Life After CD

[lifeaftercd]

All you want for Christmas.

[lifeaftercd]

CHRISTMAS WITH COLONEL SANDERS

Is there anything retailers won’t try to get us in the door during the holidays? Even Fried Chicken + Christmas Carols comes as a surprise. It’s a selection of holiday tracks by RCA Records in a limited print for KFC. Nice enough picks but still, keep your greasy 3-piece meal hands off our turntable.

[lifeaftercd]

In honor of the summer solstice - for 24 hours - Sigur Ros is live-streaming a 24 hour counter-clockwise drive around Iceland, set to new music.

“In a day and age of instant gratification and everything moving so fast, we wanted to do the exact opposite. Slow tv is counter-active to the world we live in, in that it happens in real time and real slow.” - Jónsi Birgisson

[lifeaftercd]

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings cover the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider” for the 2017 Lincoln MKZ. A re-imagining of the familiar, turning a rock classic into something contemporary and soulful, yet classic. Can’t imagine a better musical selection for the comeback of another great American name.

[lifeaftercd]

CUSTOM REGA TURNTABLE

A skeletal, acrylic Rega turntable built as a one-off prototype. There’s a lot that can be done to goose Rega turntables or, with Rega parts. A lot of manufacturers do the latter - especially with the tonearms - although this one-of-a-kind is a work of the Rega hobby community.

Featured is the Rega RB250 tonearm and Rega’s Carbon MM cartridge. You can also see a SRM/TECH 10mm acrylic platter, Tangospinner ASTOR subplatter, and Premotec AC synchronous motor.

(Photo Credit: eBay)

[lifeaftercd]

THE BRAIN AND ITS DEDICATED MUSIC CHANNEL

“Researchers at MIT recently discovered a "music channel" in the human brain. These neural pathways respond to all kinds of music—and only to music, Natalie Angier wrote in the New York Times.

It may be Bach, bluegrass, hip-hop, big band, sitar or Julie Andrews. A listener may relish the sampled genre or revile it.

"No matter. When a musical passage is played, a distinct set of neurons tucked inside a furrow of a listener's auditory cortex will fire in response." - Stereophile magazine. 

(Photo Credit: Marcos Chin)

[lifeaftercd]

Jimmy Fallon and Paul Rudd do a shot-for-shot remake of the classic 1981 video for Styx's "Too Much Time On My Hands" for The Tonight Show.

[lifeaftercd]

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, LETTER IN A RECORD STORE FIND

Dear Collector --

Just in case you want to know where this record is coming from: =

I am Mark’s mother -- Mark left us in 2002 -- he suffered a heart attack at age 39 while running in the Oregon coastal mountains - the only consolation we have is that he died in a beautiful place doing what he loved most, running, music, and of course his son, Kai (Mark was an ocean surfer) -- Mark collected this music in the 80th while attending college -- I would ask him on occasion when he slepped all this music home (2000 cd + over 600 vinyl LPs)! “What do you want me to do with all this music” if something should happen to you ---- “Listen to it, Mom” he would say ---- well, I did listen to a few but now it is time to share them -- I am doing the best I can -- doing research, listing, shipping, etc. -- but it is good therapy for me to see this music being shared all over the world - and the $$ from ti will go towards Kai’s education ---- thank you for our support - and when you play it ---- play it loud for aMark!

Cheers, Sabine

(Photo Credit: Imgur)

[lifeaftercd]

YOUR MUSICAL TASTE DEPENDS ON HOW EMPATHETIC YOU ARE

As reported by their recent study published in the journal PLOS ONE, those who are better at understanding the feelings of others prefer romantic, relaxing music like soft rock and some R&B...

Whereas those who focus on the minute details of things tend to listen to more technically complex music, such as traditional jazz.

If you're curious as to which side of the cognitive fence you fall on, don't fret: head along to Musical Universe, an online quiz developed by the researchers, to find out.

[lifeaftercd]

A reporter asked John Lennon about all the kids copying them by wearing Beatles wigs.

"They're not copying us. We don't wear Beatles wigs."

[lifeaftercd]

MCINTOSH MUSIC

Not Spotify or Tidal, just a stream of AAC or 320 kbps mp3 tunes, replete with the deliciously retro McIntosh look. Working meters in blue and all of it. Tune in.

[lifeaftercd]

DEEP TRACKS FROM PAUL MCCARTNEY Freebies Until It Hurts

For the price of your e-mail address, Sir Paul McCartney’s giving away five deep tracks (and a bunch of GIFs). Including:

Wings ‘Letting Go [Extended Version]’ – MP3

Wings ‘Love My Baby’ [From ‘One Hand Clapping’] – MP3

Wings ‘Rock Show [New Version]’ – MP3

Paul McCartney ‘Take It Away [Single Edit] (2015 Remaster)

‘Say Say Say [2015 Remix] – Instrumental’

[lifeaftercd]

THE WALK OF LIFE PROJECT

HYPOTHESIS: "Walk of Life” by Dire Straits is the Perfect Song to end any movie. Jurassic Park, Dark Knight Rises, The Graduate...

[lifeaftercd]

Have It Your Way, at Burger King

[lifeaftercd]

MEANWHILE IN JAPAN: BEATS BY DRE PILL+

Rhythm and moves by Japanese schoolchildren, the 90-second version. Soundtrack by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.

[lifeaftercd]

Nat King Cole sings "Stardust" to images from the Hubble Telecope & NASA. This version of Stardust, at one time the world’s most recorded song, comes from 1957′s “Love is the Thing,” Nat’s breakthrough album. 

[lifeaftercd]

THE NEW VOLVO S90

And its 19 speaker Bowers & Wilkins sound system. 7 Nautilus tweeters, 7 midrange Kevlar drivers, 4 woofers, and 1 subwoofer mounted directly mounted into the subframe of the car, to cancel out some of the negative effects of motion and vibration -- a bit like noise-canceling headphones.

For under $3000, 19 is a lot more drivers than you would get in a conventional B&W home speaker. And a lot less than buying a Maserati, which also sports the Bowers & Wilkins audio tag. High end car audio used to confuse us, until we realized that for the audiophile who doesn’t get to listen at home anymore, it’s really the next best thing.