Back in the 80's, the average running time for an
album
was approximately 45 minutes - whatever you could fit
onto a slab of 12" vinyl @ 33rpm without sacrificing
sound quality.There's an example of an iron maiden
live album where they say in the sleeve notes that
iron maiden ALWAYS give their fans the best value for
money by sticking the maximum length of music they can
on a single disc without sacrificing sound quality -
about 50-55 minutes as opposed to the normal 40-45.
(They were just blowing their own trumpet, but there's
some truth in it)
The example I can best give here is Philip Glass's
Koyaanisqatsi, which was brutally truncated from 75
minutes to 45. 75 minutes would have made a double
album, which was deemed too expensive to make it worth
manufacturing for a relatively 'niche' artist like
Glass. bear in mind, we're talking a major label
profit margin here (always much higher than
independents) and we're not talking someone who will
sell a million out of the box like frankie Goes To
Hollywood. It was just down to market forces
really - the price of a double album was deemed
prohibitively expensive for the market place.
The other thing was that with advances for record
contracts being made on a per album basis, and
contracts for say, 6 albums, why would anyone
issue a double album of music which would mean you
were effectively giving away a free album to the
record company?
Anyway, come the middle of the 80's, Cd starts to
become dominant and album running times go up.At first
its with CD bonus tracks to intice purchasers to buy
it on the much more expensive CD format (at the end of
the 80's , in HMV a new vinyl album cost about £6.49,
and the CD about £11.99.) There was also the issue of
i)re-selling us all the old records we alreadyowned
but ii)the lower royalty rate on CD's for most artists
(A big bone of contention with the Stone Roses
contract with Silvertone; to this day, they get a
reduced rate of royalties (about half) on CD sales).
From about the mid-late 80's, there was no 'virgin'
vinyl being produced anymore - ie vinyl which
previously hadn't been used. That 'thin' vinyl
referred to for public enemy was thus made from
overstocks - previously pressed up unsold overstocks,
all smashed up together and recycled, with a
subsequent loss of quantity and quality caused by
impurities (such as labels etc.). this was one of the
reasons why a lot of vinyl bootlegs from that era came
in coloured vinyls - they were pretty much impossible
to recycle and as such, were v'virgin' vinyl. (See
Clinton heyden's book -'The great white wonder', also
reprinted and expanded under the title 'bootleg' for
much more info on this. its a fascinating read in
either edition)
*shuts up*
G
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