Should we put our shellacs on the wall ?

[mally1956]

With people putting vinyl records on the wall ,I tend to wonder if that will mean those of us with 78records are expected to do the same ,disk being sarcastic ,but the term vinyl really gets on my wick ,the term should be just records !
Back in the day I don't recall saying I'm going to buy a vinyl ,vinyl was used more to do with wallpaper ,hence on the wall ?

[Radio Wrangler]

I have a similar dislike for the term 'A video'

David

[mark_in_manc]

I reckon I'm of an age to have been in the last 3 or 4 school years of kids who bought albums on record in large numbers - no-one I knew was very into singles, and most people who only had a passing interest in music used (mostly bootleg) tapes. I went to University in '89, at which time only one of the music-obsessed folks I hung around with had a CD player, though I don't think he had saved up for any CDs and mostly had tapes of his brother's lp's! By the time we left in '93 I would guess most people had a CD player, though we were still buying cheap vinyl where we could find it since CDs were too pricey for us.

So that is how we used the terms when I were a lad (this is like writing an English comprehension!). Vinyl could be used colloquially as a collective noun (been down to Power Cuts to check out the vinyl, man?), but never singular unless used as an adjective in very peculiar company (I say, wouldn't you agree that a vinyl recording captures something which is somehow lost when listening on compact cassette? ).

I think we might have said 'I've got that on vinyl' - though we might equally have said 'on record' or 'on an lp'. Whereas 'I've got the album' might mean 'I've got a 3rd-hand BASF cassette with only the glue which once attached a label adhering to it, which my sister recorded off her friend in mono using her shoebox tape recorder's own internal microphone, because no-one we know has a tape-to-tape deck or the right leads to improvise something'.

So if anyone were tracking the etymology of these neologisms of recorded music, that gives you a marker for what yoof were talking about in the late 80s!

(Actually, that stuff about 'I've got' two paras up is interesting to me. There was a sense of pride in owning or even, to be really pretentious, curating one's record collection which the ubiquity of on-line music largely destroyed. Perhaps it is this feeling which young people are now going after by collecting actual things - vinyl records, or 'vinyls' as I believe the young people are saying - once again. )

[Nickthedentist]

We went out for a meal on Saturday to a restaurant that's part of a chain. LPs were nailed all over one wall, and sleeves glued to another.

Nothing surprising there... except the "sleeves" were in fact just 12"x12" facsimile prints of trendy bands' recordings, and the actual records were charity shop specials (Hallmark, Readers' Digest etc.)! Nice that nothing special was being wasted.

N.

P.S. I read in one of the Sunday supplements that "BYOV" is the latest party invitation abbreviation - "bring your own vinyl" of course. But it reminds me of Del Boy's "bring a bottle and an LP" suggestion when inviting a lady back to his flat

[Tractionist]

A word of advice Nick. LP's [+ associated transcription turntables etc.] and Mainecoon's don't mix !!

Ho! Hee! Hee!

[Cobaltblue]

Gonna need longer nails to put up the wax cylinders

Cheers

Mike T

[Hartley118]

Whilst lacking the joyful colour designs of LP sleeves, 78 sleeves can be quite interesting because they're often early 20th century adverts for gramophone dealers. Beginning with gramophones, accumulator charging and bicycles, these evolved to feature radios, deluxe radiograms such as the Decola, and also...... those new fangled televisions.

However, my sleeves are all protecting shellac records, so stay off the wall.

Martin

[AC/HL]

It's a bit hazy now, but back then ISTR the trendy name for records was "discs", if indeed one was needed. I suppose record is in turn short for recording, or disc recording to differentiate from "proper" recordings, on cylinder of course.

[Hartley118]

Did 'disc' become common usage when records could either be tape or disc?

Martin

[Station X]

Apparently the term "disc jockey" first appeared in 1935, so using the term disc to describe a gramophone record probably predates that.

Perhaps they were called discs to differentiate them from cylinders?

[mally1956]

At one point in the early 1900s cylinder and disk competed much like VHS and Betamax, imagine if cylinder had won ?

[Welsh Anorak]

I've always rather liked the term 'album', suggesting a collection carefully arranged so as to be pleasing to the eye - or, in this case - ear. It also doesn't matter whether it's on record, tape, CD or even downloaded.
Maybe the term dates from the '78' era when an album was a collection of 78rpm discs in a folder which would acommodate an opera or a symphony or perhaps a collection of songs by a single artist.
Odd how LP was only ever a term for vinyl discs and never for a cassette, even if it was the same record.
Glyn

[Welsh Anorak]

(#11) ...we'd have compact cylinders now!

[TonyDuell]

I've seen books (written over 100 years ago) that refer to a 'disk talking machine' meaning what we would call a clockwork accoustic gramophone. I've not seen 'cylinder talking machine' in print but it would not surprise me if that was the term.

I was once told that an 'album' was oiginally a book of sleeves for shellac disks. And that when the contents of said set of disks could be fitted onto a single LP, then that LP was also termed the 'album'.

[Hartley118]

Often enough an album of 78s of a symphony or similar will also contain a pamphlet of 'sleeve notes' about the work.

One or two 78 albums I have of 1950s Musicals even have colourful designs on the covers - forerunners I guess of LP sleeves.

Martin

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by Hartley118

Whilst lacking the joyful colour designs of LP sleeves, 78 sleeves can be quite interesting because they're often early 20th century adverts for gramophone dealers. Beginning with gramophones, accumulator charging and bicycles, these evolved to feature radios, deluxe radiograms such as the Decola, and also...... those new fangled televisions.

When I was a student, I had lots of 78 sleeves (c/w records) up on my wall. There was a shop in Birmingham which produced rather nice octagonal sleeves printed in bright blue, which when containing an HMV disk with a bright red label, looked absolutely stunning. Far more interesting than Che Guevara or a tennis player with a bare bottom anway

[ToneArm]

I've got some 78s sleeves balanced on the picture rails in my mancave. The records transferred to new card sleeves.