaks, Airwalks or Vans among the skaters, yada yada yada.

well old records transferred to cd do get tweaked a bunch. they take stuff out. they do all kinds of things to analog recordings to make them sound more "digital". no conspiracy about that. bands and artists themselves do it all the time.

so not really untrue to say that you hear things on a record that you might not hear on a cd.

and if all you have ever heard were CDs and MP3s then i think it might be a revelation of sorts to hear an old record on vinyl. its a revelation to me every day and i've been listening to records for 40+ years. um, but as i said, needle doctor is a facebook friend of mine. i think people know where i stand.

eh that records article wasn't all that bad, outside of idiot amarican apparel guy.
I've known too many people who'll spend $25 on a record and slap it on a piece of plastic with quarters taped to the cartridge. If it gets a few people to stop destroying their records then I'm happy.

a little weird for the nytimes to write about though yes

If they want you to hear it they leave it in, if they don't they take it out. I don't think it has anything to do with the format. Things that get cleaned up are annoying sounds, like hiss or hum. I've always liked hearing the guitar action (kind of makes it more visual when you can hear the fretting hand move around), and I think musicians don't mind leaving it in either.

I'm kind of a geek about technical equipment in general but man I would def pay someone to come and fix my dual and my ... box thingy that the dual connects to. there's surprisingly very little in-depth turntable stuff online

in the paper on record buying/selling i read at the EMP conference last year in LA i wrote that the NYT writes a vinyl is back! piece every month. not quite that bad. but now whenever i read one i can't help but think of that.

going from mp3/iphone stereo out to vinyl is almost always a revelation. i mean it depends to some degree on a bunch of things but not enough that it isn't almost always a revelation. "they don't want you to hear it" is a canard, whoever heard it first very very likely heard it and wanted it to be heard, but yes, ryan holiday is excited because he's being exposed to next-level depth-of-sound for music he likes, can't fault him for that.

i'm a little more skeptical about CDs, i think the number of factors there make a bigger difference to the point that yes, you can get an equivalent listening experience. the technology is young and i think there's always going to be a push to get better sound from certain sectors, it just takes time to become affordable unfortunately, meanwhile you can still get killer sound from a turntable/receiver/speakers for like $100.

*posted from my 97 lazy boy*

A good CD setup will give you that relevatory experience too, and you really can't get good sound from a $100 turntable/receiver/speakers setup, unless you luck into a good system at a rummage sale, or something.

Funniest thing about Vinyl Is Back is that most musicians I know that put out stuff on vinyl record it all digitally first anyways.

Yeah, it's not that funny.

I got a lot of shit for wearing pants more than once in a five-day week, for example.

I was very very paranoid about doing this when I was in middle school.

had a friend in high school who would wash every article of clothing after one wear

That's pretty much what I do. Well, Carl does it.